Latin America and the ILO in the Twentieth Century, [date range] From its Origins to the Cold War, 1919-1989

Bringing together historical research on a local, regional, and global scale, this edited collection investigates the processes, subjects and categories that shaped Latin American labour in the twentieth century and its connection with the International Labour Organization (ILO). The book proposes a renewed chronology and periodization in light of Latin American processes. Without neglecting the chronology that historiography has established for the ILO itself - a chronology that is also in dispute - it allows us to focus on what we understand to be the characteristics of the relationship between the ILO and Latin America. Moreover, it contributes to the historicization of certain concepts linked to the definition of work and the multiple actors involved in the employment relationship. In this sense, the contributions in this book emphasize and illuminate attempts at regulation by the ILO, as well as the disputes over their meaning between workers, employers, national civil servants, trade unions and the ILO bureaucracy itself. The book also critically investigates the relations between Latin America and the ILO, challenging the centrality of European events in the constitution of the historiography on this organisation. In doing so, the book seeks to reaffirm the importance of the Latin American region and its actors in connection with the ILO.

Part I. Institutionalisation and regulation of the world of work under the Latin American prism.- 1. Labour Law, the universalism of the ILO and the Latin American peculiarity (1919-1941); Norberto Ferreras.- 2. Shaping an internationalized bureaucratic space: ILO´s correspondents in interwar Argentina under the prism of the Latin American region (1919-1948); Laura Gabriela Caruso and Andrés Stagnaro.- 3. Debate on the social protection of agricultural workers in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1928-1953. Cooperation between the ILO, governments and workers' organisations; Oscar Gallo and Patricio Herrera.- 4. The Peace Refugees" of the International Labour Office in Mexico (1925-1928); Fabian

Herrera León.- Part II. Labour Transformations and New Debates in the Early Cold War in Connection with the Development Agenda.- 5. Shaping Global Labour Rights. The ILO Committee on Freedom of Association and Latin American, a 70-year retrospective; Luciana Zorzoli.-6. Motherhood and Cold War: women’s rights and transnational organisations in Latin America (1948-1967); Guilherme Machado Nunes.- 7. ILO and management development in Latin America, mid-1950s-1970s; Andrea Lluch and Rolv Petter Amdam.- 8. Concerns on participation during the long sixties: the ILO and the Yugoslavian model of self-management in the light of an Argentinean experience; Gabriela Scodeller.- Part III. Dictatorships, Human Rights and Gender. Renewed labour agendas and new arenas of conflict in the Second Cold War.- 9. Transnational actions of the Argentine trade union movement during the Cold War and the role of the ILO; Victoria Basualdo.- 10. A sounding board. Dictatorship and trade unions before the ILO (Uruguay, 1973-1985); Álvaro Sosa and Sabrina Álvarez.- 11. Household, expert knowledge and unpaid work: The ILO and the study of "domestic economic activity" in Latin America 1975-1984; Paula Lucia Aguilar.- 12. Women of a different kind. The Regulation of Domestic Service in Brazil Vis a Vis the International Labour Office; Teresa Cristina de Novaes Marques.

Andrés Stagnaro is researcher at  the Argentine National Scientific Council (CONICET) and Professor at the National University of La Plata (Argentina).

Laura G. Caruso is researcher at the Argentine National Scientific Council (CONICET) and Professor at the Interdisciplinary School of Social Studies (National University of San Martin, Argentina).

 Victoria Basualdo is researcher at the Argentine National Scientific Council (CONICET) and at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), and Professor in the Political Economy Master's Degree Program at FLACSO, Argentina.  

Norberto O. Ferreras is Professor of Contemporary Latin American History at Federal Fluminense University, in Brazil, and researcher at the National Research Council (CNPq) and researcher at the Research Support Foundation from Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ).