WORCK Conference 2 / ELHN Conference 4: Historicising the Concept of Europe in Global History
30 August–3 September 2021: Vienna, Austria
Local Host: University of Vienna (Austria)
Conference venue: Campus of the University of Vienna, Spitalgasse 2 / Alser Straße 4, A-1090 Vienna
Contact Persons: Juliane Schiel, Teresa Petrik, Laura Šukarov-Eischer
About the Conference
The conference is a joint event of the COST Action “Worlds of Related Coercions in Work” (WORCK) and the “European Labour History Network” (ELHN).
Thanks to this cooperation, the conference offers a rich five-day programme of plenary events and parallel sessions, organised either by the ELHN or the WORCK network.
The first three days (30 August to 1 September 2021) are dedicated to the activities and individual projects of the working groups of both networks, framed by a joint opening event, a keynote lecture and a roundtable discussion organised by the ELHN, as well as an exhibition on labour and coercion, and a film screening and roundtable discussion organised by the WORCK network.
The last one and a half days (2 to 3 September 2021) are devoted to a specific topic of the WORCK network: Under the title “Historicising the Concept of Europe in Global History”, the WORCK network invites for a conceptual discussion on the place of Europe in global labour history. Over the last three decades, global history has fostered a number of key contributions to the ongoing rethinking of the temporal and spatial constructs foundational to historical writing. These debates have led to a widening of horizons and have opened up new research agendas, in labour history as well as in social history in general. Today, it is no longer feasible to write the history of the world as a history of European expansion. And the history of work can no longer be framed as the history of supposedly Western models and their contribution to modernity. Yet, global history has only rarely confronted the highly unstable historical construct called “Europe”. Therefore, these last one and a half conference days are dedicated to the need to historicise Europe as a conceptual frame in global history and will discuss social inequalities in Europe – both in the past and the present. The respective discussions will be led by invited experts on the basis of a joint reader.
Online and On-Site Participation
The conference is carried out as a hybrid event.
On-site participants meet at the venue in the city centre of Vienna. All lecture halls and seminar rooms for the plenary and parallel sessions are situated at the university campus.
Online participants connect to the conference via Zoom. Several virtual tools (i.e. virtual tea kitchen, brainstorming board etc.) will help online participants to connect and exchange across and between the sessions.
The conference is composed of
- plenary sessions (highlighted in green) taking place in the lecture hall C2 of the conference venue in a professional hybrid setting,
- parallel paper sessions, working group meetings and writers’ workshops (highlighted in red) take place in one of the other lecture halls or seminar rooms of the university campus. Most conference rooms are technically equipped for hybrid settings, while some remaining sessions will take place entirely via Zoom,
- an on-site exhibition at the venue.
While most of the panels will take place in hybrid modus, onsite participants are nonetheless required to bring their own computer and headset to the conference venue. All registered conference participants will receive a password-protected link to the conference website with all access details via email shortly before the start of the event. In addition, on-site participants will also receive a printed conference programme together with their conference materials.
Bring your Computer
While most of the panels will take place in a hybrid setting, all on-site participants are nonetheless asked to bring along their own computer and headset to the venue!
Programme and Abstracts
The full conference programme and the paper abstracts can be downloaded here:
WORCK Conference Reader_Historicising Europe in Global History [PDF]
Travelling to Vienna
For travel restrictions and entry requirements related to the current pandemic, please consult the respective competent authorities. Due the continuing dynamic pandemic situation all on-site participants are asked to keep track of the changing regulations and make their travel arrangements accordingly. You can find information about the current regulations here: https://www.austria.info/en/service-and-facts/coronavirus-information/entry-regulations
All on-site participants are kindly asked to book their tickets accommodation themselves. A list of hotels close to the conference site can be found here.
Coffee and tea, soft drinks, fruits and biscuits will be provided during the entire conference. Several cafés and restaurants close to the conference venue for lunch break and dinner are listed here.
Covid-19 Information
On-site participants need to respect the covid-related rules (the “3G” rule) to enter university and other public buildings as well as restaurants and cafés. The 3G rule (short for German “geimpft, getestet, genesen – vaccinated, tested, recovered”) is used to define low-risk groups in epidemiological terms. The Green Pass confirms that you are either
- tested (PCR tests are valid for 48 hours; antigen tests carried out by an authorized body are valid for 24 hours; antigen self tests are no longer valid as entrance tests in Vienna!)
- fully vaccinated (for a total of 270 days = nine months from the day you received your second dose), or
- have recovered from covid-19 (max. six months from the end of the infection).
In addition, you are asked to carry a mask. We will provide you with two FFP2 masks to be found in your welcome folder. Disinfectant will be available on site.
The city of Vienna offers a large variety of different testing sites, where you can tested for free (Antigen tests). Moreover, there is the possibility to get free PCR-tests. Please consult this guide for detailled information on how to access free PCR tests in Vienna. For entering Bars or Clubs at night, only PCR-Tests (and not Antigen tests) are valid.
Contact
For further questions concerning the WORCK Conference 2 / ELHN Conference 4, please send an email to admin@worck.eu.
This conference is held with the friendly support of
- COST
- Arbeiterkammer Wien
- Rectorat of the University of Vienna
- Deanary of the University of Vienna
- Research Group “Figurations of Inequality” of the University of Vienna
- Forschungsschwerpunkt Globalgeschichte” of the University of Vienna
- Department of Economic and Social History of the University of Vienna


