Rethinking Internationalism: Transnational Activism and its Pasts
International aims and visions have been common to a wide range of political projects, with socialism, feminism, pacifism, anti-imperialism and environmentalism being just cases in point.
However, international cooperation could be deployed from very different political vantage points, and be used to ends that were far from progressive or benign. As such, it is crucial to consider ‘internationalism’ in terms of its pluralities – as a phenomenon that operated on different scales and was ideologically variegated. This paper explores the ways in which internationalism both spawned and was sustained by different forms of transnational activism. In this context, it sets Laqua's past work on activism in relation to an ongoing, collaborative venture that aims at taking stock of existing research on internationalism and diversify our understanding of the multilayered practices associated with internationalism.
Practical
Date 10 June
Time 16:00
Place IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance Free entrance, but please register at event@iisg.nl
Daniel Laqua is Associate Professor of European History at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne. He has published widely on the history of international movements and organisations, examining the transnational efforts of pacifists, humanists socialists, anarchists, students and intellectuals. He has written two monographs, The Age of Internationalism and Belgium, 1880–1930: Peace, Progress and Prestige (Manchester, 2013) and Activism across Borders since 1870: Causes, Campaigns and Conflicts in and Beyond Europe (London, 2023). He is the principal investigator of ‘Global Governance, Trust and Democratic Engagement in Past and Present’ (an international collaborative project funded by research councils from four different countries) and the co-lead of ‘Rethinking Internationalism: Histories and Pluralities’ (funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council).
