The Programme

18 Uhr, Rotunde im Cartesium

Vortrag von Annika Bärwald (Bremen)

Im Jahr 1900 führten afro-amerikanische Agrarfachleute und deutsche Kolonialisten in Togo eine „Baumwoll-Expedition“ durch, deren Ziel es war, den Baumwollanbau in Togo großflächig zu etablieren und das Deutsche Reich damit von US-amerikanischen Importen unabhängig zu machen. Maßgeblich unterstützt wurde das Vorhaben von Bremer Kolonialkaufleuten und der Bremer Baumwollbörse. Eine historische Spurensuche führt zu Ursprüngen der „Baumwollfrage“, Debatten um das Verhältnis von Baumwolle und Zwangsarbeit sowie kolonialrevisionistischen Nachklängen im Bremer Stadtgebiet.

18 Uhr, Rotunde im Cartesium

Vortrag von Alessandra Mezzadri (SOAS/London)

Based on her recently completed book, Alessandra Mezzadri depicts in this lecture the garment sweatshop in India as a complex 'regime' of exploitation and oppression, jointly crafted by global, regional and local actors, and working across productive and reproductive realms. The analysis shows the tight correspondence between the physical and social materiality and illustrates the great social differentiation and complex patterns of labour unfreedom at work in the industry. By placing labour at the very centre of her analysis, she critically engages with key debates on industrial modernity, modern slavery, and ethical consumerism.

18 Uhr, Rotunde im Cartesium

Öffentlicher Vortrag von Adam Sneyd (Guelph/Canada)

Powerful people continue to associate their activities with efforts to ameliorate Africa's cotton problems. In what ways, if any, are these new anti-poverty concerns fueling more responsible approaches to governing cotton in Africa? In this lecture, Adam Sneyd, author of Governing Cotton: Globalization and Poverty in Africa (Palgrave, 2011) and Cotton (Polity Press, 2016), cuts through the poverty reduction noise. He argues that while irresponsibility persists at multiple levels, a new and potentially game-changing politics of responsibility has emerged.

18 Uhr, GW2 3009

Vortrag mit Sven Beckert (Harvard/USA) und Podiumsdiskussion

18 Uhr, Rotunde im Cartesium

Vortrag von Koray Çalışkan (Boğaziçi/Istanbul)

Markets do not simply emerge as a relationship among self-interested buyers and sellers, governed by appropriate economic institutions. Nor are they mere social networks embedded in wider economic social structures. Rather, global markets are fields of power maintained through daily interventions, the production of prosthetic prices, and the waging of struggles among those who produce and exchange commodities. Drawing upon research from such places as the New York Board of Trade and the Turkish and Egyptian countrysides to Memphis Tennessee, this talk examines the arrangements, institutions, and power relations on which cotton trading and production depend, and provides an alternative approach to making sense of markets.

19.30, Haus der Wissenschaft, kleiner Saal

Vortrag von Stephen Small (University of California, Berkeley/USA)

Cotton was the preeminent product during slavery in the so-called New World; and the United States was the foremost nation producing cotton. But cotton was not the only commodity and the United States was not the only nation involved in slavery. Rice and sugar were also major crops produced out of the United States. Coffee and sugar were the primary products in more than 35 nations across the Caribbean, and Central and South America; and salt was a primary product in the Dutch Caribbean. In this lecture, Stephen Small indicates how these four commodities constituted the economic and political bonds that united the nations of Europe in an interlocking system and a shared colonial and imperial enterprise. And how the legacies of this interlocking system remain with us today, in the 21^st century.

18-20 Uhr, Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, Hans-Scharoun-Platz 1, 27568 Bremerhaven

Objektbegegnungen und Ausstellungskonzeption im Deutschen Schifffahrtsmuseum/Leibniz-Institut für maritime Geschichte

Ausgehend von einer Fühl- und Taststation zum Thema ‚Baumwolle’ in der Sonderausstellung „Zahn der Gezeiten – Maritime Schätze unter der Lupe“ soll danach gefragt werden, wie die Materialität von Schiffen und Transportlogistik den weltweiten Handel von Baumwolle mit ermöglicht und kulturell geprägt hat. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Begegnungen mit Artefakten und Archivalien aus der Sammlung des Museums rund um das Thema ‚Baumwollhandel’ sowie einen Ausblick auf die Rolle von Globalisierung und Handel in der neuen Gesamtausstellung des Museums.

Kontakt: schillingprotect me ?!dsmprotect me ?!.museum

Der Eintritt in das Museum ist für alle Universitätsangehörigen kostenlos.