Papers by Lorenzo Avellino
Zaprduer – Rivista di storia della conflittualità sociale, 2024
Introduction of the Zapruder's special issue "RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE?" on labour, automation an... more Introduction of the Zapruder's special issue "RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE?" on labour, automation and resistance
Zapruder, 2024
This contribution constitutes a first restitution of an ongoing research on the technological cha... more This contribution constitutes a first restitution of an ongoing research on the technological changes connected to a specific phase of silk reeling: silk crossing. The technological change affecting silk crossing is followed along its two lines: on the one hand the transfer of manual skills to the machine, on the other the control of gestures through process architecture. Thus emerges an early attempt at automation that allows usto situate more clearly what continuities and what ruptures exist between the knowledge linked to the artisan world and the techno-scientific innovation characterising industrial capitalism, in particular with reference to the sexual division of labour.
RISES Ricerche di storia economica e sociale, 2023
On 26 July 1790, approximately 500 silk weavers stormed the city of Como in what had previously b... more On 26 July 1790, approximately 500 silk weavers stormed the city of Como in what had previously been dismissed as a mere food riot. Drawing from the weavers' own accounts, this essay proposes an alternative interpretation of the events that places the uprising within a long history of labour conflicts, both preceding and following the incident. Specifically, the author analyses the tumult as a critical juncture in a complex negotiation mechanism between work quantity and product quality that emerged in silk manufacturing after the abolition of the guild system. is analysis casts new light on certain practices by the silk workers, which, although previously disqualified as being dysfunctional to the manufacturing order, are revealed as practical and situated knowledge responding to the work contingencies of the historical moment.
Introduction to the special issue of Rises - Ricerche di storia economica e social on silk qualit... more Introduction to the special issue of Rises - Ricerche di storia economica e social on silk quality in early modern Europe
International Review of Social History, 2023
With the abolition of the guild system and the rise of a new legal regime based on free contract,... more With the abolition of the guild system and the rise of a new legal regime based on free contract, a central dilemma emerged in Europe: how to enforce labour control in this new era of individual economic freedom. This article examines how this issue was addressed in the State of Milan, where ideas about freedom of contract championed by state reformers such as Pietro Verri and Cesare Beccaria were met with continued requests from merchant-manufacturers to apply corporal punishment and threat of imprisonment to ensure workers' attendance. Analysing the new regulations, the ideological credos of the new regime, and the effectiveness of the reforms as they played out on the ground in the silk industry, this article shows that the chance that labour relations could be managed within a civil law regime appeared to be in direct contrast with the dominant conception of workers' conditions, in particular their lack of propriety and good faith. As credit-debt bonds and limitations to weavers' mobility stood as the most effective means to ensure labour coercion, a closer look at the daily interactions in the workshop allows us to shed new light on the rationality of workers' practices like Saint Monday, cast by contemporary commentators in merely moralistic terms.
Le Mouvement Social, 2021
Most accounts describe industrialisation as the culmination of successive stages of development. ... more Most accounts describe industrialisation as the culmination of successive stages of development. This paper challenges such linear and schematic characterisations through an analysis of the labour hierarchies in silk textile production in Lombardy after the abolition of trade guilds. It begins by explaining how periods of strong growth in the textile market – and, conversely, periods of contraction and crisis – affected workers’ productive roles. We then analyse how efforts by the public authorities to reduce the theft of silk by workers forced them to distinguish between those who could legitimately sell the products they produced on the market and those only permitted to sell the force of their labour. Finally, on the basis of studies of factories in Como and Milan, we provide an account of the factors that determined the persistence of this fluidity in workers’ status.
The history of the hierarchical relationships in FIAT firm is one of the last blind spot in the h... more The history of the hierarchical relationships in FIAT firm is one of the last blind spot in the huge historiography about the Italian motor company. Using the industrial foreman as focal point, the author aims to fill this gap. By analyzing firm and union documents, this article retraces the progressive loss of margins of discretion by foremen that characterized the rapid implementation of Taylor-Fordist systems during the 50s and the 60s. Then, it describes the huge tension endured by the foremen during the intense cycle of workers’ struggles starting with the “hot autumn” in 1969 and finally their public stance in the famous “March of the 40'000” in October 1980. The author suggests to search into the roots of this central episode within the productive and managerial choices, the technology changes and the forms of workers struggles since the end of the World war II rather than describing it as a mere reaction against terrorism or political violence.
Drafts by Lorenzo Avellino
The goal of this paper is to consider how work discipline and trade discipline intertwined, from ... more The goal of this paper is to consider how work discipline and trade discipline intertwined, from the angle of a specific and situated practice: the theft by workers and artisans also known as embezzlement. What I wish to argue is that, both for the Lombard authorities and for the merchants, theft within the silk industry was not, as we might expect, a problem of surveillance of the workspace as much as it was a problem of trade regulation.
Talks by Lorenzo Avellino
Call for paper for Zapruder n° 65 article proposals (max. 3,000 characters including spaces) mus... more Call for paper for Zapruder n° 65 article proposals (max. 3,000 characters including spaces) must be sent in Italian, French or English by 31 July 2023 to [email protected].
Thesis Chapters by Lorenzo Avellino
This thesis studies the production and trade of silk from three interrelated perspectives to unde... more This thesis studies the production and trade of silk from three interrelated perspectives to understand the transition from an Ancien Régime economy to industrial capitalism in Lombardy. First, it emphasizes how liberalizing elites transformed the “political economy of silk”, and shows how liberals’ ideas trickled down to merchants and workers, determining the new intellectual coordinates around which the production of silk was regulated. Second, the thesis draws attention to the material reality of silk, showing that uncertainty about silk quality has always facilitated the development of a market for stolen silk, which then came under pressure due to the emergence of a new liberal conception of property rights. The third theme is the role of technical innovation in the industrialization process, with information asymmetry in silk exchanges declining with inventions that enabled more accurate measurement of the quality of silk, and the concentration of silk production as steam engines were adopted.
Books by Lorenzo Avellino
Fonderia Caratteri Nebiolo, 1878–1978. Nuovi studi critici, 2023
Un fondo archivistico è innanzitutto la sedimentazione delle ragioni che hanno portato alla sua c... more Un fondo archivistico è innanzitutto la sedimentazione delle ragioni che hanno portato alla sua costituzione. Quella del Fondo Tavano (o Fondo del gruppo di ricerca storica della Nebiolo), restituisce un tentativo ambizioso di salvataggio della memoria di un’esperienza industriale a suo modo unica da parte di un ex-dipendente. Un’iniziativa generosa e volontaristica, portata caparbiamente avanti per anni, che è proceduta sia dal basso, con l’appello ad altri colleghi a condividere la propria esperienza e le carte sepolte negli archivi privati, sia dall’alto, integrando documenti aziendali e accentrando materiale disseminato in altri fondi. Ne risulta un patrimonio “ibrido”, à metà tra archivio aziendale, oral history e storia politica, peculiare alla metodologia adottata dal gruppo di ricerca che ha accompagnato Tavano in questa esperienza, di cui si cercherà di ricostruire le specificità e le potenzialità ancora inespresse.
Uploads
Papers by Lorenzo Avellino
Drafts by Lorenzo Avellino
Talks by Lorenzo Avellino
Thesis Chapters by Lorenzo Avellino
Books by Lorenzo Avellino