Migration and Labour in a Red Sea port: Jeddah in the late Ottoman period
Ulrike Freitag
Freie Universität Berlin
This lecture will investigate, how labour, both free and unfree, was organised in a port city of the late Ottoman Empire which which was characterised by a high degree of mobility and migration. What are the avaialable sources, and what can we say about the economic and social organisation of labour notably in the fields of work in the port and construction? What can we learn about labour disputes in the past, and about the ways in which local and translocal actors intervened in such confrontations? Jeddah on the Red Sea coast was marked by a particularly multicultural and transient population due to its function as a commercial entrepot and terminus for the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage. In addition, it served as a main market in the Red Sea slave trade, even after this trade had been prohibited.
April 29, 2015