CfP: Cultures of Expertise in the 20th Century: Perspectives in Global History

Dossier planned for submission to the journal Esboços: histórias em contextos globais (UFSC, Brazil), with publication scheduled for 2027, within the framework of its editorial and peer-review process.

GENERAL AIM:

This dossier aims to place technical–labor internationalism at the center of global history debates, proposing it as an interpretive key for analyzing the transnational circulation of expertise, skilled labor, and political projects across the twentieth century. Rather than treating it merely as a form of professional mobility, the dossier understands technical–labor internationalism as a site of mediation in which applied knowledge functioned as a strategic resource.

These circulations brought together material needs, institutional frameworks, and political projects that had to position themselves vis-à-vis major global transformations: from the Great Depression, protectionist backlash, the rise of totalitarianisms, and multiple strands of proletarian internationalism in the first half of the century, to the Cold War, decolonization, and the expansion of Third Worldism in its second half. By emphasizing these dynamics as a specific vector of globalization, the dossier welcomes perspectives attentive to the tensions, asymmetries, and disputes that shaped the production, circulation, and appropriation of technical knowledge during the period.

DEBATES

The dossier highlights the historiographical potential of technical–labor internationalism by placing it at the heart of key concerns in Global History through the articulation of two core debates.

Debate 1: Cultures of Expertise (Global Thirties / Global Sixties)

The first debate focuses on the historical evolution of the culture of expertise. In analyses of the so-called “Global Thirties,” scholars such as Kendall Bailes (1978 [2015]), David Engerman (2004), Maya Peterson (2016), among others, have underscored the emergence of a grammar of development anchored in a “cult of technical expertise,” conceived as a universal—and ostensibly apolitical—language. This dossier proposes to examine the reconfiguration of that paradigm during the “Global 60s,” when expertise increasingly operated under conditions of dense politicization.

In dialogue with perspectives that emphasize, on the one hand, growing concern with practical applications and the everyday management of development (Chassé, 2014) and, on the other, the expansion of a worldview in which the separation between technical expertise and geopolitical power became increasingly indistinguishable (Hecht, 2011; Donna C. Mehos & Suzanne M. Moon, 2011), the dossier invites case studies and historiographical reflections that treat technique and technical workers as key spaces/agents of the disputes that unfolded across the century.

Debate 2: Transnational Connections in the Cold War (beyond binaries)

The second debate interrogates the nature of the transnational and transcontinental connections that made technical–labor internationalism possible. Rather than presuming that a globalization centered on financial capital accumulation prevailed uncontested—as neoliberal apologists influential in much globalization historiography since the 1990s often suggested—or assuming that alternative globalizations oriented toward working-class welfare were wholly allergic to market-centered globalizing forces, the dossier calls for analyses that explore the complexity, entanglements, and hybridizations that traversed these circulations through concrete case studies.

In this sense, the dossier stages a counterpoint between Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels Petersson (2005), who emphasize the socialist bloc’s relative isolation from global dynamics, and James Mark, Artemy Kalinovsky & Steffi Marung (2020), who highlight the multidirectional circulation of knowledge and specialists as a structural component of connections within socialist countries—and between them and the wider world. Avoiding interpretive binaries and reductionist readings, the dossier invites contributions that analyze how these flows of expertise and specialized labor were simultaneously shaped by selective alliances and structural asymmetries, and yet capable of actively reshaping the tensions that organized the international system.

A MULTILEVEL APPROACH AND SCALES OF ANALYSIS

More specifically, the dossier advances a multilevel approach that brings together distinct analytical scales:

First, it foregrounds the expectations, trajectories, and lived experiences of the technicians and specialists involved in these processes. Special attention is given to carriers of “militant expertise” (a concept proposed by Eugenia Palieraki, 2020), enabling the recovery of subjective and experiential dimensions often absent from narratives centered exclusively on inter-state technical cooperation agreements.

Second, the dossier explores how technical–labor internationalism enabled—or, in some cases, slowed down or strained—historically situated processes of state-building. This axis is particularly relevant for historians working with bilateral technical cooperation agreements and with bureaucratic documentation produced by agencies regulating foreign labor, which sheds light on how the incorporation, management, and circulation of international knowledge and specialists were governed within the administrative machinery of both sending and receiving countries. This perspective resonates with the notion of co-production between technical knowledge and social order (States of Knowledge) advanced by authors such as Sheila Jasanoff (2004).

Third, the dossier examines these circulations as a driver of international-order reconfiguration, especially in the context of the expansion of Third Worldism. As Odd Arne Westad (2005) suggests, concerns with technique and development became central to non-alignment, while also revealing structural differences between the major Cold War powers—whose industrialization processes had advanced earlier—and developing nations, whose priorities and political horizons exceeded binary narratives of ideological confrontation.

PRIORITY THEMES:

The dossier will place special emphasis on the following themes:

The role of technical–labor internationalism in postcolonial societies, with attention to the Afro-Asian bloc and the emergence of new networks of solidarity, cooperation, and dependency connecting them to the wider world.

Circulatory flows that challenge the interpretive hegemony of technology transfer as a consistently North–South process.

Technical–scientific diasporas and the forced mobility of professionals produced by structural crises and repressive regimes, which turned the capitalization of technical knowledge into a key factor in global tensions across the period.

Contradictions in the valuation of technical knowledge, differentiated employment regimes, and cultural frictions between international specialists and local production practices.

Comparative analyses of distinct historical regimes of expertise circulation—particularly between the Global Thirties and the Global Sixties —and their implications for technical–labor internationalism.

The dossier is also open to other themes that engage with its overarching aims.

LANGUAGES AND SCOPE:

We welcome proposals and manuscripts in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Contributions from any region are invited, with a particular welcome to comparative, transnational, and transcontinental approaches.

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

20 February 2026: please send title + abstract (300 words) + 5 keywords + institutional affiliation + short author bio + a brief note on the manuscript’s status.

We are seeking contributions at an advanced stage, as full manuscripts will be required by mid-2026.

CONTACT AND SUBMISSION

Please send proposals to: Julimar Mora Silva (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil)