The Making of a Global Working Class, 1830-1970

Catalog description

What do tea, rain boots, and borders all have in common? All three were produced by migrant laborers toiling in a region ranging from South Africa to Singapore. Why did these people choose to sail thousands of miles to pick tea and tap rubber? How can we tell the histories of laborers who struggled to read, write, and live with dignity? This course studies the lived experiences of enslaved people and workers across the Indian Ocean world - particularly in South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Africa, and southern Africa - during the 19th and 20th centuries. We draw on sources ranging from folk songs to strike pamphlets to seek answers to three major questions: Why and how did the global abolition of slavery lead to the rise of "free" wage labor? How did peoples' ideas of race, gender, caste, and other identities change once they began working for wages? How did these workers respond to and participate in decolonization movements in Asia and Africa?