Rydén, Göran
Making iron, producing space! How coerced work defined a Swedish early modern ironmaking region Journal Article
In: Labor History, vol. 64, iss. 6, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {Making iron, producing space! How coerced work defined a Swedish early modern ironmaking region},
author = {Göran Rydén},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-01},
urldate = {2023-10-01},
issuetitle = {Exploring labor coercion through im/mobility and the environment (18th-20th centuries)},
journal = {Labor History},
volume = {64},
issue = {6},
abstract = {Swedish ironmaking took place in mines, forests and rationally structured ironmaking communities (bruk), merging different forms of labour and coercion, wage labour, household labour and corvée labour often in the form of transport duties, as well as leases paid in kind. The aim is to analyse this diverse structure from an angle of motion, movement and mobility, and see how subordinated ironmaking artisanal and peasant households set the limits for the regions in which they were living while undertaking that work. It is essential to link this work to the owners’ ambition to control production, the workers and the tasks they were set to do. It meant to supervise production at the workshops, but more importantly, it meant to monitor the movement of raw material, grain and commodities, between these sites and markets outside the region. I use an extensive accounting material from one region to unravel patterns of work, and the owners’ ambitions to keep track of subordinated artisans and peasants. These patterns of work and supervision were, together with legal structures, a crucial element in the making of the spatial structuring of Swedish ironmaking.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Østhus, Hanne
The Case of Adam Jacobsen. Enslavement in 18th-Century Norway Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 635-655, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {The Case of Adam Jacobsen. Enslavement in 18th-Century Norway},
author = {Hanne Østhus},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-11},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {635-655},
abstract = {The article explores the life of Adam Jacobsen, an enslaved man who was trafficked from the Danish West Indies to the small town of Arendal in southern Norway sometime around 1780. By using the micro-spatial perspective the article aims to investigate how Jacobsen and others who were trafficked from America, Africa and Asia to Europe were understood within the broader processes of marketization and racialization that occurred with the development of the Atlantic slave trade. The article examines how these processes were given a localized expression through investigations of different ‘sites’: the geographical places of St. Croix and, primarily, Arendal, and the institutional sites of the household and the interrogation room. In St. Croix, Jacobsen lived in a society constructed around plantation slavery. In Arendal, he was a working member of his owner’s household residing with local servants and a local family, but he was also singled out and often racialized. Jacobsen’s life story, then, demonstrates how colonial slavery extended into Europe in a way that not only concerned capital and goods but also trafficking of people.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Valentin, Emilie Luther
How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 679-698, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789},
author = {Emilie Luther Valentin},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-04},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {679-698},
abstract = {Between 1769 and 1789, the warden of the prison workhouse at Christianshavn wrote around 300 statements to accompany petitions made for inmates’ release. Drawing on the theories of Arlie Russell Hochschild, this article argues that the statements detail the feeling rules of the prison workhouse and provide evidence that the inmates ‘worked the system’ by performing emotional labour in accordance with said feeling rules. Thus, the article uncovers and connects practices and tactics of coercion and autonomy in the prison workhouse, examining how inmates navigated the authorities’ expectations as a tactic of escape from imprisonment and labour coercion.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 656-678 , 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-06-18},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {656-678 },
abstract = {This article examines early modern convicts’ experiences of extramural penal labour institutions – known in their time as slaveries. It centres on Denmark’s main slaveries in Copenhagen and analyses data collected from the books keeping track of the inmates. On this basis, the article examines their experiences at connected moments: before entry, at entry, in the extraction of labour, and at exit. The article describes how these moments linked together to form patterns. Crucially, experiences during and at the termination of stays in these prisons were often predicated on former experiences in the labour market, how punitive labour was linked to forms of corporal violence, and the question of honour.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Heinsen, Johan; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm; Østhus, Hanne
Labour and Coercion in the Nordic Region in the Early Modern Period: Connections, Ambiguities, Practices Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 551-571, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {Labour and Coercion in the Nordic Region in the Early Modern Period: Connections, Ambiguities, Practices},
