Labour History

Abstract

This invited postscript is a personal reflection on the articles which make up the thematic section on voluntary labour and labour history. Admitting that these articles have provoked the realisation of how narrowly labour historians have defined work and workers in the past, the postscript comments on other issues such as the innate tensions between paid and unpaid labour, the politics of location, the theoretical constraints of Marxism over labour history, and the connections between voluntarism and citizenship.