Reassessing the Transnational Turn

Description

This edited volume reassesses the ongoing transnational turn in anarchist and syndicalist studies, a field where the interest in cross-border connections has generated much innovative literature in the last decade. It presents and extends up-to-date research into several dynamic historiographic fields, and especially the history of the anarchist and syndicalist movements and the notions of transnational militancy and informal political networks.

Whilst restating the relevance of transnational approaches, especially in connection with the concepts of personal networks and mediators, the book underlines the importance of other scales of analysis in capturing the complexities of anarchist militancy, due to both their centrality as a theme of reflection for militants, and their role as a level of organization. Especially crucial is the national level, which is often overlooked due to the internationalism which was so central to anarchist ideology.

In the context of resurgent populist nationalism across the global North, especially Europe, as well as parts of the Global South, Reassessing the Transnational Turn is a timely and welcome exploration focusing on the high point of the historical anarchist movement, approximately between the 1870s and 1939. In it, some of the more problematic, politically ambiguous, and underexplored relationships between anarchist movements and (trans)nationalism are interrogated by a range of historians and political scholars.

Contributors include Davide Turcato, Ruth Kinna, Isabelle Felici, Kenyon Zimmer, Pietro Di Paola, Raymond Craib, Nino Kühnis, and Martin Baxmeyer.

Sujets

• Left-libertarianism
• Populism
• Socialism
• Nationalism

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781629634036
• Langue: English

Extrait

Praise for Reassessing the Transnational Turn
A compelling series of interventions. They speak not only to their direct disciplinary peers but also to broader currents and concerns across the social sciences. Anarchists, and Left academia more generally, tend to occupy a comfortable space in which it is easy to feel like our intellectual development and ideas are somehow immune from the gritty realities of social life and the various dimensions of nationalism, parochialism, and localism that run through it. On the contrary, Reassessing the Transnational Turn asks us to delve deeply and honestly into the canon and mythology of radicals past and reconsider their lived ambiguities and complexities, including the darker sides which we might prefer to ignore.
-Anthony Ince, Antipode
In practice the relation between anarchism and national movements is not as clear as anarchist theory would have it. Therefore, the contributions to this book, edited by Constance Bantman and Bert Altena, are not just important from an academic and historical point of view. This is an inspiring book, with many incentives for an as yet unwritten transnational history of German anarchism.
-Dieter Nelles, historian of German anarchism and syndicalism

Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies
Edited by Constance Bantman and Bert Altena
PM Press, 2017
Constance Bantman and Bert Altena 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62963-391-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959605
Cover by John Yates/Stealworks.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Printed in the USA by the Employee Owners of Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan.
www.thomsonshore.com
Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments
PART I Introduction
1
Introduction: Problematizing Scales of Analysis in Network-Based Social Movements

CONSTANCE BANTMAN AND BERT ALTENA
PART II Anarchist Theories of Nation, State, and Internationalism
2
Nations without Borders: Anarchists and National Identity

DAVIDE TURCATO
3
Kropotkin s Theory of the State: A Transnational Approach

RUTH KINNA
4
A Networking Historian: The Transnational, the National, and the Patriotic in and around Max Nettlau s Geschichte der Anarchie

BERT ALTENA
PART III Transnational Practices and Identities, Diasporic Cultures
5
Anarchists as Emigrants

ISABELLE FELICI
6
A Golden Gate of Anarchy: Local and Transnational Dimensions of Anarchism in San Francisco, 1880s-1930s

KENYON ZIMMER
7
The Game of the Goose. Italian Anarchism: Transnational, National, or Local Perspective?

PIETRO DI PAOLA
8
Sedentary Anarchists

RAYMOND CRAIB
PART IV The Resilience of Localism and Nationalism
9
More than an Antonym: A Close(r) Look at the Dichotomy between the National and Anarchism

NINO KUHNIS
10
The Dangerous Liaisons of Belle Epoque Anarchists: Internationalism, Transnationalism, and Nationalism in the French Anarchist Movement (1880-1914)

CONSTANCE BANTMAN
11
Mother Spain, We Love You! : Nationalism and Racism in Anarchist Literature during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)