author = {Johan Heinsen and Vilhelm Vilhelmsson and Hanne Østhus},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-06-07},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {551-571},
abstract = {This introduction discusses the constitutive role played by various practices of coercion within a range of labour relations across the Nordic region in the early modern period. In recent years a growing body of international literature has worked to re-conceptualize histories of labour coercion. Current trends in global labour history have emphasized the interrelational nature of labour regimes, eschewing traditional boundaries of free and unfree labour, productive and unproductive labour, wage labour and unpaid labour, and focused rather on the entangled history of labour and coercion in its various guises. Based on a critical discussion of the teleological frameworks and essentialized analytical categories that have largely characterized the historiography of labour in many of the Nordic countries, we argue for shifting the focus of attention to study the actual practices of labour and coercion in order to establish a more inclusive, contextual and historicized historiography of Nordic labour.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Uppenberg, Carolina
Contracted Coercion: Land, Labour and Gender in the Swedish Crofter Institution Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {Contracted Coercion: Land, Labour and Gender in the Swedish Crofter Institution},
author = {Carolina Uppenberg},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-04-30},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
abstract = {In the early modern rural setting, labour was organized with varying degrees of coercion depending on landowning, social standing, and gender. This article analyses the crofter institution, characterized by corvée labour (obligatory work as payment), from the perspective of gender and coercion. The purpose is to answer the question of how the crofter institution was created, shaped, enabled and questioned. The right to establish a croft made the position as head of household available for men but it also increased social stratification. While crofters were masters of their households in contract signing, their position was ambiguous when it came to the organization of labour. Regarding physical integrity, crofters could be forced by physical violence and were subject to rules not connected to work, such as subservience. I argue that this was made acceptable through marriage and allowing the position as head of household to landless men. Crofters held an intermediate position, caught between the market logic of leasehold of land and the coercive logic of labour extraction, and this continued to colour the crofter institution until its final dissolution in 1943.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm
Contested Households: Lodgers, Labour, and the Law in Rural Iceland in the Early 19th Century Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 572-592, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {Contested Households: Lodgers, Labour, and the Law in Rural Iceland in the Early 19th Century},
author = {Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-04-05},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {572-592},
abstract = {The historiography of labour in pre-industrial Iceland has commonly portrayed it first and foremost as life-cycle service in rural households and has suggested that, in a European context, the Icelandic system of compulsory service – or vistarband – was exceptionally harsh due to its broad scope and inflexibility. This approach has been built primarily on demographics and a normative analysis of legal sources. Less attention has been paid to the everyday practices of workers and their employers (or the state) as they manoeuvred within and around the labour legislation to establish working relationships to make ends meet. Similarly, ambiguities within the legislation and discrepancies between law and practice have rarely been explored, nor has people’s understanding of the principal concepts of the labour laws, concepts such as ‘household’, ‘farm’ and ‘servant’, been scrutinized. This article invokes such questions and provides a microhistorical analysis of two court cases which illustrate the nuances and ambiguities of putting such a broad-reaching set of regulations into practice in a pre-industrial rural setting.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System Book Chapter
In: Bernardi, Claudia; Müller, Viola; Stojić, Biljana; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm (Ed.): Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities, 2023.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {Claudia Bernardi and Viola Müller and Biljana Stojić and Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-01-01},
urldate = {2023-01-01},
booktitle = {Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm; Gunnlaugsson, Emil
Passports, Permits, and Labour Im/Mobility in Iceland, 1780s‒1860s Book Chapter
In: Bernardi, Claudia; Müller, Viola; Stojić, Biljana; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm (Ed.): Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities, 2023.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Passports, Permits, and Labour Im/Mobility in Iceland, 1780s‒1860s},
author = {Vilhelm Vilhelmsson and Emil Gunnlaugsson},
editor = {Claudia Bernardi and Viola Müller and Biljana Stojić and Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-01-01},
booktitle = {Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
Østhus, Hanne; Toplak, Matthias S. (Ed.)
Viking Age Slavery Collection
2021.
