Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte

Dr. Bruno Gabriel Witzel de Souza

Academic Positions

  • 2024

    • Postdoctoral researcher at University of Göttingen – Institute for Economic & Social History

  • 2024

    • Associate researcher – DAAD-Prime Fellow at University of Tübingen

  • 2022-2023

    • Visiting assistant professor – DAAD-Prime Fellow at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

  • 2022

    • Lecturer: “Development Economics: Introduction & Applications” and Aarhus Summer School 2022 at Aarhus University

  • 2020

    • Lecturer: “Development Economics”, Spring 2020 at Jacobs University Bremen

  • 2019-2022

    • Postdoctoral researcher at University of Göttingen – Institute for Economic & Social History

  • 2019

    • Postdoctoral researcher at University of Göttingen – Ibero-American Institute


Education

  • 2015-2019

    • Ph.D. – Development Economics from University of Göttingen
    DFG's Research Training Group 1723 – Globalization and Development
    Thesis: “From bonded laborers to educated citizens? Immigration, labor markets and human capital in São Paulo, Brazil (1820-2010)”

  • 2012-2014

    • M.A. – Development Economics from University of Göttingen
    Thesis: “The combined effect of institutions and human capital for economic development: a case study of German immigration to São Paulo, Brazil (1840-1929)”

  • 2007-2012

    • B.A. – Economics from University of São Paulo


Membership in Scientific Projects and Research Groups

  • Since 2024

    • Brazilian Lab, Inequalities Hub – Princeton University
    Associate Researcher

  • Since 2024

    • Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) – University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
    Reginal Grant: “Accounting for the countryside: rural & environmental history in the coffee economy of Southeastern Brazil (1890-1990)”
    Academic & managerial coordinator

  • Since 2023

    • German-speaking Press in Brazil: A Digital Humanities Approach – University of Tübingen
    Associate researcher & consultant

  • Since 2021

    • Grupo de Pesquisa em História e Evolução da Agricultura e Complexos Agroindustriais (GEPHAC) – University of São Paulo
    Associate researcher

  • Since 2019

    • Instituto Histórico e Geográfico de Campinas (IHGGC)
    International correspondent

  • Since 2015

    • Historical Household Budgets Project
    Associate researcher

  • 2019-2022

    • Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) – University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
    Principal Investigator – Project "Labor, livelihood, and immigration in a Brazilian plantation: the archives of Ibicaba farm"

  • 2018-2022

    • Centre for Global Migration Studies (CeMig) – University of Göttingen
    Associate researcher


Publication List (Selected)

  1. "The same contract that is suitable for your Excellency: immigration and emulation in the adoption of sharecropping-cum-debt arrangements in Brazil (1835-1880)" (2024).
    The Economic History Review, Vol. 77 (2)
  2. "Like the swing of the pendulum: the history of government-sponsored rural settlements (1820-1920)" (2023)
    Economic History of Developing Regions, Vol. 38 (3)
  3. "Precedents of mass migration: policies, occupations, and the sorting of foreigners in São Paulo, Brazil (1872)" (2022)
    Economic History of Developing Regions, Vol. 37 (1)
  4. "A enormidade de um 'livrinho': reflexões sobre a primeira edição (1858) de 'Os colonos na província [de] St. Paulo, no Brasil' de Thomas Davatz" (2022)
    Anais do Museu Paulista: História e Cultura Material, Vol. 30
  5. "Immigration and the path dependence of education: the case of German-speakers in São Paulo, Brazil" (2018)
    The Economic History Review, Vol. 71 (2)
  6. Witzel de Souza, B. G., Silva Ferreira, L. M., and Balasubramanian, P. (forthcoming, 2024). "The economics of mass migration". In Engel, A., and Brugger, E. (eds.) Kolonialismus und Ökonomie. De Gruyter: Handbücher zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte.
  7. Witzel de Souza, B. G., and Faleiros, R. N. (2023). "A contract with many facets: sharecropping and credit interlinkages in Brazilian plantations (1840-1940)" In Nederveen Meerkerk, E., and Bauer, R. (ed.) Global Agricultural Workers from the 17th to the 21st Century.
    Brill: Studies in Global Social History
  8. Witzel de Souza, B. G. (2019). “Organizations matter: German schools and educational performance amid Brazilian plantations (1840-1940)”. In Mitch, D., and Cappelli, G. (eds.) Globalization and the Rising of Mass Schooling.
    Palgrave Macmillan: Palgrave Studies in Economic History

Book / Edited Volumes

  1. Witzel de Souza, B. G. and Mügge, M. (editors) (2024, forthcoming). The bicentenial of German-speaking immigration to Brazil: New perspectives from Economic History (provisional title) – Approved for Vol. 27 (3) of História Econômica & História de Empresas (journal of the Brazilian Association of Researchers in Economic History, ABPHE).
  2. Witzel de Souza, B. G., and Gardenal, L. A. S. (2021). Ibicaba (1817-2017). Entendendo, vivendo e construindo futuros. Campinas: Editora Pontes, 471 pages. ISBN: 978-65-5637-248-8

Ongoing Projects

  1. From Data to Data (I). Protocols from the Ibicaba Project: mechanical cleaning, imaging, and metadata with controlled vocabularies (jointly with Leonardo Gardenal).
  2. From Data to Data (II). Reflections on researchers' choices in generating new sources and datasets for the Humanities and the Applied Social Sciences (jointly with Leonardo Gardenal).
  3. "For how long still?" Counting yearly workdays and workday lengths in Brazilian agriculture (1890-1970): New micro-evidence (jointly with Thales Zamberlan).
  4. Migratory responses to war and conflict in global, long-run perspective, 1820s-2020s (jointly with Jörg Baten)