MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

Hi Tate, I having read your blogpost, I too have to agree that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the wide range of presentations from the whole class. Your comment on the broad nature of transnational history, that is reflected in the diverse range of projects at last week’s Tutorial is one that stood out to me, as I too was surprised by the wide range of projects that have developed within our class. Whilst they hold transnational and global links, the topics vary vastly, which has been something I have found very enjoying hearing about. This is the first modern history module that I have been a part of that has given students such an individual choice in what to choose their projects on, and where to take them. It has been great to hear about the different projects, their aims, and key questions of inquiry. I have been able to learn about brand new areas of history I hadn’t heard about before, like the Indian Pundits and their journeys of mapping, to fishing rights in Alaska. The project presentations not only provided a way to hear about everyone’s topics, but gave an insight into their methods, and how everyone’s projects have changed over time. Furthermore, like yourself, I enjoyed hearing about the broad range of sources, particularly primary sources, that students are implementing. I too plan to see what primary sources can be implemented into my project, to help discover insights into how golf has changed racially. Your point about ‘inception vs reception’ was one that related to my project, where I have seen a difference within Tiger Woods influence, and the structural changes within golf itself.

I believe your blog captures one of the most important parts of this module – how hearing about different projects, under the larger umbrella that is transnational history, can sharpen our own historical skills, improve our own projects, and historical skills.

With my previous blogpost serving as an evaluation of my project as a whole, I wanted to use this blogpost to narrow in on a particular area of the project. This is the way that my project has changed and developed, since it first became an idea in the early stages of this module. When deciding upon a project on Race, class, and Tiger Woods’ impact on the golf, I believed the project would focus heavily on the many ways in which Tiger Woods has been able to influence the sport, by encouraging a wider, more diverse range of individuals to get involved in the sport, and thus making the game more diverse, and accessible. This came from the point of view of a golfer, not a historian, and was simply an assumption. I had seen his mass support and longevity within the game and thus believed this would’ve translated to change within the game. Whilst my research thus far has shown this to be partly true, it is not the whole story.

As mentioned in my recent presentation, primary sources show glimpses of Tiger’s success in changing the racial and class dynamics of the game. In the U.S., Tiger’s impact saw the term ‘mixed race’ brought to congress, showing a growing advancement of racial identities beyond fixed categories. Furthermore, in Thailand, Tiger’s mothers Thai background meant that the country celebrated them as one of his own. Thai PGA golfers have spoken on how they believe this caused increased inspiration, that helped lead to the increased Thai representation in professional golf. However, throughout my current research I am yet to find concrete ways that Woods was able to break down many of the structural class and racial barriers within golf, particularly the exclusive domain of private golf clubs. Even after the impact of Woods many of these have remained predominantly white and tailored towards the extremely wealthy. Thus, this is the narrative my essay is now heading towards. Despite my original thoughts and ideas, the focus of my essay must reflect the evidence available to me.

This project has allowed me to explore and investigate new areas of golf in a way I didn’t expect and discover new narratives. Therefore, I hope future students of this module also choose projects where they already have some prior interest. Rather than limiting their perspective, this familiarity can provide a starting point, allowing them to discover new questions, challenge their existing assumptions, and move beyond the ideas they first brought to the project.

When I first developed my project, I approached the Cold War through a fairly familiar question: how rigid was the Iron Curtain? I was interested in whether cultural exchange, specifically Soviet ballet tours, revealed cracks in what is often portrayed as a highly divided world.

However, as I began reading more widely, particularly in transnational history, I realised that this question, although interesting, was too broad and somewhat descriptive. It focused on outcomes rather than processes and more importantly, it did not fully reflect the methodological approaches I had explored in my earlier work.

Through engaging with historians such as Patricia Clavin, Pierre-Yves Saunier and Akira Iriye, I began to rethink my project. Instead of asking whether the Iron Curtain was rigid, I shifted my focus to how cultural exchange actually operated across it. This led me to a more specific and, I think, more analytical question: who shaped the meaning of Soviet ballet tours?

