Programme

Updated 6 May 2025. The programme is revised due to a strike at Tampere University on 7 May. Please note that the first day of the conference takes places at the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas.

Book of abstracts_final (PDF)

 

WEDNESDAY 7 MAY

Finnish Labour Museum Werstas, Väinö Linnan aukio 8

9.15-9.30 Opening words

9.30-10.30 Keynote 1 (Room: Auditorio Väinö)
Katrina Navickas (University of Hertfordshire): Popular Resistance to the Enclosure of Urban Public Space in the Long 19th Century: Protest and the Commons in England

10.45–12.15 Sessions 1

Session 1a: Social Democracy, the Nordic Welfare State and Future Challenges (Room: Bertel)
• Panel discussion: Matti Hannikainen (University of Helsinki), Elina Hakoniemi (Demos Helsinki) & Kjell Östberg (Södertörn University); chair: Pete Pesonen (Finnish Labour Archives)

Session 1b (BIO): Biographical Narratives and Social Histories: Exploring Lives and Networks (Room: Auditorio Väinö)
• Malin Arvidsson (Lund University): Nelly Thüring: Theosophist, Feminist, Socialist
• Tapio Bergholm (University of Eastern Finland, University of Helsinki): Serendipity and Networks. Making Biography of First Social Democratic President of Finland
• Fanny-Johanna Reinikka: Two Case Studies Depicting the Working Lives of a Porter and a Male Servant Living in Helsinki between 1880–1930
• Chair: Nina Trige Andersen (Selskabet for Arbejderhistorie)

Session 1c (FEM): Women, Work and Social Change (Room: Työväentalo)
• Katri Karkinen (Lammasoja Research Service): Emerging Civil Society and Dairy Industry in 1900 in Finland
• Valgerður Pálmadóttir (University of Iceland): Discourses about Housework in Public Debate in 20th-Century Iceland
• Chair: Silke Neunsinger (ARAB)

12.15-13.45 Lunch (Restaurant Frenckell & Piha, Frenckellinaukio 2 H)

13.45–15.15 Sessions 2

Session 2a (CDW): Dynamics of Labour Control (Room: Bertel)
• Pontus Blüme (Stockholm University): Digital Labour Platforms and the Concept of Control
• Lukas Rosenberg (University of Göttingen): Scientific Management and the Control of Labour-Time. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway Workshops at Parel in the 1920s
• Rehna Sotto (University of Jyväskylä): Control and Discipline in Shift Work Online Group
• Chair: Hanna Kuusi (University of Helsinki)

Session 2b (BOR): Labour Movements and Social Dynamics Across Borders (Room: Auditorio Väinö)
• Michał Gęsiarz (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań): Norwegian Solidarity with “Solidarity” — at the Crossroads of Trade Unionism and New Social Movements?
• Marta Laskowska (University of Helsinki, University of Warsaw): Who’s behind the Border of the Border States? The Social Democratic Party of Finland, the Polish Socialist Party and the images of Russia 1919-1921 from a Comparative Perspective
• Daniel Stridh (Stockholm University): Ambivalent Solidarity? Exploring the Nexus between Migration and Racism in the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Union 1972-2002
• Constantin Torve (Queen’s University Belfast): Re-writing the ‘Ethnic Fabric’: Ethnic stereotyping of Irish and Nordic Workers in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Press
• Chair: Ainur Elmgren (University of Oulu)

Session 2c: Capital and Political Access (Mid-1800s and Onwards) (Room: Työväentalo)
• Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir (University of Iceland) & Fia Cottrell-Sundevall (Stockholm University): Suffrage, Capital, and Welfare: Conditional Citizenship in Historical Perspective
• Fia Cottrell-Sundevall (Stockholm University) & Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir (University of Iceland): Capital and Political Candidacy
• Josefin Hägglund (Malmö University): Election Meetings and Political Participation in 1880s Sweden
• Chair: Katrina Navickas (University of Hertfordshire)

15.15–15.45 Coffee

15.45-17.15 Film screening: The Potato Revolution. Telling the Story of the Women who Inspired the Swedish Hunger Uprisings of 1917 (Room: Auditorio Väinö)
• Film (55 min) + Q&A with the director Anna Hammerin, Professor Katrina Navickas and Karen Brookfield.

***

18.30 Meet the editors (Room: Työväentalo)
• Have a chat about your publication plans with the editors of Scandinavian Journal of History, Historiallinen Aikakauskirja, Historisk Tidskrift för Finland, Arbetarhistoria, Arbejderhistorie, Lähihistoria, Studia Fennica etc.

