The team of the TextileLab project is based at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, where it is embedded in the research group Economical and Social History. Please click on their names for full bios and publication lists.
Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk
Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk is an economic and social historian specialized in the history of labour relations, notably women’s and children’s work. She is currently Principal Investigator of the ERC-TextileLab project.
Corinne Boter
Corinne Boter is a social and economic historian interested in the history of gender labour market inequality. She is currently investigating the long-term development of men's and women's wages in the textile industry (1800-2000).
Sarah Carmichael
Sarah Carmichael is a social and economic historian. Together with Corinne Boter and Julia Samaras, she is currently in the process of building a dataset on wages in the textile industry from 1800 onwards as well as a dataset on global tariffs.
Aditi Dixit
Aditi Dixit is a PhD candidate in social and economic history at Utrecht University. Her research is on the socio-historical determinants of the divergence between Indian and Japanese textile industry in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Kate Frederick
Kate Frederick is a social and economic historian, who is currently researching textile manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa for the Race to the Bottom project.
Faheem Rokadiya
Faheem Rokadiya was a PhD candidate under the supervision of Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk and Sarah Carmichael between 2018 and 2022. His research was on industrialization and the continuation of household textile production in the UK and China ca. 1750-1990.
Julia Samaras
Julia Samaras was a student assistant for the ERC-TextileLab project from 2019 till 2020. She is currently finishing her graduate degree on History of Politics and Society at Utrecht University.
Bianca Visser
I support the ERC project “Race to the Bottom?” as project coordinator. As such, I am responsible for the day-to-day management, carry out administrative tasks, coordinate conferences and ensure that the website TextileLab is up-to-date. I also contribute to the EU reports that have to be delivered every so often to our benefactor. Please feel free to contact me if you have a question about the project or our activities. I'll be happy to help you.
Wenjun Yu
Wenjun Yu is an economic and political historian. She joined the ERC- TextileLab project in July of 2022 with the focus on the regional developments of Chinese household textile production as well as their impact on women’s work in modern China.