This shift also helped me connect my project more clearly to broader historiography. Historians such as Małgorzata Fidelis have already shown that the Cold War was not as rigid as it is often assumed to be. Similarly, Antje Dietze and Katja Naumann emphasise the importance of transnational actors and spatial interaction. Instead of just repeating these arguments, my project now aims to show how such interaction worked in practice, using ballet tours as a case study.

One of the most interesting aspects of this process has been realising that cultural diplomacy was not something that was only imposed by the Soviet state. While historians such as Christina Ezrahi and Cadra Peterson McDaniel convincingly demonstrate that ballet was used as a tool of ideological projection, the actual impact of these tours was far less controllable. Audience reactions, press coverage, and even incidents such as the Nina Pomeranova case suggest that meaning was shaped through interaction between multiple actors.

This realisation has been both exciting and challenging. One of the main difficulties I have encountered is moving from a state-centred perspective to a genuinely transnational one. It is easy to identify Soviet intentions, but I suppose it is much harder to trace how audiences, performers and institutions interacted to produce meaning. This has required me to think more carefully about sources, particularly those that capture reception, such as newspaper reviews and memoirs.

If I were to start this project again, I would begin with a clearer methodological focus. Initially, I treated transnational history more as a background framework rather than something that should actively shape my research questions. Only later did I realise that it needed to be my central approach.

Overall, this process has shown me that research is not linear and refining a question is an essential part of developing a stronger and more focused argument. In my case, moving from the idea of a rigid Iron Curtain to a focus on interaction and agency has allowed me to engage more critically with both my sources and the broader historiography.

I really loved your presentation! I think you’ve made a great amount of progress with your work and research regarding queer communities in Miami. I remember vaguely in one of our groups discussions in class you telling me you were worried about potentially finding the sources you needed, especially with the added difficulty of the Spanish language barrier in certain regards. But I think that you’ve done super well finding what you need for this project. I did appreciate your comment about how you shifting towards using art and story telling as a way of finding out first hand experiences of those in the queer community. I think the story telling is especially compelling because in most minority groups, especially immigrants, documentation is hard to find.

I found interesting your discussion about ‘homonationalism’, and as someone who has very little experience studying queer history in the United States, the way you described it was very digestible. As you have said, this is obviously part of your project, but I do find this concept incredibly interesting and valuable for your overall research questions and arguments. Especially because of its influence on legal systems and asylum policies for queer immigrants. This concept too would especially affect the overall culture and dynamics, surely, within these queer communities. I wonder how they vary from place to place? How could that change our understanding of the communities in Miami? Definitely transnational! Maybe a comparative approach could be cool here!

I also was very fascinated by the YMCA song history. I never knew the origin of that and the background of the YMCA in general. This is important stuff! I would be interested to read other examples of queer influence, acceptance, and cultural within music too! I forget if you said you were doing a paper for the final project, but a video essay would be very cool. I know you mentioned you’re planning on turning this into a bigger project in the future, and real life video interviews with people in a video essay format would be amazing! Especially because these communities rarely have platforms to share their stories. Because this was recent too, you have the added benefit that other historians don’t where the people who experienced these events first hand are still alive. Definitely take advantage of that!

So excited to see this further come into focus!

By the 1990s, Miami was largely regarded as a refuge for queer exiles in Caribbean and Latin American countries. The Floridian port city, which emerged in the late 19th century, had been marketed to tourists and migrants alike as an egalitarian escape from the world, a place where you could just ‘be’. 

But how this haven of Miami been experienced and remembered among the queer immigrants it was marketed to?

While I began this project asking myself how developments in asylum laws have influenced integration and community building among queer immigrants in Miami, I have since shifted my focus towards how through art and story telling, queer immigrants remember and talk about their past. I made this change because while researching, I found that there is a lot already existing on specific policy changes, and how these legal factors influence immigration experiences and the local environment of Miami. What became interesting instead for me, was how these legal events are remembered through stories and art. The research I undertook this semester is something I intend to build upon beyond this class, and there is still a lot I would like to accomplish. For this presentation I will begin by discussing queer migration studies, and my approach. Then I will share the major historians who have influenced my research, before discussing my experience with the available archives, some findings, and where I hope to go from here. 

