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A Balancing Act between Universities and Trade Union Headquarters: The Swedish Labour History Project at the Labour Movement Archives and Library in Stockholm*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

Klaus Misgeld
Affiliation:
Labour Movement Archives and Library, Sweden
Silke Neunsinger
Affiliation:
Labour Movement Archives and Library, Sweden

Extract

The Labour Movement Archives and Library in Stockholm (Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, or ARAB) has been and still is one of the more important nodes of labor history in Sweden. It is well known among academics as well as activists who aim to write movement history. ARAB is financed not only by the Swedish state but also the labor movement to generate new ideas for public labor history. Although there are many units and higher education institutions in Sweden that played a vital role during the 1970s and 1980s, it was probably the research agendas developed by ARAB through seminars and publications that kept the field of labor history a vibrant area of scholarship. The main difference between ARAB and similar institutions is its steady attempt to create spaces where academics—such as historians and social scientists—and activists can meet in order to produce and promote new approaches to labor history. The results and even the success of this work have been built on two institutions at ARAB: the journal Arbetarhistoria, published since 1977, and the research council at ARAB, established in the early 1980s.

Type
Reports from the Field
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2009

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References

NOTES

1. ARAB stores materials from the Swedish labor movement in a broad meaning, including both social democratic and communist party material as well as from blue-collar trade unions and syndicalist organizations. Moreover, many Swedish social movements from the left political spectra have also left their material to ARAB. Material from white-collar unions are stored at their own archive, TAM-arkivet, in Stockholm.

2. See also http://www.arbark.se/english.htm (May 28, 2008).

3. Sweden had until some years ago a second labor history journal, Arkiv för studier i arbetarrörelsens historia, started in 1971 and which developed, despite different ambitions, into a journal with focus on theory and of entirely academic character.

4. Grass, Martin, and Larsson, Hans, Labour's Memory: The Labour Movement Archives and Library, 1902–2002 (Stockholm, 2002), 24Google Scholar.

5. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek 1 (1977).

6. For the Nowegian yearbook, see Arbeiderhistorie. Årbok for Arbeiderbevegelsens arkiv och bibliotek; for the Danish journal, see Arbejderhistorie. Tidskrift for historie, kultur och politik, utgivet af Selskabet till Forskning i Arbejderbevægelsens Historie.

7. Grass and Larsson, Labour's Memory, 40–48.

8. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek 1 (1977).

9. ABF was one of the few organizations in Sweden that was already receiving state subsidies during the early 20th century.

10. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (1984), 29–30.

11. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (1987/1988), 44–45.

12. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (1990), 53–54.

13. Lars Olsson and Lars Ekdahl, Klass i rörelse: Arbetarrörelsen i svensk samhällsutveckling, Arbetarhistoria (2002), 101–102.

14. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (1985) 34.

15. Among other languages, the book was translated into English (but actually never published) and German: Sven Lindqvist, Dig Where You Stand. Lindqvist, Sven and Dammeyer, Manfred, Grabe wo du stehst: Handbuch zur Erforschung der eigenen Geschichte (Bonn, 1989)Google Scholar.

16. Grass and Larsson, Labour's Memory, 48.

17. Ibid., 49.

18. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (2008), 125.

19. Misgeld, Klaus, Molin, Karl, and Åmark, Klas, Socialdemokratins Samhälle: SAP och Sverige under 100 År (Stockholm, 1989)Google Scholar.

20. Misgeld, Klaus, Molin, Karl, and Åmark, Klas, Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden. English trans. and rev. ed. (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1992)Google Scholar. Misgeld, Klaus, Molin, Karl and Åmark, Klas, Sozdavaja Social'nuju Demokratiju: Sto Let Social-Demokraticeskoj Rabocej Partii Svecii: Creating Social Democracy (Moskva, 2001)Google Scholar.

21. Arbetarhistoria: Meddelande från Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (1986), 37–38.