Research Group Communities Comparisons Connections

Jan-Frederik Abbeloos

  JF

 

 

Ufo Room 130.012

Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 35

B-9000 Gent

tel: ++32 (0)9 33 10284

email:

Linkedin: http://be.linkedin.com/pub/jan-frederik-abbeloos/46/a1a/907

Info

  • Master in History / Master in Economics / Master in Journalism
  • Member of CLIOHRES.net, Thematic Work Group “Europe and the World”.
  • Member of Posthumus Institute

 

Research/Interests

  • Phd-research: Controlling the copper: the governance of the copper production chain from a global perspective [case: the copper chain from Katanga (1908-1970)]
My field of interest is the process of international economic integration and the role of states and enterprises in this process. I am currently preparing a Ph.D. on the production chain that the copper multinational Union Minière du Haut-Katanga set up and commanded within a global copper market between 1908 and 1970. The copper that was extracted in Katanga, the southern province of the former Belgian colony Congo, was melted, refined, treated and sold throughout different parts of the world [Congo, Belgium, the United States], which resulted in an international production or value chain. The main question of the research is why and how such a chain was organized and governed and how this affected and was affected by processes of political and economical development. This research wants to contribute to a better understanding of the aspirations and strategies of a multinational corporation and to offer an insight on how and why a certain industrial sector globalises. This way it can show how production processes in different political jurisdictions and geographical areas were integrated parts of a complex division of labour marked by phases of expansion and contraction.
Promotor and supervisors: Prof.dr. Eric Vanhaute, Prof.dr. Guy Vanthemsche (VUB), Prof.dr. Peer Vries (Universität Wien)
  • Globalization, economic integration and (under)development: how to measure and how to explain?
  • Nations, networks and people in world history, in search for a unit of analysis.

Publications

Click here for a full list of publications and full text access.

 

Chapters in Books

  • 2012 (submitted): “Mobutu, Suharto and the Post-Colonial Dual Mandate (1965-1997)”, in Ewout Frankema & Frans Buelens (eds.), Colonial Exploitation and Economic Development: The Belgian Congo and the Netherlands Indies Compared, London: Routledge.
  • 2012 (accepted): “Global Value/Commodity Chains”, in Helmut Anheier & Mark Juergensmeyer (eds.), Encyclopedia of Global Studies, London: Sage.
  • 2010: “Connections, Connections, Connections! Making Sense of the Relationship Between National Economic Development and Natural Resource Dependence on the Atlantic Copper Market During the Long Twentieth Century”, pp. 175-195 in Patrick Manning & Barry Gills (eds.), Andre Gunder Frank and Global Development: Visions, Remembrances, and Explorations, London: Routledge.
  • 2009: “Antiglobalization Movement” and “Value Chains”, in Charles Wankel, Golson, J. Geoffrey (eds.), Encyclopedia of Business in Today's World, London: Sage.
  • 2008: “Belgium’s Expansionist History Between 1870 and 1930: Imperialism and the Globalisation of Belgian Business”, pp. 105-127 in Csaba Lévai (ed.), Europe and its Empires, Pisa: Plus.

 

Articles:

  • 2011: [with Eric Vanhaute] “Cutting the Gordian Knot of Global History: Giovanni Arrighi’s model on the Great Divergence and Convergence”, in Journal of World-Systems Research, vol. 17, issue 1, pp. 89-106.
  • 2009 [wit Eric Vanhaute] “Op Zoek naar de Wortels van de Globale Wereld: Globalisering als Historisch Verhaal”, in Hermes: Tijdschrift van de Vlaamse Verenigigng Leraren Geschiedenis, vol. 13, pp. 62-69.
  • 2008: “Honderd Jaar na Datum: een Belgische Onderzoeksagenda met Betrekking tot de Belgische Koloniale Geschiedenis?”, in Bulletin of the Association of Belgian Contemporary Historians, vol.30, issue 2, pp.8-14.
  • 2008: “La Chine, Dernière Chance du Capitalisme?”, in La Revue Internationale des Livres et des Idées, issue 8, pp. 28-31.
  • 2007: “Copper in the Congo: the Political Economy of Wasted Opportunities”, in Bulletin of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, issue 54/57, [Special issue on Africa’s resources in the global economy].
  • 2007:  “Professioneel amateurisme : jeugdhuiswerking tijdens de jaren zeventig”, in Bijdragen tot de Eigentijdse Geschiedenis/Cahiers d’Histoire du Temps Présent, vol. 18, pp. 59-84.
  • 2005: “Het andersglobalisme en de liberaliseringsthese : anders en beter?”, in Brood & Rozen. Tijdschrift voor de Geschiedenis van Sociale Bewegingen, vol. 24, issue 3, pp. 7-25.
  • 2004: “De Zuilen Van Het Jeugdhuis”, in Van Mensen & Dingen, vol. 2, issue 1, pp. 26-37.

