{"title":"From forced to coerced labour: displaced mothers and teen girls in post-World War II Australia","authors":"Karen Agutter, C. Kevin","doi":"10.1080/0023656X.2022.2130212","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT At the end of World War Two 1.2 million people were officially labelled Displaced Persons (DPs). Stateless, or refusing to return home, the majority were resettled in other countries including Australia which, like most receiving nations, saw these refugees primarily as a labour force for post-war economic recovery and expansion. However, unlike other nations, DPs destined for Australia signed a work contract which committed them to two years of assigned labour after arrival. This paper considers two specific subsets of these DPs, the ‘unsupported mothers’ (single, widowed, and divorced mothers with young children) and female unaccompanied teenagers. It illuminates the intersections of gender and displacement on the labour status of female DPs in post-war Australia and traces the continuities of coerced labour in their experiences of war and migration. We argue that the early life of female DPs in Australia provides an example of a continuum of forced and coerced labour which had begun under the shadow of war in Nazi Germany and continued after migration.","PeriodicalId":45777,"journal":{"name":"Labor History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Labor History","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2022.2130212","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT At the end of World War Two 1.2 million people were officially labelled Displaced Persons (DPs). Stateless, or refusing to return home, the majority were resettled in other countries including Australia which, like most receiving nations, saw these refugees primarily as a labour force for post-war economic recovery and expansion. However, unlike other nations, DPs destined for Australia signed a work contract which committed them to two years of assigned labour after arrival. This paper considers two specific subsets of these DPs, the ‘unsupported mothers’ (single, widowed, and divorced mothers with young children) and female unaccompanied teenagers. It illuminates the intersections of gender and displacement on the labour status of female DPs in post-war Australia and traces the continuities of coerced labour in their experiences of war and migration. We argue that the early life of female DPs in Australia provides an example of a continuum of forced and coerced labour which had begun under the shadow of war in Nazi Germany and continued after migration.
期刊介绍:
Labor History is the pre-eminent journal for historical scholarship on labor. It is thoroughly ecumenical in its approach and showcases the work of labor historians, industrial relations scholars, labor economists, political scientists, sociologists, social movement theorists, business scholars and all others who write about labor issues. Labor History is also committed to geographical and chronological breadth. It publishes work on labor in the US and all other areas of the world. It is concerned with questions of labor in every time period, from the eighteenth century to contemporary events. Labor History provides a forum for all labor scholars, thus helping to bind together a large but fragmented area of study. By embracing all disciplines, time frames and locales, Labor History is the flagship journal of the entire field. All research articles published in the journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and refereeing by at least two anonymous referees.