Prisms of Work: Labour, Recruitment and Command in German East Africa

Michael Rösser

Open Access Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2024

Prisms of Work

Labour, Recruitment and Command in German East Africa

Michael Rösser

Volume 21 in the series Work in Global and Historical Perspective

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111218090

Overview
Contents

About this book

Open Access

The phenomenon of labour takes the character of a prism. Labour is thereby always context dependent and constituted through the actions of all protagonists involved in any labour relationship. On the basis of three case studies in colonial German East Africa – the construction of the Central Railway (1905–1916), the Otto Plantation in Kilossa (1907–1916) and the palaeontological Tendaguru Expedition (1909–1911) – labour and labour relations are analysed. The focus lies on hitherto neglected actors and groups of actors of labour in the colonial context of East Africa. These were especially German companies and their staff, white subaltern railway sub-contractors and labour recruiters, Indian skilled workers and (qualified) East African workers. Furthermore, all three sites of labour proved to have their individual logics and characteristics. But all of them were in tension between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’, coercion and voluntariness, machine and manual labour, skilled and unskilled labour, reproductive and wage labour, as well as between black and white.

Michael Rösser’s dissertation has been awarded with ‘honorary distinction’ by the European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH).

Author / Editor information

Michael Rösser, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Germany.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	XV
1 Towards a Global History of Labour Open Access Download PDF	1
2 Global Labour History in the Indian Ocean Open Access Download PDF	44
3 The Central Railway Open Access Download PDF	65
4 “The Machine” Defeats an Engine: The Otto Plantation in Kilossa Open Access Download PDF	206
5 Bones of Contention? The Tendaguru Expedition Open Access Download PDF	280
6 Conclusion and Outlook Open Access Download PDF	346
List of Works Cited Open Access Download PDF	363
Index Open Access Download PDF	399

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Audience: Scholars of labour history, global history, social history, and African Studies
Pages
- Front matter: 15
- Main content: 406
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 9
Keywords: Global history; labour; East Africa; Colonialism; Infrastructure

eBook

Published: December 18, 2023
ISBN: 9783111218090

Hardcover

Published: December 18, 2023
ISBN: 9783111204628