Reflections on Writing Comparative and Transnational Labour History

Abstract

Calls to reposition both Australian and New Zealand history in a broader regional and global context are not new, but have intensified in more recent times. The turn toward transnational narratives in the contemporary academy is a valuable complement to comparative analysis, and both are important in thinking beyond traditional notions of bounded local space. Two areas in which transnational methodology has been particularly to the fore are the ‘new’ imperial history and American history that looks beyond the conventional paradigm of national exceptionalism. The networks of mobility and exchange sketched out by scholars working in these fields offer some useful insights for the transnational labour history project which is still at an early phase of development. This paper highlights the possibilities and potential problems attending the writing of transnational and comparative labour history, and in so doing offers some reflections on the broader question of knowledge production.

Australian Multiculturalism: Revisiting Australia’s Political Heritage and the Migrant Presence

“…7 The recent interest in transnational histories has situated Australia in the global context, focussing predominantly on the points at which class, gender and whiteness intersect. 8 Australia's position in the British Empire, and in Anglophone settler societies more generally, has been of primary interest to historians eager to capture the public interest. This has resulted in a greatly enriched understanding of the processes that influenced the formation of the nation's civic and cultural landscape.…”

Introduction

“…In recent years, the conspicuous advance of globalization has inspired many historians to rethink the past in cross-national and comparative terms. 1 Frustration with the limits of traditional, national approaches to history has spawned interesting comparative work in such fields as women's history, 2 labor history, 3 economic history, 4 and imperial history. 5 Although legal history tends to be somewhat parochial by tradition, it, too, has taken a cross-national and comparative turn.…”