A Balancing Act between Universities and Trade Union Headquarters: The Swedish Labour History Project at the Labour Movement Archives and Library in Stockholm

The Labour Movement Archives and Library in Stockholm (Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, or ARAB) has been and still is one of the more important nodes of labor history in Sweden. It is well known among academics as well as activists who aim to write movement history. ARAB is financed not only by the Swedish state but also the labor movement to generate new ideas for public labor history. Although there are many units and higher education institutions in Sweden that played a vital role during the 1970s and 1980s, it was probably the research agendas developed by ARAB through seminars and publications that kept the field of labor history a vibrant area of scholarship. The main difference between ARAB and similar institutions is its steady attempt to create spaces where academics—such as historians and social scientists—and activists can meet in order to produce and promote new approaches to labor history. The results and even the success of this work have been built on two institutions at ARAB: the journal Arbetarhistoria, published since 1977, and the research council at ARAB, established in the early 1980s.