Queer migration studies is an ever expanding field seeking to understand the intersections between the gender, sexual identities, and transnational attachments of queer immigrants. Specific cities including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and of course Miami, have garnered the attention of scholars for their historically vibrant queer communities and large immigrant populations. 

For the purposes of this project I have focused on Miami due to the large amount of scholarship already existing about the queer community and immigrants there, though I believe that such research should be expanded to not just other major cities, but also smaller towns.

The main two historians who influenced my research and development of thought for this project are Jasbir Puar, whose scholarship on ‘homonationalism’ (a term used to describe the use of nationalist rhetoric in queer liberation movements in the west), heavily influenced my understanding of the legal systems and development of asylum policies for queer people in the United States, and how these might influence decisions to migrate, and experiences once in the states. 

Julio Capo has done extensive research on queer culture and immigrant communities in Miami. His book, Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940 provided necessary context from which to frame, and build my research on. 

Ephemeral is my new favorite word to describe much of what exists of queer history. Meaning ‘lasting for a very short time’, queer history prior to the past 50 or so years largely exists through short term materials such as flyers for events, and in unofficial social spaces, quick to shut down. Scholars have begun approaching the archives in different ways to find stories of queer people. This can include looking for legal documents, newspapers, medical records, and pieces of art such as songs and films. 

For my project I’ve been listening to oral histories taken by Miami Beach Pride as part of their legacy couples project which aims to collect the stories of queer elders in the Miami Community. Two of the people interviewed, Rafael and David, are shown here. I’ve also looked at personal testimony through literature, such as Kevin Quashie’s ‘Queer. Caribbean. Miami. Boy: A Personal Geography’.

The thing that has stuck out to me throughout the interviews and personal stories, is discussions of queer spaces, where community can be found, and interpretations of home and family. Scholars have traditionally taken note of the importance of bars and clubs in queer history. Though Capo notes the importance of harbors, beaches, and even jails for places to build community and feel less isolated among queer immigrants. The YMCA and YWCA were also significant in providing a space for community to form among queer people in Miami. (though outside the scope of this project specifically, Village People, is a group from New York who wrote their hit song, YMCA, about the organization’s popularity among queer people. Providing an example of how, through art, queer history is remembered and preserved). 

In the stories I’ve listened to and read, clubs in particular are remembered fondly for their music, dancing, and networking opportunities. Some of the spaces mentioned by name include the Jewel Box, famous for their drag events, and Azucar Nightclub, where according to couple Gloria Andio and Diana Vega the ‘Building [is] not big but [the] people are big’. There is a comfort expressed by Diana and Gloria for their ability to meet with their LGBTQ+ friends, have some drinks, dance, and then go their own ways. 

The stories I listened to also contained discussions of reasons why individuals migrated to the United States, and what greeted them when they arrived. Rafael, pictured on the last slide, discussed his decision to move to the States, specifically a major city, due to his belief he would find a more accepting environment. Instead he shared how he was disappointed with the reception he had, stating that ‘there was not as big of a difference as he hoped’ between the United States, and the smaller town in Northern Mexico from which he originates.  

There is an ever increasing body of art, film, music, and oral histories collected and created for and by the queer community in an effort to preserve their stories and articulate their experiences. Placing these stories and pieces of art in a historical context, both allows for those consuming and listening to them a deeper understanding of how the external influenced the internal for the queer individuals creating and sharing, as well as grounds them in what I believe helps to legitimize their experiences. 

There are still some steps I would like to take with this project, including examining more oral histories, and engaging more with the variety of mediums queer experiences are displayed through art before making any concluding arguments. 

What I would like to end on however, is discussing the importance of this research. Queer history can very easily look pretty bleak. But joy exists throughout the resistance. Using transnational methods to examine local connections with the globe, bridge gaps in the archives of historically marginalized groups and places, and reconsider notions of nations and their attachments all lend themselves to the expansion of queer migration studies, and I’m excited to see where this project continues to take me.

Today we had the final project presentations in class where everyone had 7-8 minutes to present their research thus far, and where they’re intending to take it moving forward until the final paper that is due in 3 weeks. I truly enjoyed listening to my classmates discuss their work. I think what got me interested in taking the class this semester was the promise that transnational history could be applied to all topics of study, and considering the diversity of projects presented on today it is doing just that.

