Interview

Ulrike Lindner, Thomas Kaal and Kim König

Epistemic Inequalities, the ILO, and Labour History in the Global South

22 June 2026

(0:18 h)

Interview

Ulrike Lindner, Thomas Kaal and Kim König

Epistemic Inequalities, the ILO, and Labour History in the Global South

In this episode, Kim König and Thomas Kaal sit down with Ulrike Lindner, Professor of Modern History at the University of Cologne, to talk about the research behind her lecture on epistemic inequalities in the Global South and their role in reproducing social hierarchies. Drawing on archival work on the International Labour Organization and its discussions of so‑called “native labour” in the 1920s, they explore how she traces the exclusion of Black experts, the authority granted to European imperial insiders, and the ways these knowledge practices shaped ILO policies on colonial and forced labour in the decades before the Second World War.

Don't miss Ulrike Lindner's accompanying GHIL Lecture on “Epistemic Inequalities and their Consequences: The International Labour Organization and its Treatment of Colonial Workers after 1919”.