Dr. Elise van Nederveen-Meerkerk
Professor of Economic and Social History
Utrecht University
Brief summary of research over last 5 years / academic profile
Elise Van Nederveen Meerkerk is Professor in Economic and Social History at Utrecht University. Her research encompasses long-term comparative analyses of labor relations worldwide, with a particular interest in gender, ethnicity and generations, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Her mission is to historically explain (developments in) differences in the labor market, such as unequal access to work for men and women, or unequal pay. Van Nederveen Meerkerk’s recent research concentrates on the role of women’s production and consumption in the worldwide textile industry (1780-1970). She investigated how institutions such as colonialism, sociocultural norms and the household influenced women’s labor market position. In a recent article2 (output ERC-CoG), she compared the position of female textile workers in Japan and colonial India from different political and cultural institutions. Another seminal article3(output ERC-CoG) discusses how policies in Java and sub-Saharan Africa often had unintended consequences for the resilience of local industries. Most (in)formal institutions have deep roots. Historical analysis is vital to understand how institutions have emerged, changed, and succeeded or failed, affecting present-day social cohesion and other challenges. Van Nederveen Meerkerk’s long-term outlook and experience with global comparative analysis are therefore of great importance to the consortium.
International visibility, activities, prizes, scholarships etc.
Over the past 15 years, Van Nederveen Meerkerk played a leading role in the development of Global Labor History, a new field that has made the traditionally nationally-oriented social history inherently comparative. This is very important in the light of changing global labor relations. She is one of the leading scholars in the history of women’s work and frequently publishes in international peer-reviewed journals. She received prestigious grants (NWO-VIDI and Aspasia (2012); NIAS-fellowship (2017); ERC CoG (2017); ARC fellowship CUNY (2023)). Van Nederveen Meerkerk organised four large interdisciplinary projects in which historians, sociologists, economists and anthropologists compared various forms of labor worldwide with an eye to gender, age, class and ethnicity over the period 1600-present. In edited volumes on child labor, textile workers, domestic labor and sex workers, she synthesized interdisciplinary insights in introductory/concluding chapters. She is on various international boards, e.g. the Advisory Board of the European Social Science History Conference, and the Academic Advisory Board of the International Conference for Labor History. For 8 years, she was editor of International Review of Social History. She is co-founder and editor of the open-access online Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Brill).
5 key output/publications
1. Frederick, K. & Van Nederveen Meerkerk, E. 2023. Local advantage in a global context. Competition, adaptation and resilience in textile manufacturing in the ‘periphery’, 1860–1960. J Glob Hist 18:1, 1-24.
2. Dixit, A. & Van Nederveen Meerkerk, E. 2022. Supply of labour during early industrialisation: Agricultural systems, textile factory work and gender in Japan and India, ca. 1880–1940. Indian Econ Soc Hist Rev 59:2, 223–255.
3. Van Nederveen Meerkerk, E. 2019. Women, work and colonialism in the Netherlands and Java. Comparisons, contrasts, connections, 1830-1940. London etc.: Palgrave Macmillan.
4. Hoerder, D., Van Nederveen Meerkerk, E., and Neunsinger, S. (Eds). 2015. Towards a global history of domestic and care workers. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
5. Schmidt, A. & Van Nederveen Meerkerk, E. 2012. Reconsidering the ‘first male breadwinner economy. Long-term trends in female labor force participation in the Netherlands, c. 1600-1900’. Feminist Economics 18:4 (2012) 69-96.
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