International Conference: Gender and Race in Latin American Labor History

Hosted by Center for Latin American Studies & Global Studies Center

University of Pittsburgh

Gender and Race in Latin American Labor History

November 21, 2024

 

Registration

To register for the conference please access the link below:

https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9mZhxQ6AfrrYFHU

 

Location:

Center for Urban Education

4303 Wesley W. Posvar Hall, 4th Floor
230 South Bouquet Street - Pittsburgh, PA


Description

Over the past decade, scholarship on labor history in modern and contemporary Latin America has expanded and diversified. This burgeoning field is increasingly incorporating essential debates about gender and race within the various worlds of labor. Given the region's long history of slavery, any discussion about labor relations until at least the end of the 19th century must necessarily include the experiences and struggles of both enslaved and freed workers. Furthermore, analyzing the lives of their descendants requires a deep understanding of the racial hierarchies established in Latin America since then. At the same time, it is impossible to explore labor, and class struggles without addressing topics such as domestic service, maternity, and the demands for equal spaces and rights by women, trans, and non-binary individuals. These aspects are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the labor landscape in Latin America.

"Gender and Race in Latin American Labor History," a one-day in-person conference hosted by the Center for Latin American Studies and the Center for Global Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, aims to convene a group of Latin American labor historians specializing in different countries and periods. The conference will focus on how the categories of gender and race impact recent scholarship on labor history and explore whether and how these two categories intersect in meaningful ways within their research.

Program

 

10:00 AM

Welcome and Opening Remarks

Keila Grinberg (Center for Latin American Studies, University of Pittsburgh) and Lara Putnam (Global Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh)

 

10:15 am - 12:15 pm    

Session 1

Amas de leche: Intimate Labor, Carework and Freedom in the Early Modern Iberian Empire
Michelle A. McKinley (University of Oregon)

“They Belonged to Her: Black women who Owned Slaves in 18th century Argentina”
Erika Edwards (University of Texas at El Paso)

“And I am not a mother?”: gender and labor in narratives about the abolition of slavery in 19th century Brazil
Aline Najara Goncalves (University of Pittsburgh)

Discussant: Keila Grinberg (University of Pittsburgh)

 

Lunch break

 

1:30 pm - 3:30 pm 

Session 2  

Modern jobs, modern family: race, gender, and citizenship in Mexico’s welfare state (1920s-1940s)
Sara Hidalgo (Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economica - CIDE, Mexico) 

"Work in Service to the Revolution: Domestic Workers and Soldiers in 20th-Century Cuba" 
Anasa Hicks (Florida State University)

Centering Care in Latin American Labor History: Gender and Indigeneity in the Writings of Concha Michel 
Jocelyn Olcott (Duke University)

Discussant: Lara Putnam (University of Pittsburgh)

 

3:45 pm - 6:15 pm

Session 3

Living under the same roof: disputes over gendered definitions of work in a slave society (Brazil, 19th century)
Fabiane Popinigis (Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)   

Gender, race, class and sexuality in anti-vagrancy coercion: post-abolition Rio de Janeiro
Paulo Terra (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)  

Girls under contract: the work of entertaining men in South America´s Atlantic vaudeville circuits)
Cristiana Schettini (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas – CONICET, Argentina)  

Class and Race in Brazil: Black labor leaders and “racial democracy” (1940s-1960s)
Paulo Fontes (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Discussant: Sueann Caulfield (University of Michigan)

 

Bios of our Participants

Aline Najara Gonçalves
Cristiana Schettini
Erika Denise Edwards
Fabiane Popinigis
Jocelyn Olcott
Keila Grinberg
Michelle McKinley
Paulo Cruz Terra
Paulo Fontes
Sara Hidalgo