Reflections on Writing Comparative and Transnational Labour History

ABSTRACT

Calls to reposition both Australian and New Zealand history in a broader regional and global context are not new, but have intensified in more recent times. The turn toward transnational narratives in the contemporary academy is a valuable complement to comparative analysis, and both are important in thinking beyond traditional notions of bounded local space. Two areas in which transnational methodology has been particularly to the fore are the 'new' imperial history and American history that looks beyond the conventional paradigm of national exceptionalism. The networks of mobility and exchange sketched out by scholars working in these fields offer some useful insights for the transnational labour history project which is still at an early phase of development. This paper highlights the possibilities and potential problems attending the writing of transnational and comparative labour history, and in so doing offers some reflections on the broader question of knowledge production.