Research Projects

The IISH conducts research in Project Clusters.

  • Global Labour Relations
  • Commodities, Environment and Labour
  • Social and Economic Inequality
  • Collective Action and Individual Strategies


This is an overview of the Research Projects within the four clusters.

Exploring Slave Trade in Asia

14 May 2019 13:52

Exploring Slave Trade in Asia - Towards an Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia Slave Trade Database

Database


This project builds a database that reconstructs the historic slave trade in the Indian Ocean and Maritime Asia region in collaboration with an emerging network of scholars committed to develop a coherent field of Asian slave trade and slavery studies, including East, Southeast and South Asia as well as South and East Africa.

Hollandse koopman met slaven in heuvellandschap, anoniem, 1700 - 1725

Potosí: producing silver for the world

14 May 2019 11:40

The silver trade powered global connections for more than three centuries, and from 1450 to 1800, 85% of the world’s silver originated from the Americas.

The Potosí Mountain of Silver and the city of Potosí today

Diamond Workers Union project

9 May 2019 12:13

The IISH holds the complete archive of the Dutch Diamond Workers Union (Algemene Nederlandse Diamantbewerkersbond (ANDB)).

  • Projectleader: Karin Hofmeester
  • Start: 2018
  • Grant: Monderiaan Fonds
IISH Collections | Projects | ANDB staff - Photo from IISH Collection

Labour in the Iranian Oil Industry

15 April 2019 15:04

The main objective of this project was to develop an empirical and qualitative understanding of labour as well as labour force in the Iranian oil industry.

Project-leader: Touraj Atabaki

Against the current: the social mobility of Jewish Dutch (1880-1940)

15 April 2019 10:48

Tegen de stroom in: de sociale mobiliteit van joodse Nederlanders (1880-1940)

  • Project leader: Karin Hofmeester and Leo Lucassen

    Grant: € 500,000 by KNAW Research Fund

    Partner: Huygens ING

Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations, 1500-2000

4 April 2019 11:45
  • Project-leader: Karin Hofmeester
  • Start: 2013
  • Grant: € 218,500 by Gerda Henkel Stiftung
An infographic titled "Taxonomy of Labour Relations" from the Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations. It displays a hierarchical classification system for different forms of labour, branching from "Point of departure" (Total population) into "Type of exchange", "Goal of production", "Labour relations (individuals)", and finally specific "Subcategories". Key categories of labour include Non-working, Reciprocal, Tributary, and Commodified, each with further specific subsets. The chart is colo

The multicultural drama in perspective

4 April 2019 10:17

40 years of lifecycle for migrants and non-migrants in the Netherlands

  • Project lead: Leo Lucassen
  • Grant: € 500,000  (€ 182.540 IISH) by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • Start: 2018
  • Partner: NIDI

LONGPOP

3 April 2019 17:08

LONGPOP: Methodologies and Data Mining techniques for the analysis of Big Data based on Longitudinal Population and Epidemiological Registers

  • Project lead: Kees Mandemakers
  • Start: 2015
  • Grant: € 3.860,731 (€ 510,748 IISH) by the European Research Counsil - Marie Curie - Horizon 2020
HSN projects | Longpop logo

CLARIAH - Structured Data WP4

3 April 2019 16:47
  • Project lead: Henk Wals/Richard Zijdeman
  • Start: 2014
  • Grant: € 2,067,639 (€ 694,602 IISH) by NWO Large Research Infrastructures
  • Partners: Free University Amsterdam, Utrecht University
CLARIAH logo

Between local debts and global markets: Explaining slavery in South and Southeast Asia, 1600-1800

3 April 2019 12:15
  • Project lead: Matthias van Rossum
  • Duration: 01-01-2016 to 28-02-2019.
  • Grant: € 250.000 by NWO (VENI)

Commodity Frontiers: Capitalist Transformations of the Global Countryside During the Past Six Centuries

1 April 2019 15:20

This large multi-year project aims to study the long history of commodity frontiers through an interdisciplinary research design that uses both written archival sources and fieldwork.

Commodities in the Harbour | source: wikimedia.org

Luxury and Labour, a global trajectory of diamond consumption and production, 16th -19th century

1 April 2019 15:18

In the past four hundred years large scale circulations of people, ideas and commodities took place, leading - amongst other things - to shifts in labour relations worldwide. Many historians share the idea that consumption plays an important role in the production of these commodities and therefore also in shaping labour relations.