MARTIN BAXMEYER

Contributors

Bibliography

Index
Figures
8.1 Map of Santiago, Chile, c. 1920. The circle highlights the general area known as the Barrio Latino. (Source: Map courtesy of Olin Library Map Room, Cornell University.)
8.2 Detail of Barrio Latino, from Figure 8.1 with residence and workplace of Casimiro Barrios. The ovals indicate residences of anarchists or anarchist sympathizers. Addresses are approximate to a given city block. (Source: Map courtesy of Olin Library Map Room, Cornell University.)
9.1 The imprisonment of Luigi Bertoni, 1912. (Source: La Voix du Peuple, 7, no. 35 [September 7, 1912], 2.)
Acknowledgments
This book began as two panels at the 2012 Glasgow ESSHC. The proceedings were published as an edited volume by Routledge in 2015. As with the first edition, our thanks go to all the contributors to the volume for their patience, commitment, and excellent contributions; to Ruth Kinna and Carl Levy for reviewing some chapters; to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments. Our thoughts remain with Nino K hnis, who died in a cycling accident before the publication; we are very grateful to B atrice Ziegler, Mark Kyburz, and Konrad Kuhn for preparing his chapter so it could feature in the volume. On the happy occasion of Reassessing the Transnational Turn being published for the second time, by PM Press, we would like to thank Routledge for ceding the rights and making this new edition possible, and in particular Max Novick for his support in this process. The PM Press project originated with James Proctor s enthusiasm and support, and our thanks also go to the PM Press team, in particular Ramsey Kanaan, Craig O Hara, and Jonathan Rowland.
Part I
Introduction
1 Introduction: Problematizing Scales of Analysis in Network-Based Social Movements
Constance Bantman and Bert Altena
Pre-World War I anarchist and syndicalist movements have proved to be extremely productive fields of investigation for transnational historians over the last 10 years or so, largely due to the fact that they formed the world s first and most widespread transnational movements organized from below, 1 underpinned by internationalist creeds, at a time when socialism itself was a uniquely powerful driver of global connections. 2 It is fair to say that over the course of this decade, substantial progress has been made in mapping out transnational anarchist movements, resulting in methodological advances that may be of interest to specialists of other periods and movements. Anarchist-themed transnational history has been bound with concepts of networks, 3 social fields, social space, cultural transfers, and cultural brokers; studies have shown how the transnational angle can lead to a thorough reinterpretation of the history of a political movement such as anarchism. 4
Unsurprisingly, given the global and entangled nature of the anarchist movement in this period, a great variety of scalar approaches have been adopted in order to write its histories. This diversity of genres and levels of analysis is worth emphasizing. They include: National or regional studies on areas where transnational forces are at play, largely in connection with migratory phenomena. Examples that can be cited in this perspective include Steven Hirsch s work on Peruvian anarcho-syndicalism, Kirk Shaffer on anarchist movements and networks in the Caribbean, as well as Kenyon Zimmer s work on immigration and anarchism in the United States, to name but a few. 5 Studies on movements in transnational configurations rather than specific locales: Italian anarchists may be the most striking case in this respect. In this instance, the emphasis has been placed on the connections between those who have left and those who haven t, the modalities of transnational political and social organization, and the repercussions for the movement as a whole. 6 Studies at the urban level, focusing on the depiction and analysis of anarchist metropolises, global cities, or hubs, as they are increasingly often called: London, 7 Sao Paulo, 8 San Francisco, 9 Buenos Aires. 10 Such case studies have usually focused on examining daily political sociabilities and possible discrepancies between lesser known and more prominent militants, the role of cultural manifestations in fostering a transnational exilic culture, cultural practices and their relation with politics, and the day-to-day interactions between groups of different nationalities, including in relation with language practices. Commemorations of key events in anarchist memory (the Paris Commune, Chicago, and, later, May Day) are important transnational events, bringing together local groups and uniting cities through simultaneous celebration. The biographical genre (and its variant, prosopographical studies 11 ), which continues to garner considerable interest, all the more as anarchism is a very individualized movement, with a principled lack of hierarchical organization. In addition to the thrills of embracing an individual destiny and examining the realities of transnationalism in a very tangible way, it can be surmised that the popularity of this genre owes to the analytical scope and the many questionings that it allows for. It affords great flexibility and nuances, and a space to pinpoint and examine the contradictions that collective approaches tend to obliterate. Individuals-at least those to whom specific studies are devoted-are, like cities, the nodes in the networks, and they provide an insight into the latter. Thus, Errico Malatesta has proved to be an enduringly fascinating topic of study. 12 Benedict Anderson has explored the history of national independence and global politics through a dual biographical monograph. 13 Peter Kropotkin s biographers have detailed the very rich and varied personal networks with which he was connected, but there remains plenty of scope for a systematic investigation along these lines, which would reconstitute the channels of influence that he received and diffused. 14 In the context of the French movement, Emile Pouget, Jean Grave, Louise Michel, and lesser known intermediaries such as Malato, have been examined as instances of different types of transnational intermediaries. 15 Revealingly, several of the studies contained in this volume illustrate the relevance of