 

Reviews: 

  • 2008: “Ben Wubs, International Business and National War Interests: Unilever Between Reich and Empire 1939-1945”, in Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis, vol. 5, issue 4, pp. 176-178.
  • 2008: “Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing. Lineages for the Twenty-First Century”, at Geschichte.Transnational [http://geschichte-transnational.clio-online.net/transnat.asp].
  • 2007: “Frans Buelens: Congo, een Financieel-Economische Geschiedenis”, in Bulletin of the Association of Belgian Contemporary Historians, vol. 29, issue 3, pp. 24-25.
  • 2007: “Francine Mestrum, Donald Weber (eds.), Inside Outside. Past and Future of the Anti-Globalization Movement. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Anti-Globalism”, in Brood en Rozen, vol.26, issue1, pp. 78-83.
  • 2007: “Guy Vanthemsche, La Belgique et le Congo”, in Bulletin of the Association of Belgian Contemporary Historians, vol. 29, issue 2, pp. 34-36.

 

 International Conference Participation

  • 2011: “Post-colonial Divergence in the Colonial Mirror: Natural Resource Dependence and Economic Development in Indonesia and Congo Compared”, Paper presented at the Workshop Colonial Extraction in the Netherlands Indies and Belgian Congo: Institutions, Institutional Change and Long Term Consequences, second meeting, Antwerp, 7- 8 October.
  • 2010: “Belgian Congo in the Commodity Lottery: Institutional Design and the Valorization of Natural Resource Wealth”, Paper presented at the Workshop Colonial Extraction in the Netherlands Indies and Belgian Congo: Institutions, institutional change and long term consequences, Utrecht, 3-4 December.
  • 2010: Presentation of the ongoing Ph.D. Research at the International Institute of Social History Monthly Seminars, Amsterdam, 26 January.
  • 2009: “Born with a Copper Spoon, Global Copper and Local Development”,  Paper prepared for The Workshop on the Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: The Media of Capitalism: Labor, Commodities and Money 2009‐2010. Harvard University, 23 November.
  • 2009: [Together with Aldwin Roes] “International Business, Economic Nationalism and Colonial Rule: the Case of the Katanga Copper Mines, 1900-1928”, Paper presented at the World Economic History Conference, Utrecht, 3-7 August.
  • 2009: “National Development and the Global Copper Commodity Chain: Looking Back at the Limits of the 1960s Nationalization Agenda”, Paper presented  at The International Workshop Re-Appropriating World Market Production: Commodity Chains in the Project of Postcolonial Development (1920-2000), University of Bern, 18-19 June.
  • 2009: “Beyond the Hype: Globalization”, Paper presented at the Workshop ‘The Dictionary of Transnational History’. A Discussion of the Key Areas within the Subject, Ghent University, 4 March. 
  • 2009: “The Governance of the Copper Production Chain from a Global Perspective”, Presentation given at the Workshop History of Commodities and Commodity Chains, University of Konstanz, 26-28 February. 
  • 2008: “Globalisation as a Metaphor: the Spatial Changes of the World Copper Business (1870-2000)”, Paper presented at the 2nd Annual Workshop of the Commodities of Empire Project, London, 11-12 September. 
  • 2008: “Imperialism Versus Globalisation in the Long Twentieth Century”, Paper presented at the Second European Congress in World and Global History, Dresden, 3-5 July.
  • 2008: “International Business, Economic Nationalism and Colonial Rule: the Case of the Katanga Copper Mines, 1900-1928”, Paper presented at the Posthumus Institute Conference, Groningen, 22-23 May.
  • 2008: “Explaining the Spatial Transformations of the World Copper Market During the Long Twentieth Century”, Paper presented during the Conference Honouring Andre Gunder Frank's Legacy of Critical Social Science, Pittsburgh, 11-13 April.
  • 2008: “The Katangese commodity chain and Belgian colonial history”, Presentation given during the annual Dag Van de Nieuwste Geschiedenis, Brussels, 15 March. [Plenary session on current research into the Belgian colonial past].
  • 2008: “Whose Multinational? The Relationship Between British and Belgian National Interests in the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (1906-1925)”, Paper presented at the Seventh European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, 26 February. 
  • 2007: “In Search of Valuable (Re)Sources: the Copper Multinational Union Minière du Haut-Katanga in World History”, Paper presented at the World History Graduate Workshop on New Approaches to Sources in World History, Oxford University, 7 March.
  • 2006: “Studying the evolving relationships between production, markets, ownership, labour and governance from a commodity chain perspective. Case: the copper mining economy in Katanga”, Paper discussed during the ESTER Research Design Course, Amsterdam, 9-11 October.