Gustav Nyberg

About me

Research Areas:

• Labour history
• Agrarian history
• Social history 
• Contract-workers in agriculture

Generally, my research focuses labour history. In particular, I am interested in class relations in capitalist societies, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the political development of the labor movement and union struggle in agrarian environments. In this way, the emergence of agrarian capitalism and the long-term consequences of this mode of production for various social classes are the key aspects of my research. Another ongoing theme in my research is how different types of working class groups perceived their material living conditions and possibly acted to change them.

Ongoing research 

In my ongoing dissertation project, I investigate rural contract-workers' (statare) pre-union struggle and union mobilization process in Stockholm County during the period around 1890-1920. A contract-worker was a married farmhand, who was employed on a yearly basis and received a wage consisting of money, food and housing. Based on the pre-union struggle, the task of the dissertation is to follow the contract-workers' as a labour group processually, until the time of their union organization. In other words, the ambition is to identify and explain change over time in terms of contract-workers struggles (their individual and collective space for action). In line with this ambition, the thesis will also analyze how contract-workers assessed different conflict situations on large-scale farms in relation to the landowners, as well as study which options for action they experienced as realistic in their contemporary times.