Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies

by Constance Bantman (Editor), Bert Altena (Editor)

Overview

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. And yet, as several chapters highlight, anarchist discourses on the nation (as opposed to the state), patriotism and even race, were more nuanced than is usually assumed. The local and individual levels are also shown to be essential in anarchist militancy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032925851
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/14/2024
Series:	Routledge Studies in Cultural History
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Constance Bantman is lecturer in French at the University of Surrey.

Bert Altena is a former lecturer at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication.

Table of Contents

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 DiPaula 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 Kühnis 10. The Dangerous Liaisons of Belle-Epoque Anarchists: Internationalism, Transnationalism, 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

Editorial Reviews

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

From the Publisher