The Global History Seminar Series LAUGH presents Felicia Fricke, Copenhagen University: Fugitive Motherhood: Women Running from Slavery in the Insular Caribbean, 1770s-1870s This paper uses advertisements from colonial Caribbean newspapers to examine women’s, and specifically mothers’, fugitivity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It explores themes such as pregnancy, gendered parenthood, and family; and asks whether children’s ages had an impact on mothers’ fugitive decision making. Placing these women and mothers in the wider context of Caribbean fugitivity, it provides an important angle on efforts towards freedom that takes women’s fugitivity on its own terms, even though women ran less often than men. What does this gender imbalance say about women’s options and decisions? And what can a big-data, inter-imperial, and multi-lingual approach offer us in seeking to understand the personal experiences of fugitive women?

Interest in broadening the historical perspective beyond national borders has grown since the early 1990s. Several researchers have spoken of a “world historical turn” or a “transnational trend”. The shift in perspective can be encompassed by concepts such as global history, world history, transnational history, comparative history, histoire croisée and entangled history. With this seminar we want to highlight ongoing research in the field and discuss the relationship between theory and empiricism and how these perspectives affect our view of the past.

We welcome all interested parties, students and researchers alike.

The seminars are typically held both in person and on Zoom. Contact Cecilia Lundström for Zoom link.

Welcome to explore the world with us!