I found my classmate’s discussions on their use of transnational methods to conduct their research and guide their questions most interesting. The main theme I noticed between the presentations was the notion of ‘returning autonomy’ to traditionally neglected groups and places in western historiographies. This was the case most clearly with the presentations about defining indigeneity, jewish resilience during the london blitz, and the pundits. Spatially, the focus on Eastern European rock youth rock culture in Poland, ballet as a form of cultural diplomacy, and the emergence of the neo-right in Latin America, were all projects which sought to bring attention to places less studied in historiography, and using transnational history as a way to bring attention to them.

I think there’s a lot for me to take away from what I heard about from my fellow classmates and their projects for me to apply to my own. For instance, the variety of sources available in the archives, and my classmates different approaches to them to answer their questions was interesting for me to consider, and rethink how I’ve chosen to approach the archives. I think it would be fun for me to try and engage with a variety of more sources, both visual and written, to help bring my project more to life. It was also really informative to hear the different kinds of questions they were able to pose and tackle in their projects. The question that arose today that I found most interesting was discussions of intention vs reception, and the limitations of cultural diplomacy. I think that as historians, being able to ask interesting questions is one of the most important skills we can develop, so it was cool seeing what they came up with so that I can hopefully use that as inspiration moving forward when I try to ask questions for both the project I’m working on now, as well as future projects.

Overall I’m super happy with how the presentations went for everyone today, and I’ve really loved being in this class this semester. I’m looking forward to seeing where everyone goes next.

This entry serves to show the new directions my project has started going in. Notably, my research questions have changed. The project’s focus will be fixed on fishing rights rather than general Indigenous rights. I’ve narrowed down specific repositories for research which will help me to compare the histories of fisheries management and the Indigenous fishing rights of Native Alaskans, Canadian First Nations Peoples, and the Sami Peoples of Norway, but with a main focus on Alaska.

Maritime environments are particularly suited to transnational history because oceans resist political boundaries. Swedish historian Sverker Sörlin suggests that the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas, and the Circumpolar North as a whole act as a transnational space.(1) Looking at the maps below, you’ll notice that the council areas of Arctic Indigenous groups (Fig. 1) extend across the national boundaries of Arctic States (Fig. 2). Transnational historical approaches are especially suited to study this land of borderlands. 

This project primarily focuses on salmon management in Alaska but will employ a comparative analysis of salmon management elsewhere in the Circumpolar North, Indigenous fishing rights in relation to these regions, and a view of anadromous – or migratory – fish as transnational actors. Alaska’s fisheries – or fishing spaces – are situated at the crest of the North Pacific and have ecological, political, economic, and cultural significance. A myriad of actors are involved in these fisheries. At the local  level, state residents and Native Alaskans practice subsistence fishing; on a wider scale, there are state and federal regulators and international corporations that stake interests in commercial fishing. 

Fisheries management and Indigenous rights in Alaska must be considered within the larger historical context of colonization and federalization. There have been three salmon management regimes in Alaska’s history. In the 1770s, Russia began to colonize the southern coastline of Alaska. They attempted to enforce mercantilist economic practices and monopolize natural resources. Following the purchase of Alaska by the U.S. in 1867, Euro-Americans implemented capitalist principles in Alaskan fisheries.  Prior to all of this, Native Alaskans managed salmon harvests with a clear system of communal property in which property rights accrued to the social group that a given resource could adequately support. A large body of water was not owned by anyone, but certain sections would belong to groups. Escapement, the process of allowing enough fish to migrate upstream to the spawning grounds, ensured the salmon life cycle could continue with strength. Ecosystems thrived. Despite the effectiveness and sustainability of Native Alaskan fishing practices, they were not consulted by the US government in the design or implementation of the most recent salmon management system: the 1973 Limited Entry Program, which sought to reduce overfishing through by issuing permits. Permits related to what type of fish you were catching, where you were catching it, and what gear you were using to catch it. The rural and Native Alaskan fishermen who received permits were disproportionately older, and this initiated a devastating trend in which the permits died with them, and fewer and fewer Native Alaskans could afford to obtain permits to fish commercially, threatening the livelihoods of entire communities. Anthropologist Stephen Langdon describes the continued inaccessibility of this economic landscape today saying, “…access to the fisheries is now tightly integrated with access to financial institutions and state bureaucracies. Rural populations are at a disadvantage in dealing with these institutions…”.(2) This project asks, how have salmon management systems in Alaska evolved with the migration of different people to the region? How have Native Alaskan fishing rights been affected by these management systems over time? And finally, how do struggles for Native Alaskan fishing rights compare with Indigenous resource rights in other Circumpolar regions like Canada, Norway, and Russia?