19.00 Tampere city reception (Room: Bertel)

 

THURSDAY 8 MAY

Tampere University Main Building, Kalevantie 4

9.15-10.15 Keynote 2 (Room: A1)
Pirjo Markkola (Tampere University): Nordic Gender Equality Revisited

10.30-12.00 Sessions 3

Session 3a: Nordic Labour Geographies Between (and Beyond) East and West (Room: A1)
• Eirik Wig Sundvall & Byron Rom-Jensen (University of Oslo): The Lumber Business: The Nordic Dimension of AFL-FTUC’s Strategies and Operations, 1944–1957
• David Witver (Penn State University): Searching for Jimmy Hoffa in Finland
• Inger Jonsson (Uppsala University, ARAB) & Silke Neunsinger (ARAB): Decentring the Swedish model: Industrial Relations and Indigenous Labour in the Far North between the 1930s and 1980s
• Chair: Matias Kaihovirta (Åbo Akademi University)

Session 3b (CRI): Labour Strategies and Industrial Relations (Room: A3)
• Jenny Jansson (Uppsala University): Blockades instead of Strikes? How Swedish Unions Have Used Blockades in Labor Conflicts 1980–2020
• Ilkka Kärrylä (University of Helsinki): Why is the Nordic Model of Industrial Relations Breaking Down in Finland? An Historical Perspective
• Hannah Karina Yoken (University of Jyväskylä): Finnish Labour Unions and Anti-Nuclear Mobilisation during the Euromissile Crisis
• Commentator: Matti Hannikainen (University of Helsinki)
• Chair: Jarmo Peltola (University of Helsinki)

Session 3c (CDW): Workers under Pressure: Control, Protest, and Welfare in Historical Perspective (Room: A4)
• Ulla Aatsinki (Tampere University): Forest Workers – Economic Necessity, Political Threat in Lapland in the First Decades of the 20th century
• Christos Stefanopoulos (University of Crete): The Hunger Strike as an Alternative Form of Workers’ Protest in Post-Civil War Greece, 1950-1967
• Minna Harjula (Tampere University): Work and Minimum Income Aid in Finland, 1850-2020: Interconnections and Contradictions
• Chair: Anna Hammerin (University of Hertfordshire)

12.00-13.30 Lunch (YO Restaurant)

13.30-15.00 Sessions 4

Session 4a (BIO): Labour Biographies: Documenting and Connecting Individual and Collective Personal Trajectories within Labour Organising (Room: A1)
• Panel discussion: Nina Trige Andersen, Copenhagen) and Jonas Söderqvist (Swedish Labour Movements Archives and Library) will present the project ideas. Other discussants: Ole Martin Rønning (Arbejderbevegelsens arkiv och bibliotek, Oslo), Alpo Väkevä (Työväenliikkeen kirjasto, Helsinki), Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir (Háskóli Íslands, Reykjavik) and a representative from Arbejdermuseet og Arbejderbevægelsens Bibliotek og Arkiv, Copenhagen

Session 4b (CDW): State Surveillance and Labour Conflicts (Room: A3)
• Tiina Lintunen & Piia Vuorinen (University of Turku): State Controlled Communists and Forgotten Åland Islands
• Hanne Koivisto (University of Turku): Finnish Left-Intellectuals as the Target for State Police in the 1930s
• Carl-Erik Strandberg (Åbo Akademi University): Språk och arbetskonflikt – En fallstudie i strejken på Wasa Tekniska Fabrik 1928
• Chair: Marko Tikka (Tampere University)

Session 4c: Nordic Labour Movements: Religion, Nonalignment, and Organizational Strategies (Room: A4)
• Nils Ivar Agøy (University of South-Eastern Norway): The Norwegian Labour Movement and the Problem of Religion in Post-War Norway
• Jouko Raitaniemi (European University Institute): Nordic Nonaligned Social Democracy and the North-South-East-West Division of the International Labour Movement
• Isak Törnqvist (Umeå University): The Labour Commune: Early Swedish Social Democracy’s Organizational Path and Political Opportunities
• Kjell Östberg (Södertörn University): Where Did Socialism Go?
• Chair: Ilkka Kärrylä (University of Helsinki)

15.00-15.30 Coffee

15.30-17.00 Sessions 5

Session 5a: War and Labour (Room: A2a)
• Mikko Rapo (Tampere University): Redefining Suffering: The Rural Poor’s Quest for Land and Recognition in Post-War Finland
• Olli Siitonen (University of Helsinki): Moral Injury in History, Analyzing Perpetrator Accounts of Wartime Violence
• Antti Hannunen (Museum Centre Vapriikki): The Tampere 1918 Civil War Museum – a Digital Museum Project
• Chair: Fia Cottrell-Sundevall (Stockholm University)

