Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

Africa Colloquium

Sommersemester 2025

Venue & time: Invalidenstraße 118, r. 315; 16-18 h c.t.

The Afrikakolloquium is organised this semester jointly by
Dr. Lamine Doumbia (Department for African Studies, HU) and
Dr. Susann Baller (Centre Marc Bloch Berlin)

The colloquium is open to the public. Students, colleagues and guests are welcome!

Prof. Dr. Peter Cole

(Western Illinois University)

and Dr. Daniel Tödt

(Centre Marc Bloch Berlin)

Maritime Solidarity at Work: African Dockers and Black Internationalism

Abstract: Dockers possess a long history of solidarity with peoples fighting authoritarianism, imperialism, and racism, both in their own societies and others. Located at pivotal “choke points” in the capitalist economy, dockers, seafarers, and other marine transport workers can interrupt trade—by stopping work—and, thus, the entire global economy. At times, African dockers have inserted their radical, working-class perspective into global affairs by refusing to work cargo from or ships intended for authoritarian regimes. In so doing, they have contributed to a Pan-Africanist or Black Internationalist perspective. Peter Cole will discuss these issues in the port of Durban which, since the World War I era, is the busiest port in sub-Saharan Africa. Daniel Tödt will discuss African seafarers and dockworkers in the French and Belgian Empire. 

Peter Cole is a Professor of History at Western Illinois University (USA) and a Research Associate in the Society, Work and Politics Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). He wrote Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area (2018), winner of the Philip Taft Labor History Book Prize, and Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia (2007). He edited Ben Fletcher: The Life & Times of a Black Wobbly (revised 2^nd edition, 2021) and co-edited Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW (2017). He co-edited and brought the novel, Presente: A Dockworker Story (2024), written by the deceased Herb Mills, to publication. He founded and co-directs the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project.

Daniel Tödt is historian, specialised in Contemporary African and Colonial History, with a PhD completed in 2015 at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Currently, he is a research associate at the Centre Marc Bloch and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Aix-Marseille. Before, he worked as a researcher at universities in Berlin, Konstanz and Marseille. His research focuses on urban and labour history in global contexts, Africa elite formation, francophone colonial history and the history of the Mediterranean. His most recent monograph was published in 2021, The Lumumba Generation. African Bourgeoisie and Colonial Distinction in the Belgian Congo. Most recently, he has published articles on Congolese seafarers and maritime solidarity in the Belgian Empire.

Alle Interessierten sind herzlich eingeladen!