In my comment I raise two main questions about the Eley/Nield essay.
First, I express some doubts about whether the issues discussed in their essay
can be unproblematically transposed to historiographical debates in areas beyond
Western Europe and North America. Certain themes, such as the need to
reemphasize the political, are hardly pressing given the continual emphasis on
politics and the state in Latin American labor history. Closely related to this,
I question whether the state of gender studies within labor history can be used,
in the way these authors seem to be doing, as a barometer of the sophistication
and vitality of labor and working-class history. Despite recognizing the
tremendous contribution of gendered approaches to labor history, I express
doubts about its ability to help us rethink the category of class, and even
express some concern that it might occlude careful consideration of class
identities. Instead, pointing to two pathbreaking works in Latin American labor
history, I argue that the types of questions we ask about class, and primarily
about class, can provide the key to innovative scholarship about workers even if
questions such as gender or ethnicity go unexamined. Finally, I point out that
class will only be a vital category of analysis if it is recognized not simply
as “useful,” but as forming a basis for genuinely creative and
innovative historical studies.
Decolonization, the Cold War, and Africans’ routes to higher education overseas, 1957–65