 Methodologically, this project adopts a transnational historical approach. Rather than treating Alaska as a contained space, it examines how salmon operates across borders. This aligns with Patricia Clavin’s ideas of ‘manner’ and ‘place’ which emphasize processes of exchange and migration that operate on a different scale than that of the nation-state.(3) Pierre-Yves Saunier’s book on transnational history shares a similar approach and encourages historians to adopt the scalar logic of geography.(4) Fishery management in Alaska does not exist in isolation; it is shaped by international agreements, shared ecological management strategies, and global debates about Indigenous rights. 

This project draws on sources that highlight this overlapping and integrated network of fishery management. First, I will examine legislative documents like the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) and the implementation of the 1973 Limited Entry Program. Both reshaped Indigenous rights in Alaska. Notably, ANCSA did not preserve explicit Indigenous hunting and fishing rights, creating ongoing tensions over subsistence access. Second, I will examine firsthand accounts of Native Alaskan experiences in the shifting landscape of fishing in their communities using federal reports from Alaska’s Digital Archives and the National Archives, as well as recorded interviews from the University of Alaska’s Oral History Project. This research will be supplemented by secondary sources from the Alaska Historical Society, the Arctic Council, and other publications and institutions. Finally, the project will incorporate comparative scholarship on Indigenous fishing rights in other Circumpolar regions, particularly First Nations Peoples in Canada and the Sami People in Norway. These broader analyses of Arctic policy and indigenous sovereignty allow for a comparison of how communities negotiated access to natural resources in the 20^th century. Together, these sources allow the project to integrate environmental, legal, and social histories of fisheries. 

This project contributes to transnational history in several ways. First, it highlights Indigenous actors as central participants in transnational systems rather than purely local subjects. Alaska Native communities interact not only with U.S. state institutions but also with international regulatory frameworks and global environmental movements. Second, by examining salmon as both ecological actors and economic commodities, the project demonstrates how environmental processes shape political and economic systems across borders. Examining Alaska’s salmon fisheries through a transnational lens offers a powerful way to rethink resource sovereignty, environmental governance, and Indigenous political agency in the 20th century. 

1. Sörlin, Sverker, ‘The Arctic Ocean’, in David Armitage, Alison Bashford and Sujit Sivasundaram (eds.), Oceanic Histories (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 269-295.    
2. Steve Langdon, ‘From Communal Property to Limited Entry: Historical Ironies in the Management of Southeast Alaska Salmon’, in J. Cordell (ed), A Sea of Small Boats: Customary Law of the Sea and Territoriality in the World of Inshore Fishing (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 304-333.
3. Patricia Clavin, ‘Time, Manner, Place: Writing Modern European History in Global, Transnational and International Contexts’, European History Quarterly 40:4, pp. 624-640.
4. Pierre-Yves Saunier, Transnational History (London, 2013).

In preparation for the assessed presentation coming soon, I have been revisiting the notes on my own presentations and others. And as I am also in need of another blog post, decided to write a response to what i would call my favorite project proposal out of the group.

As a student based in England for most of my life, the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and WW2have been a focal point of my historical education. From the age of around 10 till now as a young adult, I have been gradually learning more and more about this era and its tragerdy. Whilst not my main historical interest, I am always intreeged to hear new perspectives and stories which my english education missed.

This was why when Daniella proposed a Jewish perspective on the Blitz rather than the traditional London working class perspective i was imminently intrigued. In her proposal she mentioned how the Jewish experience of antisemitism has mostly been confined to the Holocaust itself, leaving much room to explore antisemitism within London itself. This made me realize I am also guilty for not recognizing this gap in literature. Previously, I had only read and looked at how working class Londoners (although race not specified) helped their local communities protect and rebuild areas; oblivious to how this including minorities whose international community was also suffering. Additionally, I am interested to hear what primary sources Daniella has located, and to see if the Jewish community spoke up about the discrimination and struggles their faced in the Blitz to the wider community or if it was a struggle they internalized.

