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Crises of Empire: Colonial Economies, Labour, and Post-War Protest, 1945-1966.

帝国危机：殖民地经济、劳工和战后抗议，1945-1966。

基本信息

批准号：
ES/K008749/1
负责人：
Gareth Curless
金额：
$ 17.4万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2013 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FK008749%2F1
关键词：
Crises Empire Colonial Economies Labour

项目摘要

Using Malaya, the Gold Coast, and British Guiana as case studies, this project will investigate the causes and consequences of the industrial unrest that affected the British Empire in the period 1945 to 1966. This project will address two broad research objectives. Firstly, it examines the causes of the industrial unrest, investigating the relationship between economic conditions, social organisation, and labour protest. Secondly, it analyses what factors conditioned the 'Imperial response' to the strikes, focusing on how metropolitan ideas relating to Keynesian economic management and social welfare influenced colonial labour policy. The first part of the project investigates the causes of the post-war industrial unrest. The study will focus on the war-time legacy of austerity, investigating how low wages and increased labour demands contributed to the outbreak of the post-war protests. The study will also investigate the relationship between the unrest and the particular structure of the colonial economies, examining why workers in key strategic industries often played prominent role in the protests. The study will contend that key sector workers, such as transport employees in the Gold Coast, plantation labourers in Malaya, and bauxite workers in British Guiana, gained considerable industrial power in the post-war period. As the demand for primary commodities increased, sites of strategic economic importance, such as the mining, railway, and port cities, emerged as potential bottlenecks, where strike action could bring an entire economy to a halt. The second part of the study will investigate how in the wake of the strikes, colonial administrations, influenced by domestic policies in post-war Britain, came to regard economic development and social welfare as solutions to the labour protests. It was hoped that better infrastructure and improved social services would produce not only a more efficient workforce but a less combative one. The limitations of these development and welfare-orientated policies were quickly exposed. Having demanded that colonial subjects live and work like Europeans, the trade unions insisted that the colonial governments pay them like Europeans. It was in this way, as this study will document, that the post-war justifications for colonial rule - development and welfare - served to undermine the very project they were supposed to consolidate. The study will be of relevance to those historians and social scientists working on the social and economic aspects of colonial history. The study will challenge the assumption that the post-war industrial unrest was simply a product of imperial decline or nationalist struggle. Having documented the economic and social inequities that served as the catalyst for the post-war industrial unrest, the study will contend that the labour movements had their origins in specific patterns of mobilisation that combined emerging forms of corporate identity with existing forms of affiliation relating to class, race, ethnicity, and gender. Academic outputs will include a monograph, an international conference, peer-reviewed journal articles, and the creation of a Colonial Studies Network. The study will also be of significance to policy makers and civil society organisations. This study will equip organisations, such as the Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Team at the Institute of Development Studies and the Trades Union Congress, with the contextual knowledge to make evidence-based policy decisions regarding labour rights and the capacity of trade unions in developing countries. Research results will be communicated to non-academic users through the Colonial Studies Network's website, seminars and workshops, and a public exhibition: 'Crises of Empire: Trade Unions and Decolonisation'. The exhibition will be held at the University of Exeter from January to March 2016 and will then be transferred to the TUC in London.

该项目将以马来亚、黄金海岸和英属圭亚那为案例，调查1945至1966年间影响大英帝国的工业动乱的原因和后果。这个项目将涉及两个广泛的研究目标。首先，它考察了劳工骚乱的原因，调查了经济状况、社会组织和劳工抗议之间的关系。其次，分析了是什么因素制约了帝国对罢工的反应，重点分析了与凯恩斯经济管理和社会福利相关的大都市思想如何影响殖民劳工政策。该项目的第一部分调查了战后工业动荡的原因。这项研究将聚焦于紧缩的战时遗留问题，调查低工资和不断增加的劳动力需求是如何导致战后抗议活动爆发的。这项研究还将调查骚乱与殖民经济的特殊结构之间的关系，考察为什么关键战略行业的工人经常在抗议活动中发挥重要作用。这项研究将认为，关键的行业工人，如黄金海岸的运输工人、马来亚的种植园工人和英属圭亚那的铝土矿工人，在战后时期获得了相当大的工业权力。随着对初级商品的需求增加，具有战略经济重要性的地点，如采矿、铁路和港口城市，成为潜在的瓶颈，罢工行动可能导致整个经济停滞。研究的第二部分将调查罢工发生后，受战后英国国内政策影响的殖民政府如何将经济发展和社会福利视为劳工抗议的解决方案。人们希望，更好的基础设施和更好的社会服务不仅会产生更有效率的劳动力，还会产生不那么好斗的劳动力。这些以发展和福利为导向的政策的局限性很快暴露出来。在要求殖民地居民像欧洲人一样生活和工作后，工会坚持殖民地政府向他们支付像欧洲人一样的工资。正如这项研究将记录的那样，正是以这种方式，战后殖民统治的理由--发展和福利--破坏了他们本应巩固的项目。这项研究将对那些致力于殖民历史的社会和经济方面工作的历史学家和社会科学家具有重要意义。这项研究将挑战这样一种假设，即战后的工业动荡只是帝国衰落或民族主义斗争的产物。在记录了作为战后工业动荡催化剂的经济和社会不平等之后，这项研究将辩称，劳工运动起源于特定的动员模式，这种模式将新兴形式的企业身份与与阶级、种族、民族和性别相关的现有联系形式结合在一起。学术成果将包括一本专著、一次国际会议、同行评议的期刊文章，以及建立殖民地研究网络。这项研究也将对政策制定者和民间社会组织具有重要意义。这项研究将使发展研究所的脆弱性和减贫小组和工会大会等组织掌握背景知识，以便就发展中国家的劳工权利和工会能力作出循证的政策决定。研究成果将通过殖民研究网络的网站、研讨会和讲习班以及一个名为《帝国的危机：工会和非殖民主义》的公开展览传达给非学术用户。展览将于2016年1月至3月在埃克塞特大学举行，然后转移到伦敦的英国工会联合会。