Studying International Organizations: Milestones for a Transnational History of the International Labour Office (1919-1942)

This seminar aims at going beyond a static vision of international organizations seen as places of conflict between governments. We will regard the ILO as a space of exchange between nations and of national-international circulation. This transnational perspective prompts questions about the development of international practices and knowledge in a national context, about the way in which they are appropriated internationally and re-appropriated nationally and about the individual and collective actors through which circulation occurs. From this standpoint, we will look at the ILO as a “space where the international dimension is shaped” and, correlatively, “the national is denationalized”.

Sandrine Kott is professor of European contemporary history at the University of Geneva. She has studied History in Paris (Phd in 1990, habilitation in 2001), at the university of Bielefeld, (FRG), and Columbia (New-York). She has taught history as an assistant professor at the university of Poitiers and been awarded junior fellow at the Institut universitaire de France (1997-2002). She is a member of the editorial board of the following journals: Genèses, sciences sociales et histoire and Zeithistorische Forschungen. She is the editor of a series : “Europes centrales” by the “editions Belin”, Paris.

She has published over 70 articles in French, German and Anglo-Saxon journals and collective volumes, edited 4 volumes and published the following books: L’État social allemand. Représentations et pratiques, Paris, Belin, 1995, 416 pages ; L'Allemagne du XIXè siècle, Paris, Hachette, collection Carré Histoire, 1999, 254 pages ; Le communisme au quotidien. Les entreprises d’Etat dans la société est-allemande (1949-1989), Paris, Belin, Collection socio-histoire, 2001, 413 pages ; Bismarck, Presses de la FNSP, collection Facettes, 2003, 385 pages ; (avec Stéphane Michonneau) Dictionnaire des nations et des nationalismes dans l’Europe contemporaine, Paris, Hatier, Initial, 2006, 411 pages.