Biography

Tijl Vanneste is a historian who has been working on trust, trade networks and international commercial litigation, slavery in the context of diamond mining, and sailors’ employment in the Mediterranean. His focus has been on the global early modern world. His current research is dealing with women’s work and gender relations in the diamond industry (1600-1900).

He obtained his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence in 2009 and has worked and studied at the University of Exeter, the Sorbonne, Yale University, Berkeley, University of Utrecht and the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. He has published three monographs, the last one dealing with a general history of labour used in global diamond mining. It was published in 2021 by Reaktion Books.

Research fields

• Slavery and colonialism
• History of gender relations
• Maritime history
• Diamonds

Selected publications

• Vanneste, Tijl. “Towards a More Intimate Understanding of Black Female Lives in Slavery,” Itinerario 46 (2022): 450-459. [link]
• Vanneste, Tijl. Blood, Sweat and Earth. The Struggle for Control over the World’s Diamonds Throughout History. London: Reaktion Books, 2021. [link]
• Vanneste, Tijl. Intra-European Litigation in Eighteenth-Century Izmir. The Role of the Merchants’ Style. Leiden: Brill, 2021. [link] 🔓
• Vanneste, Tijl. “Instruments of Trade or Maritime Entrepreneurs? The Economic Agency of Dutch Seamen in the Golden Age,” Journal of Social History 52 (2019): 1132–1164. [link]

Main projects

• Individual project “Are diamonds a girls best friend? – Women’s work in a world of diamonds (1600-1850)” — Hosted by the IHC and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (CEECIND/02899/2018). 2020-2026
• Postdoctoral researcher at the project “CONFIGMED — Mediterranean configurations: Intercultural trade, commercial litigation and legal pluralism in historical perspective” — Coordinated by Wolfgang Kaiser (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and fundes by the European Research Council (Grant agreement ID: 295868). 2015-2017 [link]
• Postdoctoral researcher at the project “LUPE — Sailing into Modernity: Comparative Perspectives on the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century European Economic Transition” — Coordinated by Maria Fusaro (University of Exeter) and fundes by the European Research Council (Grant agreement ID: 284340). 2012-2014 [link]