@collection{nokey,
title = {Viking Age Slavery},
editor = {Hanne Østhus and Matthias S. Toplak},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
urldate = {2021-01-01},
abstract = {The existence of slaves in Viking Age society and the slave trade of the Vikings has been a matter of long debates. While the actual fact has now been established beyond any doubt, many questions remain. The possibilities of an archaeological approach to slavery and slave trade, the extent of slaves in Scandinavia and their importance for the economy as well as the scope of the slave trade and the implications for Viking Age society still need to be discussed. These aspects are the topic of ten recent papers united in this volume.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {collection}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia Journal Article
In: Journal of Global Slavery, vol. 6, iss. 3, pp. 343–368, 2021.
@article{nokey,
title = {Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Global Slavery},
volume = {6},
issue = {3},
pages = {343–368},
abstract = {In Scandinavia, a penal institution known as “slavery” existed from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Penal slaves laboured in the creation and maintenance of military infrastructure. They were chained and often stigmatized, sometimes by branding. Their punishment was likened and, on a few occasions, linked to Atlantic slavery. Still, in reality, it was a wholly distinct form of enslavement that produced different experiences of coercion than those of the Atlantic. Such forms of penal slavery sit uneasily in historiographies of punishment but also offers a challenge for the dominant models of global labour history and its attempts to create comparative frameworks for coerced labour. This article argues for the need for contextual approaches to what such coercion meant to both coercers and coerced. Therefore, it offers an analysis of the meaning of early modern penal slavery based on an exceptional set of sources from 1723. In these sources, the status of the punished was negotiated and practiced by guards and slaves themselves. Court appearances by slaves were usually brief—typically revolving around escapes as authorities attempted to identify security breaches. The documents explored in this article are different: They present multiple voices speaking at length, negotiating their very status as voices. From that negotiation and its failures emerge a set of practiced meanings of penal “slavery” in eighteenth-century Copenhagen tied to competing yet intertwined notions of dishonour.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Seppel, Marten
The Semiotics of Serfdom: How serfdom was perceived in the Swedish conglomerate state, 1561–1806 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 45, iss. 1, pp. 48-70, 2020.
@article{nokey,
title = {The Semiotics of Serfdom: How serfdom was perceived in the Swedish conglomerate state, 1561–1806},
author = {Marten Seppel},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
urldate = {2020-01-01},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {45},
issue = {1},
pages = {48-70},
abstract = {While serfdom did not exist in Sweden and Finland, it was accepted in the Baltic and German provinces. The main aim of the paper is to explore how the institution of serfdom was understood and interpreted in Stockholm. It will argue that there were clichés, stereotypes, and prejudices that have shaped the discourse on serfdom.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Rydén, Göran; Evans, Chris
Stocktaking at Christiansborg: Metals and Slaves in the Danish Atlantic Trade at the Mid-Eighteenth Century Book Chapter
In: Weiss, Holger (Ed.): Locating the Global. Spaces, Networks and Interactions from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, pp. 117-146, 2020.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Stocktaking at Christiansborg: Metals and Slaves in the Danish Atlantic Trade at the Mid-Eighteenth Century},
author = {Göran Rydén and Chris Evans},
editor = {Holger Weiss},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
booktitle = {Locating the Global. Spaces, Networks and Interactions from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century},
pages = {117-146},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687 Book Chapter
In: Rediker, Marcus; Chakrabort, Titas; van Rossum, Matthias (Ed.): A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism, pp. 40.57, 2019.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {Marcus Rediker and Titas Chakrabort and Matthias van Rossum},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
urldate = {2019-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism},
pages = {40.57},
abstract = {An examination of the ways in which convicts in the Danish colony of St. Thomas challenged colonial order and exploitation through practices of escape. Through a close study of a particular group of convict runaways, the article unearths the minutiae of antagonisms in a system of coerced displacement and punishment.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
Heinsen, Johan
The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Book Chapter
In: C, lare Anderson (Ed.): A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies, pp. 97-122, 2018.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {C,lare Anderson},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies},
pages = {97-122},
abstract = {This article provides an overview of the uses of convicts as labourers in the Scandinavian overseas empires of the early modern period.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire Book
2017.
