Work has always been central to the making of European societies. More than an economic activity, it has shaped everyday life, social identities, relations of power, and ideas of value across centuries. From medieval social orders and early work ethics to industrialisation, class formation, and today’s precarious labour conditions, the history of work reveals how people lived, struggled, and belonged. In recent decades, new cultural, gender, global, and digital approaches have widened the field. At a time of renewed debate shaped by automation, platform labour, and AI, Mos Historicus : A Critical Review of European History invites original contributions for its fourth issue on Labour History/History of Work.

Argument

The history of work and labour has long occupied a central place within European social history, offering a key lens through which to examine social relations, hierarchies, forms of power, and economic formations across the longue durée. Rather than approaching work solely as an economic function, historical scholarship has increasingly foregrounded work as a lived social experience –one that has shaped identities, values, and modes of belonging. From the medieval social category of the laboratores (“those who labour”) and the emergence of early work ethics, to the formation of the working class and the consolidation of new labour regimes during industrialisation, the history of work provides crucial insights into the making of European societies. At the same time, questions concerning the boundaries and meanings of work, free (or unfree) wage labour, and invisible forms of work (domestic, student, and other forms) render the history of work a persistently relevant field of inquiry.

From the nineteenth century onward, labour was closely linked to broad, macro-historical interpretations of economic development, particularly those concerned with capitalism. During the twentieth century, social history –above all through the Annales school and the British Marxist tradition– reoriented academic attention toward workers, labour relations, and forms of collective action. Despite this shift, labour history remained largely shaped, and in many respects constrained, by the ideological preoccupations and intellectual frameworks of postwar Europe.

Since the 1980s, however, the field has undergone significant reconfiguration. Influenced by the cultural turn, gender history, and critical social theory, history of work has expanded beyond class and production as its sole analytical categories. Scholars have increasingly examined meanings of work, gender, language, representations, ideas, embodied experience, age, and everyday practice as constitutive dimensions of working lives. More recently, interdisciplinary approaches, alongside global and digital history, have further widened the scope of inquiry, challenging Eurocentric narratives and opening new methodological and conceptual horizons.

Contemporary developments –most notably the COVID-19 pandemic, the expansion of the digital economy, and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence– have once again brought fundamental questions about the value, meaning, regulation, and limits of work to the forefront of scholarly debate. Against this backdrop, Mos Historicus : A Critical Review of European History dedicates its fourth issue to Labour History / History of Work and invites submissions that engage critically with historical approaches to work in Europe and beyond. 

Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes :

• History of Work/Labour and its historiographies : theoretical frameworks, concepts, and interpretive shifts
• Power structures and social hierarchies : labour regimes, disciplinary mechanisms, and labour relations
• Institutional frameworks, work ethics, and normative value systems
• Seasonality, mobility, and migration
• Gendered, age-based, and embodied dimensions of work
• Cultural representations of work and symbolic systems 
• Work identities and cultures
• Labour movements, collectivisation, and collective action : mobilisations, claims, and forms of organization

Submission guidelines

Please consult the following links for further information :

1. Geographical and chronological scope of the journal ,
2. Guidelines for authors . 

Article Submission Deadline : until the 14th of June, 2026. Contact Email : MosHistoricus@arch.uoa.gr

Journal

Mos Historicus : Critical Review of European History is a scientific academic journal published under the auspices of the Department of History and Archaeology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. It is issued annually in digital form through the ePublishing platform (Open Journal Systems-based platform) of the National Documentation Centre (EKT).

As a diamond open-access journal, Mos Historicus subjects all submissions to double-blind peer review and publishes only those that meet its scholarly standards. Each issue includes articles related to a theme set by the Editorial Committee, alongside contributions outside that thematic focus. Non-thematic articles may be submitted for consideration at any time via the journal’s repository.