Ultimately its safe to say that I am very excited to hear Daniella’s final presentation this upcoming week.

I find your research on how the New Right communicated itself transnationally highly engaging, not least because it shares considerable conceptual overlap with my own work on the transnational outreach of Ulster Unionism. In both cases, the focus lies on how seemingly unappealing or controversial ideologies attempt to present themselves to audiences abroad. This perspective carries important historiographical significance. By examining how such movements fashioned themselves through the domestication and adaptation of their discourse to foreign contexts, historians can move beyond their historiographical ghettoisation as inward-looking and insular phenomena, and instead reveal the broader transnational concerns that underpin their thinking. This approach neither seeks to endorse nor to vindicate the subjects under study; rather, it offers a more nuanced and detached interpretation of their internal complexities. In particular, it challenges the conventional assumption that such ideologies are rigidly compartmentalised and incapable of appealing beyond their existing adherents.

Your project’s selection of two periods—the 1960s–70s and the 2010s–20s—and its comparative framework is especially valuable. It introduces a diachronic dimension, enabling the analysis not only of differing persuasive strategies across contexts, but also of how these strategies evolve over time. The context of 1968, for instance, differs profoundly from that of 2017 in terms of global geopolitics, the role of public opinion, and the state of national and racial consciousness. In many ways, this approach has also informed my own research, prompting me to distinguish between unionist overseas propaganda in the 1970s and the 1990s. The latter period witnessed a more moderate turn in unionist publicity strategies, corresponding with the decline of violence in Northern Ireland and the emergence of the Peace Process. Such a distinction allows for a clearer demonstration of rhetorical flexibility, highlighting the capacity of these movements to adapt across both space and time.

What particularly interests me is your use of primary sources. Beyond more conventional materials such as pamphlets, your project can draw on the vast possibilities offered by the internet as a primary source base. In my own research, I have encountered a number of studies that examine twenty-first-century unionism’s self-presentation online, though this lies beyond my immediate scope. By focusing on the 2010s–20s—an era in which digital media play a central role in shaping public discourse—you open up a wide range of analytical possibilities: the content and visual design of websites, their evolution over time, and the dynamics of social media, including the production, circulation, reception, and moderation of online content.

This approach is particularly promising in that it provides access to a broad spectrum of popular voices and their interactions in real time. At the same time, it raises important methodological challenges. How can one recover posts that have been deleted by users or platforms? To what extent might online content have been edited after publication? And, perhaps most significantly, how can historians assess the representativeness and significance of digital material when the identities of contributors are often unclear? Despite these challenges, the use of the internet as a source base offers far more potential than limitation. I therefore look forward with great interest to how you approach and analyse these materials in your research.

when reading through blog posts to respond too, Tate’s ‘Using Transnationalism to deconstruct Homonationalism’ particularly drew my attention.

Reading it made me consider how nationalism shapes queer identities and the other way round. Thought this module a clear point of consideration has been transnational history also includes social movements and ideas. So how does this look like for the queer rights movement? Previously I thought this transnational queer history could only be studies through complications of underground networks across countries to globalize their ideas. However, when reading Tates blog post a new perspective emerged; ‘homonationalism’ which increasingly nationalized the rhetoric of the queer rights movement.

Upon further reflection and reading, this ‘homonationalism’ seems to do the opposite of what i assumed transnational movement of ideas did. According to Tates blog and further readings by Jasbir Paur homonationalism is the process of people using the queer right movement to ‘pink wash’ and justify other social atrocities. We see this a lot currently on the news, with white queer people on the right using thier sexual minority identity to justify their hateful views concerning fellow minorities.

This was an insightful reflection, reminding me that the spreading of ideas within transnational studies is not limited to resistance groups aiming to spread and globalize their message of tolerance but also by nationalistic rhetoric.