@book{nokey,
title = {Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
abstract = {A study of the conflict and resistance across the early modern Danish Atlantic world, explored through the lens of a singular event: The mutiny on the ship Havmanden which in early 1683 was taken over by a coalition of convicts and sailors in an act that was one part escape and one part piracy. The book pays special attention to the acts of storytelling and traditions of resistance that preceded and influenced the mutiny and its social world.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
}
Sundevall, Fia
Military Education for Non-Military Purposes: Economic and Social Governing Projects Targeting Conscripts in Early Twentieth-Century Sweden Journal Article
In: History of Education Review, vol. 46, iss. 1, pp. 58-71, 2017.
@article{nokey,
title = {Military Education for Non-Military Purposes: Economic and Social Governing Projects Targeting Conscripts in Early Twentieth-Century Sweden},
author = {Fia Sundevall},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
journal = {History of Education Review},
volume = {46},
issue = {1},
pages = {58-71},
abstract = {The article explores mandatory military service – a means to recruit and train male citizens for military labour through force – as a tool and arena for solving various social and economic problems such as mass unemployment, alcohol abuse, and elementary education deficiencies, as well as shortages of skilled personnel in particular branches of great importance for the nation’s economy.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm
Ett normalt undantag? Tillfälligt arbete i lag och praktik i 1800-talets Island Journal Article
In: Arbetarhistoria , vol. 41, iss. 3-4, pp. 32-40, 2017.
@article{nokey,
title = {Ett normalt undantag? Tillfälligt arbete i lag och praktik i 1800-talets Island},
author = {Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
journal = {Arbetarhistoria },
volume = {41},
issue = {3-4},
pages = {32-40},
abstract = {This article discusses the ambiguous status and role of casual day labourers in nineteenth century Iceland and argues that masterless casual day labour was a “normal exception” in many localities, accepted as an economic necessity and cultural norm despite being illegal and frowned upon in public discourse. The article highlights the important distinction between normative prescription and everyday practice.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Sundevall, Fia (Ed.)
Fritt och ofritt arbete i Norden: nya perspektiv på Arbetarhistoria Collection
2016.
@collection{nokey,
title = {Fritt och ofritt arbete i Norden: nya perspektiv på Arbetarhistoria},
editor = {Fia Sundevall},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-01-01},
journal = {Arbetarhistoria},
volume = {3-4},
abstract = {This special issue of the Swedish language journal “Arbetarhistoria” [Labour history] provides new perspectives on labour history in the Nordic Countries. It consists of four empirical articles exploring various fields and degrees of labour coercion in Denmark, Iceland and Norway between 1600 and 1900.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {collection}
}
2023
Rydén, Göran
Making iron, producing space! How coerced work defined a Swedish early modern ironmaking region Journal Article
In: Labor History, vol. 64, iss. 6, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: early modern history, household, migration and mobility, mining, scandinavia, sweden
@article{nokey,
title = {Making iron, producing space! How coerced work defined a Swedish early modern ironmaking region},
author = {Göran Rydén},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-01},
urldate = {2023-10-01},
issuetitle = {Exploring labor coercion through im/mobility and the environment (18th-20th centuries)},
journal = {Labor History},
volume = {64},
issue = {6},
abstract = {Swedish ironmaking took place in mines, forests and rationally structured ironmaking communities (bruk), merging different forms of labour and coercion, wage labour, household labour and corvée labour often in the form of transport duties, as well as leases paid in kind. The aim is to analyse this diverse structure from an angle of motion, movement and mobility, and see how subordinated ironmaking artisanal and peasant households set the limits for the regions in which they were living while undertaking that work. It is essential to link this work to the owners’ ambition to control production, the workers and the tasks they were set to do. It meant to supervise production at the workshops, but more importantly, it meant to monitor the movement of raw material, grain and commodities, between these sites and markets outside the region. I use an extensive accounting material from one region to unravel patterns of work, and the owners’ ambitions to keep track of subordinated artisans and peasants. These patterns of work and supervision were, together with legal structures, a crucial element in the making of the spatial structuring of Swedish ironmaking.},
keywords = {early modern history, household, migration and mobility, mining, scandinavia, sweden},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Østhus, Hanne
The Case of Adam Jacobsen. Enslavement in 18th-Century Norway Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 635-655, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: early modern history, norway, scandinavia, slavery
@article{nokey,
title = {The Case of Adam Jacobsen. Enslavement in 18th-Century Norway},
