Michelle Carmody - Amnesty becomes International
Amnesty International was created in London in 1961 as a campaign against political imprisonment. As the remit of the organisation grew, so too did its membership across the globe. By 1978 Amnesty counted over 200,000 members and supporters in 111 countries, with ‘national sections’ (formal Amnesty structures) in 35 of those countries. This expansion was, however, uneven, with significantly more interest generated in the global North than in the South.
This was a big concern for the organisation’s leadership, who wanted the organisation to be an international one, not a western one. As a result, recruiting an international membership and establishing organisational structures across Asia, Africa and Latin America became a central organisational objective during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
This lecture by Michelle Carmody introduces the project Making Amnesty international, which is focused on mapping and understanding this concern to become a ‘truly international organisation’ and on understanding the dynamics behind this uneven growth and its legacies. A key question driving the project is how people create enduring solidarities across distance and difference, and how the challenges in doing so shape the internationalism that results. This lecture will explore these questions, focusing specifically on Amnesty’s attempts to foster membership and organisational structures in South Asia during the 1970s. At the same time, it will reflect on the promises and pitfalls of the IISG’s Amnesty holdings for telling a decentralised history of this international organisation.
Practical
Date 12 November
Time 16:00
Place IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance Free entrance, but please register at event@iisg.nl
Michelle Carmody is an historian and sociologist of Latin America in the world. Particular topics of expertise include human rights, democratisation, transitional justice, internationalism, development, and the Cold War and its impacts in Latin America. She is currently a Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellow at KU Leuven.