Session 5b (FEM): (Trans)National Labour: Gendered Work and (Dis)Connections with Changing Environment (Room: A2b)
• Simo Laakkonen (University of Turku): A Touch of Frost: Gender, Class, Technology, and the Urban Environment in an Industrialising Helsinki
• Lotta Leiwo (University of Helsinki): Transnational Networks and Colonial Ideas: Finnish Migrant-Settler Women in the U.S. Socialist Movement
• Petri Talvitie (University of Turku): Industrialisation and Women’s Labour Force Participation in Rural Finland
• Chair: Inger Jonsson (Uppsala University, ARAB)

Session 5c (CDW): Short-term Labour and Precarious Work in Northern Europe during the Pre-Industrial Era (Room: A3)
• Tiina Miettinen (Tampere University): Conflicts between Men Servants and Masters in Ekenäs Town in 1623–1696
• Sofia Gustafsson (University of Helsinki): Enlisted Soldiers’ Atypical Employment in Helsinki in the 1750s
• Ella Viitaniemi (Tampere University): A Man without Bread: Precarious Clergy and Struggling Career-Paths
• Chair: Marja Jalava (Tampere University)

Session 5d (DLH): Data for Labour History: Current Potential and Limitations (Room: A4)
• Jonas Söderqvist on large-scale digitisation of trade union collections (Swedish Labour Movements Archives and Library)
• Risto Turunen on the state-of-the-art of machine-readable parliamentary debates in the Nordic countries (Tampere University)
• Tanja Juuri on using historical newspapers to analyse grief in the Finnish-Canadian labour movement (Tampere University)
• Chair: Silke Neunsinger (ARAB)

***

18.00 Social programme

Rajaportin sauna (Pispalan valtatie 9)
Presentation by Sanna Kuusikari (Tampere University & Satakunnan Museo): Sauna in Finland: From Ancient Tradition to Modern Ritual

Nootti – The Museum of Finnish-Soviet Relations (Hämeenpuisto 28)

 

FRIDAY 9 MAY

Tampere University Main Building, Kalevantie 4

9.15–10.15 Keynote 3 (Room: A1)
Christian De Vito (University of Vienna): Labour Coercion and Punitive Configurations

10.30–12.00 Sessions 6

Session 6a (BOR): Labour History beyond Animal-Human Divides (Room: A1)
• Marja Jalava (Tampere University): Pigs as Metabolic Labourers: The Case of Pig Fattening Performance Testing in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
• Mary Hilson (Aarhus University): Labouring Pigs: Animal and Human Workers in Denmark c.1860–1930
• Petteri Norring (University of Helsinki): Division of Labour in Multispecies Society. Modernization of Finnish Pig Farming in the Early Twentieth Century
• Chair: Ainur Elmgren (University of Oulu)

Session 6b (FEM): From Reproductive Health to Labor Rights: Women’s Struggles and Institutional Responses (Room: A2a)
• Samantha Smith (Michigan State University): “We do, indeed, have a union”: Showgirls and the Struggle for Unionization with the AGVA in Las Vegas, 1970-1980
• Thea Holmlund (Stockholm University): Navigating precarity and social reproduction: The approach of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) to part-time and temporary work 1993-2007
• Riikka Suominen (Tampere University): Sexual and Reproductive Health Care, Institutional Change, and Related Experiences in Finland (1910s-1950s)
• Commentator: Nina Trige Andersen (Selskabet for Arbejderhistorie)
• Chair: Daniel Stridh (Stockholm University)

Session 6c (CDW): Bodies, Class, and Culture (Room: A3)
• Hanna Kuusi (University of Helsinki): Workplace Physical Exercise in Finland, 1960–1970s – Leisure, Break or Duty?
• Mikael Wallin (Tampere University): Deconstructing Working-Class Culture: Normative Attachments Imposed on Working Class Cultural Activities
• Jakub Muchowski (Jagiellonian University in Kraków) and Marta Kurkowska-Budzan (Jagiellonian University in Kraków): Bodies and Selves of Women Workers in Mining Industry in Late XX Century. The case of Coal Preparation Plant in Walbrzych, Poland
• Chair: Pirjo Markkola (Tampere University)

Session 6d (LIT): Working-Class Fiction (Room: A4)
• Jussi Lahtinen (Tampere University): Narrating the Social Class – Working-Class Literature of the Long 1970s as a Form of Social Class Discourse
• Asta Sutinen (University of Helsinki): Romantic Hopes and Expectations – Huviposti and the Promise of a Better Future in Romantic Fiction of Labour Magazines
• Jordi Valentini: Collective Autobiography and Working-Class Literature in Mediaterranean Europe
• Chair: Alpo Väkevä (Finnish Library of the Labour Movement)