author = {Hanne Østhus},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-11},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {635-655},
abstract = {The article explores the life of Adam Jacobsen, an enslaved man who was trafficked from the Danish West Indies to the small town of Arendal in southern Norway sometime around 1780. By using the micro-spatial perspective the article aims to investigate how Jacobsen and others who were trafficked from America, Africa and Asia to Europe were understood within the broader processes of marketization and racialization that occurred with the development of the Atlantic slave trade. The article examines how these processes were given a localized expression through investigations of different ‘sites’: the geographical places of St. Croix and, primarily, Arendal, and the institutional sites of the household and the interrogation room. In St. Croix, Jacobsen lived in a society constructed around plantation slavery. In Arendal, he was a working member of his owner’s household residing with local servants and a local family, but he was also singled out and often racialized. Jacobsen’s life story, then, demonstrates how colonial slavery extended into Europe in a way that not only concerned capital and goods but also trafficking of people.},
keywords = {early modern history, norway, scandinavia, slavery},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Valentin, Emilie Luther
How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 679-698, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, denmar, early modern history, emotional labour, europe, punishment, scandinavia
@article{nokey,
title = {How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789},
author = {Emilie Luther Valentin},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-04},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {679-698},
abstract = {Between 1769 and 1789, the warden of the prison workhouse at Christianshavn wrote around 300 statements to accompany petitions made for inmates’ release. Drawing on the theories of Arlie Russell Hochschild, this article argues that the statements detail the feeling rules of the prison workhouse and provide evidence that the inmates ‘worked the system’ by performing emotional labour in accordance with said feeling rules. Thus, the article uncovers and connects practices and tactics of coercion and autonomy in the prison workhouse, examining how inmates navigated the authorities’ expectations as a tactic of escape from imprisonment and labour coercion.},
keywords = {convict labour, denmar, early modern history, emotional labour, europe, punishment, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 656-678 , 2023.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, punishment, scandinavia
@article{nokey,
title = {Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-06-18},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {656-678 },
abstract = {This article examines early modern convicts’ experiences of extramural penal labour institutions – known in their time as slaveries. It centres on Denmark’s main slaveries in Copenhagen and analyses data collected from the books keeping track of the inmates. On this basis, the article examines their experiences at connected moments: before entry, at entry, in the extraction of labour, and at exit. The article describes how these moments linked together to form patterns. Crucially, experiences during and at the termination of stays in these prisons were often predicated on former experiences in the labour market, how punitive labour was linked to forms of corporal violence, and the question of honour.},
keywords = {convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, punishment, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Heinsen, Johan; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm; Østhus, Hanne
Labour and Coercion in the Nordic Region in the Early Modern Period: Connections, Ambiguities, Practices Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 551-571, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: early modern history, europe, scandinavia
@article{nokey,
title = {Labour and Coercion in the Nordic Region in the Early Modern Period: Connections, Ambiguities, Practices},
author = {Johan Heinsen and Vilhelm Vilhelmsson and Hanne Østhus},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-06-07},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {551-571},
abstract = {This introduction discusses the constitutive role played by various practices of coercion within a range of labour relations across the Nordic region in the early modern period. In recent years a growing body of international literature has worked to re-conceptualize histories of labour coercion. Current trends in global labour history have emphasized the interrelational nature of labour regimes, eschewing traditional boundaries of free and unfree labour, productive and unproductive labour, wage labour and unpaid labour, and focused rather on the entangled history of labour and coercion in its various guises. Based on a critical discussion of the teleological frameworks and essentialized analytical categories that have largely characterized the historiography of labour in many of the Nordic countries, we argue for shifting the focus of attention to study the actual practices of labour and coercion in order to establish a more inclusive, contextual and historicized historiography of Nordic labour.},
keywords = {early modern history, europe, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Uppenberg, Carolina
