Chair of Economic and Social History Michelle Watzig M.A.

The PhD project “Value and Visibility of Work(ers): British and German Seafarers in Multi-Ethnic Contexts, c. 1880–1920” explores the extent to which the ethnic background of seafarers influenced the (in)visibility and perception of labor.

The aim of this research project is to analyze how Asian seamen shaped both the material and immaterial appreciation of labor in the merchant and passenger shipping industry. The project seeks to make different actors—from institutions to the seafarers themselves—visible and to analyze their interconnections. By combining economic and social history with transnational and global historical approaches, it aims to generate new insights into the self-image and external perception of seafarers in the age of imperialism.

A closer look at British and German maritime trade in the late 19th and early 20th centuries reveals that it would not have been possible without foreign workers. The increasing use of steamships, in particular, led to physically demanding, hazardous, and poorly paid jobs—such as stokers or coal trimmers in the engine rooms—being predominantly carried out by foreign laborers. For both British and German shipping companies, the recruitment of Asian seafarers was an essential factor in ensuring the feasibility and economic profitability of maritime trade enterprises.

Although multi-ethnic ship crews were not a phenomenon unique to modern times, the structural transformation of the shipping industry, along with nationalism, imperialism, and the labor movement, raises particular questions regarding the collaboration of people from diverse national and ethnic backgrounds. This research examines how British and German seafarers defined and negotiated their professional status in contact with Asian seamen.

For the project, archival research will be conducted in the United Kingdom (London and Coventry) as well as in Germany (Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin).

Michelle is a doctoral researcher in social and economic history at Heidelberg University. Her research focuses on the visibility and recognition of labour, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between British and Asian seafarers between 1880 and the 1920s.

After completing a Franco-German bachelor's degree in history at the University of Bamberg and the Université de Strasbourg, she earned her Master of Arts in History at Heidelberg University in 2022. She is particularly interested in labour history, New Naval History, and Global History in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Michelle enjoys working in international contexts, which led her to complete an Erasmus exchange at the Université de Liège in Belgium during her undergraduate studies. Additionally, since 2021, she has worked multiple times as a Bilingual Assistant at the German School of Middlebury College in the USA. For her research, she regularly travels to London. 

Since 2022, Michelle has been a research assitant at the Chair of Social and Economic History. She especially enjoys teaching. In her seminars, she focuses on topics such as Human-Animal Studies and New Naval History. It has been a pleasure for her to conduct an Erasmus Teaching Mobility at the Università degli Studi di Milano in early 2025. 

In 2023, she began supporting the public outreach of the project “Zwischen Unsichtbarkeit, Repression und lesbischer Emanzipation – Frauenliebende* Frauen im deutschen Südwesten 1945 bis 1980er Jahre”. 

Winter Semester 2025/26
Seminar: „Officers and Gentlemen“ and „True British Sailors“ – Masculinity and Seafring in Britain during the long 19th Century

Practice Class: From the Box to the Stalls – A Social History of Opera Since the 17th Century

• Economic and Social History, Labour History
• Maritime History (New Naval History)
• Global History
• Gender Studies
• Human-Animal Studies