The urban labour market must have been substantial in early imperial Roman Italy, where the economy was thriving and urbanization rates were unprecedented. It could be argued that the existence of... Show moreThe urban labour market must have been substantial in early imperial Roman Italy, where the economy was thriving and urbanization rates were unprecedented. It could be argued that the existence of slavery precluded an actual labour market. The Roman World of Work argues, however, that the economic concepts of a labour market and labour market segmentation hold explanatory power for understanding labour in the cities of Roman Italy. It turns out that gender was more restricting for the position of an individual than legal status, or skill levels. The Roman labour market was segmented along these lines of sex, legal status and skill levels. Yet such factors were culturally determined: they were given meaning and filled in by family and non-familial relations. An individual labourer cannot therefore be viewed on his or her own, but should be understood in the context of the prevailing social structures. This was true for the freeborn, but also for the slave and freed components of the group. Family and non-familial collectives provided intersecting trust networks that were crucial to economic interaction in Roman society, where reliable information was scarce and economic insecurity loomed large. Show less
This research strives to reveal how ideologies of race, class, and gender manifested in the the social, physical, and material landscapes of pre-emancipation colonial Saba, Dutch Caribbean. Race,... Show moreThis research strives to reveal how ideologies of race, class, and gender manifested in the the social, physical, and material landscapes of pre-emancipation colonial Saba, Dutch Caribbean. Race, class, and gender serve as facets and vectors for ideology. By viewing them as processes, their capacity to express such through their social and material environments inextricably tied to their particular temporal and spatial contexts. Through comparisons of the social and material environments of multiple, contemporaneous social contexts within Saba, common social and material vectors among these ideological facets can become apparent. In particular, this concerns: • How tensions between the “incomplete hegemony” of colonial authorities and plantation agriculture with Saban residents resulted in a dialectic between local landscapes, materiality, and ideologies of race, class, and gender. • Differentiating between slavery, free poverty, and low class in the archaeological record. • The dialectic between scale, locality, and perspective in defining and situating class and poverty. Show less