Contracted Coercion: Land, Labour and Gender in the Swedish Crofter Institution Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: 19th century, 20th century, agrarian labour and rural history, early modern history, europe, gender, household, scandinavia, service, sweden
@article{nokey,
title = {Contracted Coercion: Land, Labour and Gender in the Swedish Crofter Institution},
author = {Carolina Uppenberg},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-04-30},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
abstract = {In the early modern rural setting, labour was organized with varying degrees of coercion depending on landowning, social standing, and gender. This article analyses the crofter institution, characterized by corvée labour (obligatory work as payment), from the perspective of gender and coercion. The purpose is to answer the question of how the crofter institution was created, shaped, enabled and questioned. The right to establish a croft made the position as head of household available for men but it also increased social stratification. While crofters were masters of their households in contract signing, their position was ambiguous when it came to the organization of labour. Regarding physical integrity, crofters could be forced by physical violence and were subject to rules not connected to work, such as subservience. I argue that this was made acceptable through marriage and allowing the position as head of household to landless men. Crofters held an intermediate position, caught between the market logic of leasehold of land and the coercive logic of labour extraction, and this continued to colour the crofter institution until its final dissolution in 1943.},
keywords = {19th century, 20th century, agrarian labour and rural history, early modern history, europe, gender, household, scandinavia, service, sweden},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm
Contested Households: Lodgers, Labour, and the Law in Rural Iceland in the Early 19th Century Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 572-592, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: 19th century, agrarian labour and rural history, europe, household, iceland, labour law, scandinavia, service
@article{nokey,
title = {Contested Households: Lodgers, Labour, and the Law in Rural Iceland in the Early 19th Century},
author = {Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-04-05},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {572-592},
abstract = {The historiography of labour in pre-industrial Iceland has commonly portrayed it first and foremost as life-cycle service in rural households and has suggested that, in a European context, the Icelandic system of compulsory service – or vistarband – was exceptionally harsh due to its broad scope and inflexibility. This approach has been built primarily on demographics and a normative analysis of legal sources. Less attention has been paid to the everyday practices of workers and their employers (or the state) as they manoeuvred within and around the labour legislation to establish working relationships to make ends meet. Similarly, ambiguities within the legislation and discrepancies between law and practice have rarely been explored, nor has people’s understanding of the principal concepts of the labour laws, concepts such as ‘household’, ‘farm’ and ‘servant’, been scrutinized. This article invokes such questions and provides a microhistorical analysis of two court cases which illustrate the nuances and ambiguities of putting such a broad-reaching set of regulations into practice in a pre-industrial rural setting.},
keywords = {19th century, agrarian labour and rural history, europe, household, iceland, labour law, scandinavia, service},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System Book Chapter
In: Bernardi, Claudia; Müller, Viola; Stojić, Biljana; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm (Ed.): Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities, 2023.
Tags: convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, migration and mobility, punishment, runaways, scandinavia
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {Claudia Bernardi and Viola Müller and Biljana Stojić and Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-01-01},
urldate = {2023-01-01},
booktitle = {Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities},
keywords = {convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, migration and mobility, punishment, runaways, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm; Gunnlaugsson, Emil
Passports, Permits, and Labour Im/Mobility in Iceland, 1780s‒1860s Book Chapter
In: Bernardi, Claudia; Müller, Viola; Stojić, Biljana; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm (Ed.): Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities, 2023.
Tags: 19th century, early modern history, europe, iceland, labour law, migration and mobility, scandinavia
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Passports, Permits, and Labour Im/Mobility in Iceland, 1780s‒1860s},
author = {Vilhelm Vilhelmsson and Emil Gunnlaugsson},
editor = {Claudia Bernardi and Viola Müller and Biljana Stojić and Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-01-01},
booktitle = {Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities},
keywords = {19th century, early modern history, europe, iceland, labour law, migration and mobility, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
2021
Østhus, Hanne; Toplak, Matthias S. (Ed.)
Viking Age Slavery Collection
2021.
