History Research Seminar - Dr Malin Sonja Wilckens
Armstrong Building, Room 1.05
It's a Match – A Transnational Labour and Environmental History of the Match Industry (1840-1950)
You are warmly invited to the second talk in our History Research Seminar Series for Semester 2
Dr Malin Sonja Wilckens will be delivering a seminar on It's a Match – A Transnational Labour and Environmental History of the Match Industry (1840-1950).
This talk explores a revolutionary moment in the history of technology: when fire became easily and safely transportable. The safety match - largely unchanged in its basic form - provides insight into shifting interconnected global stories of innovation, production, consumption, and environmental impact. Examining the use and extraction of key raw materials – wood, phosphorus, potassium chlorate, paraffin – and working conditions in a hazardous industry mainly operated by women and children reveals how the matchstick links human and more-than-human worlds, exposing the socio-ecological entanglements embedded in this seemingly simple object.
Chair: Daniel Siemens
Location: ARMB 1.05