12.00–13.30 Lunch (YO Restaurant)

13.30–15.00 Sessions 7

Session 7a (CDW): Embodied Labour and Workplace Discipline: Corporeality and Control in 20th-Century European Industrial Settings (Room: A1)
• Kirsti Salmi-Niklander (University of Helsinki): Discipline and (Dis)obedience in Workplace Security: Accidents and the Scars of Work in Finnish Metal Industry
• Grace Simpson (Complutense University of Madrid & Jagiellonian University in Kraków): The Mineworker’s Body as Subjected and Subjective: Symbolic Violence in the Asturian Coal Basins of Late Francoist Spain
• Marcin Stasiak (Jagiellonian University in Kraków): Invalid’s Three Bodies: Corporeality, Labour and Disability in Invalids’ Cooperatives in Socialist Poland
• Commentator: Marta Kurkowska-Budzan (Jagiellonian University in Kraków)
• Chair: Tiina Lintunen (University of Turku)

Session 7b (CRI): Economic Crises and Labour Responses (Room: A3)
• Ken Bjerregaard (Linköping University): The Private Sector Employees in the Crisis of the 1930s
• Maika Absetz (University of Helsinki): Unemployment in the Thought and Rhetoric of the Central Trade Organisation of Finland, 1968–1986
• Carlotta Maria Vaglieri (Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca): Oral History of Deindustrialization in Milan
• Commentator: Jarmo Peltola (University of Helsinki)
• Chair: Leena Enbom (University of Helsinki)

Session 7c (LIT): Newspapers and the Working-Class Culture (Room: A4)
• Konsta Kajander (University of Jyväskylä): Rethinking Working-Class. Cognitive-Cultural Aspects of the Finnish Working-Class Press 1885-1910
• Heikki Kokko (Tampere University): Nationwide Circulation of Knowledge: Emergence of Civil Society Revisited in Finland
• Santeri Vuori (University of Turku): “Art for the working class!” – Discourse and Ideology in Finnish Language Worker’s Party Newspapers’ Art Related Articles 1905–1918
• Chair: Jussi Lahtinen (Tampere University)

15.00–15.30 Coffee

15.30–17.00 Sessions 8

Session 8a: Film screening: The Sad Truth (Room: A1)
• Film (75 min) + discussion with the director Helle Stenum

Session 8b (CRI): Navigating Crises and Strikes: Historical Perspectives on Working-Class Resilience and Leadership (Room: A3)
• Jarmo Peltola & Leena Enbom (University of Helsinki): Double Burden, Diminished Years: Lifespan Consequences of Civil War Exposure and the 1930 Regression — The Case of Tampere, Finland
• Jesper Jørgensen (Arbejdermuseet) & Flemming Mikkelsen: Activist Leadership and the Danish Brewery Strike 1985
• Thanasis Betas (General State Archives, Magnesia Prefecture – Greece): Marital Status, Living Conditions and Survival Strategies of Male and Female Workers in the Greek Tobacco Industry, 1950–1970
• Chair and commentator: Pauli Kettunen (University of Helsinki)

Session 8c (FEM): The Private and the Public (Room: A4)
• Silja Pitkänen (University of Jyväskylä): An Ideal Woman of the Early Soviet Union
• Arja Turunen (University of Jyväskylä) & Anna Niiranen (University of Jyväskylä): A Space for A New Woman: Labour Feminism in the Finnish Women’s Magazine Uusi Nainen in the 1960s and 1970s
• Pete Pesonen (Finnish Labour Archives): Oral history of Finnish factory “homers” from a gender perspective
• Commentator: Hannah Yoken (University of Jyväskylä)
• Chair: Valgerður Pálmadóttir (University of Iceland)

***

18.00 Dinner (Puistotorni, Tampere Workers’ Hall, Hämeenpuisto 28)

 

SATURDAY 10 MAY

10.00-11.30 Amuri Museum of Historic Housing, guided tour (Satakunnankatu 49)

11.30-12.30 Coffee at Café Amurin Helmi (Satakunnankatu 49)

 

Thematic tracks

BIO Idols, Oddballs and Human Beings – Biography in Nordic Labour History
BOR Borders and Border Crossings in Labour History
CDW Controlled and Disciplined Workers
CRI Labour Market in Times of Crisis
DLH Digital Labour History
FEM Feminist Labour History
LIT Working-Class Literary Culture in Nordic Countries and Beyond