Abstract | Tags: medieval history, scandinavia, slavery
@collection{nokey,
title = {Viking Age Slavery},
editor = {Hanne Østhus and Matthias S. Toplak},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
urldate = {2021-01-01},
abstract = {The existence of slaves in Viking Age society and the slave trade of the Vikings has been a matter of long debates. While the actual fact has now been established beyond any doubt, many questions remain. The possibilities of an archaeological approach to slavery and slave trade, the extent of slaves in Scandinavia and their importance for the economy as well as the scope of the slave trade and the implications for Viking Age society still need to be discussed. These aspects are the topic of ten recent papers united in this volume.
},
keywords = {medieval history, scandinavia, slavery},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {collection}
}
Heinsen, Johan
Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia Journal Article
In: Journal of Global Slavery, vol. 6, iss. 3, pp. 343–368, 2021.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, early modern history, global labour history, punishment, scandinavia, slavery
@article{nokey,
title = {Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Global Slavery},
volume = {6},
issue = {3},
pages = {343–368},
abstract = {In Scandinavia, a penal institution known as “slavery” existed from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Penal slaves laboured in the creation and maintenance of military infrastructure. They were chained and often stigmatized, sometimes by branding. Their punishment was likened and, on a few occasions, linked to Atlantic slavery. Still, in reality, it was a wholly distinct form of enslavement that produced different experiences of coercion than those of the Atlantic. Such forms of penal slavery sit uneasily in historiographies of punishment but also offers a challenge for the dominant models of global labour history and its attempts to create comparative frameworks for coerced labour. This article argues for the need for contextual approaches to what such coercion meant to both coercers and coerced. Therefore, it offers an analysis of the meaning of early modern penal slavery based on an exceptional set of sources from 1723. In these sources, the status of the punished was negotiated and practiced by guards and slaves themselves. Court appearances by slaves were usually brief—typically revolving around escapes as authorities attempted to identify security breaches. The documents explored in this article are different: They present multiple voices speaking at length, negotiating their very status as voices. From that negotiation and its failures emerge a set of practiced meanings of penal “slavery” in eighteenth-century Copenhagen tied to competing yet intertwined notions of dishonour.
},
keywords = {convict labour, early modern history, global labour history, punishment, scandinavia, slavery},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
2020
Seppel, Marten
The Semiotics of Serfdom: How serfdom was perceived in the Swedish conglomerate state, 1561–1806 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 45, iss. 1, pp. 48-70, 2020.
Abstract | Tags: early modern history, scandinavia, serfdom, sweden
@article{nokey,
title = {The Semiotics of Serfdom: How serfdom was perceived in the Swedish conglomerate state, 1561–1806},
author = {Marten Seppel},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
urldate = {2020-01-01},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {45},
issue = {1},
pages = {48-70},
abstract = {While serfdom did not exist in Sweden and Finland, it was accepted in the Baltic and German provinces. The main aim of the paper is to explore how the institution of serfdom was understood and interpreted in Stockholm. It will argue that there were clichés, stereotypes, and prejudices that have shaped the discourse on serfdom.
},
keywords = {early modern history, scandinavia, serfdom, sweden},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Rydén, Göran; Evans, Chris
Stocktaking at Christiansborg: Metals and Slaves in the Danish Atlantic Trade at the Mid-Eighteenth Century Book Chapter
In: Weiss, Holger (Ed.): Locating the Global. Spaces, Networks and Interactions from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, pp. 117-146, 2020.
Tags: atlanic, denmark, early modern history, scandinavia, slavery
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Stocktaking at Christiansborg: Metals and Slaves in the Danish Atlantic Trade at the Mid-Eighteenth Century},
author = {Göran Rydén and Chris Evans},
editor = {Holger Weiss},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-01-01},
booktitle = {Locating the Global. Spaces, Networks and Interactions from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century},
pages = {117-146},
keywords = {atlanic, denmark, early modern history, scandinavia, slavery},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
2019
Heinsen, Johan
Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687 Book Chapter
In: Rediker, Marcus; Chakrabort, Titas; van Rossum, Matthias (Ed.): A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism, pp. 40.57, 2019.
Abstract | Tags: caribbean, convict labour, denmark, early modern history, forced labour, punishment, runaways, scandinavia
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {Marcus Rediker and Titas Chakrabort and Matthias van Rossum},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
urldate = {2019-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism},
pages = {40.57},
abstract = {An examination of the ways in which convicts in the Danish colony of St. Thomas challenged colonial order and exploitation through practices of escape. Through a close study of a particular group of convict runaways, the article unearths the minutiae of antagonisms in a system of coerced displacement and punishment.
},
keywords = {caribbean, convict labour, denmark, early modern history, forced labour, punishment, runaways, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
2018
Heinsen, Johan
The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Book Chapter
In: C, lare Anderson (Ed.): A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies, pp. 97-122, 2018.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, early modern history, punishment, scandinavia
@inbook{nokey,
title = {The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {C,lare Anderson},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies},
pages = {97-122},
abstract = {This article provides an overview of the uses of convicts as labourers in the Scandinavian overseas empires of the early modern period.
},
keywords = {convict labour, early modern history, punishment, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
2017
Heinsen, Johan
Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire Book
2017.
Abstract | Tags: atlanic, convict labour, denmark, scandinavia
@book{nokey,
title = {Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
abstract = {A study of the conflict and resistance across the early modern Danish Atlantic world, explored through the lens of a singular event: The mutiny on the ship Havmanden which in early 1683 was taken over by a coalition of convicts and sailors in an act that was one part escape and one part piracy. The book pays special attention to the acts of storytelling and traditions of resistance that preceded and influenced the mutiny and its social world.
},
keywords = {atlanic, convict labour, denmark, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
}
Sundevall, Fia
Military Education for Non-Military Purposes: Economic and Social Governing Projects Targeting Conscripts in Early Twentieth-Century Sweden Journal Article
In: History of Education Review, vol. 46, iss. 1, pp. 58-71, 2017.
Abstract | Tags: 20th century, economic and social policy, education, military, scandinavia, social control, sweden
@article{nokey,
title = {Military Education for Non-Military Purposes: Economic and Social Governing Projects Targeting Conscripts in Early Twentieth-Century Sweden},
author = {Fia Sundevall},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
journal = {History of Education Review},
volume = {46},
issue = {1},
pages = {58-71},
abstract = {The article explores mandatory military service – a means to recruit and train male citizens for military labour through force – as a tool and arena for solving various social and economic problems such as mass unemployment, alcohol abuse, and elementary education deficiencies, as well as shortages of skilled personnel in particular branches of great importance for the nation’s economy.
},
keywords = {20th century, economic and social policy, education, military, scandinavia, social control, sweden},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm
Ett normalt undantag? Tillfälligt arbete i lag och praktik i 1800-talets Island Journal Article
In: Arbetarhistoria , vol. 41, iss. 3-4, pp. 32-40, 2017.
Abstract | Tags: early modern history, iceland, scandinavia, wage labour
@article{nokey,
title = {Ett normalt undantag? Tillfälligt arbete i lag och praktik i 1800-talets Island},
author = {Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
journal = {Arbetarhistoria },
volume = {41},
issue = {3-4},
pages = {32-40},
abstract = {This article discusses the ambiguous status and role of casual day labourers in nineteenth century Iceland and argues that masterless casual day labour was a “normal exception” in many localities, accepted as an economic necessity and cultural norm despite being illegal and frowned upon in public discourse. The article highlights the important distinction between normative prescription and everyday practice.},
keywords = {early modern history, iceland, scandinavia, wage labour},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
2016
Sundevall, Fia (Ed.)
Fritt och ofritt arbete i Norden: nya perspektiv på Arbetarhistoria Collection
2016.
Abstract | Tags: denmark, iceland, longue duree, norw, scandinavia
@collection{nokey,
title = {Fritt och ofritt arbete i Norden: nya perspektiv på Arbetarhistoria},
editor = {Fia Sundevall},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-01-01},
journal = {Arbetarhistoria},
volume = {3-4},
abstract = {This special issue of the Swedish language journal “Arbetarhistoria” [Labour history] provides new perspectives on labour history in the Nordic Countries. It consists of four empirical articles exploring various fields and degrees of labour coercion in Denmark, Iceland and Norway between 1600 and 1900.
},
keywords = {denmark, iceland, longue duree, norw, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {collection}
}