As the semester is coming to an end, I have been moving forward with my final project on second wave feminism in a transnational and intersectional perspective but also looking back at some of the foundational readings of the semester. Indeed, exploring those readings and the questions it raised on transnational history provided me with important insights and highlighted some dimensions of my project which I had not thought of yet. 

For instance, looking back at the week 4 readings and my blogpost, the limits of transnational or global history which were highlighted in those articles along with ideas to move past those issues and propose a truly inclusive and socially transformative way of making history have largely influenced how I have approached my project and offered me a critical lens through which I could analyze it. Green’s article, which highlighted how migrants although they are primary examples of transnational actors are also still largely impacted and dependant on the national state, was particularly interesting and raised some of the questions guiding my final project such as “How did national or local contexts influence the circulation of ideas and shape specific concerns of the feminist movements of the second wave”. Similarly, I aim at inscribing my final project within some of the reflections which came up in the European University Institution seminar on global history. The necessity to deconstruct the dichotomy between margins and center and offer an approach which tries to grow out of western frameworks have inspired me a lot, notably regarding how we periodize and spatialize the second wave of feminism.

More generally, the readings proposed throughout the semester as well as the discussions we had during the tutorials  have allowed me to build a theoretical framework anchored in concrete examples which has been extremely useful in constructing my final project and which I am sure will continue to be useful in the future.

My research for my project led me down a rabbit hole of legal and social systems steeped in what scholars call ‘homonationalism’. Defined as the process under which organized LGBTQ+ activism in North America and Europe have adopted nationalist rhetoric. The resulting dichotomy created between the ‘progressive west’ and the ‘homophobic east’ effect the legal systems that determine asylum policy by prioritizing western, homonormative assumptions on what it ‘looks like’ to be queer, and determinations on necessity of asylum cases on ‘how homophobic’ the country of origin is. A relevant example of homonationalism today is ‘pink washing’, a term used to describe governments or organizations promoting their inclusivity towards the LGBTQ+ community, compared with other ‘homophobic’ governments or organizations, as a way of concealing exclusive practices (see works by Jasbir Puar listed at end of post for more on Homonationalism). 

I turned in the short essay I wrote on this subject with a bit of a bleak state of mind. You don’t spend a day writing about this subject without hating the world at least a little. But it’s also made me realize the value of transnational studies, and their potential to begin undoing and unlearning the harmful systems built on homonationalism, which I would like to spend this blog post touching on. As discussed in Clavin’s work, transnational history provides historians with the lens through which new understandings “of European imperialism and histories of indigenous responses to colonialism” can be reached. Homonationalism’s origins in colonialism, with the West now offering itself as a safe haven for queer refugees from bigoted systems they created through colonization in the Global South, is something that through postcolonial studies and gender history, which inform transnational thought, can be properly studied, dissected, and challenged. 

Clavin’s discussion on the importance of ‘place’ is also something I feel can be better explored through transnationalism when studying queer history and culture. Transnational approaches to examining localities in a ‘bottom, up’ or ‘internal, external’ approach, rather than thinking of queer identities and culture as something universal or organized, will also help deconstruct homonationalist rhetoric. 

While there are several scholars who have begun this work of questioning and deconstructing homonationalism, the majority of scholarship remains focused on contemporary legal conditions. Notable scholars who have focused on the social aspects, who I would encourage anyone reading this post to take a look at, include Shlomo Gleibman, Tamar Shirinian, Emily Channell-Justice, and Dr Nikolaos Papadogiannis (just to name a few). I’m confident there are many more ways a transnational lens can continue to engage with homonationalism.

My project, which I initially began with the intention of looking for queer joy and resistance through community building in Miami among queer immigrants, has been somewhat clouded by the legacies of homonationalism. However, I am grateful for this class and for this project for introducing me to this topic through which I can approach this and future studies as a way to deconstruct the rhetoric and attempt to rebuild from the harm homonationalism has caused. 

Works by Jasbir Puar:

Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Durham, 2007)

‘Israel’s gay propaganda war’ (2010)

‘Rethinking Homonationalism’ (May, 2013)

Looking back on the Clavin reading from the beginning of the semester as my research comes together and class discussions have come to a close, I feel like I can understand the exact application of transnational history as he describes it in his article, while also thinking of ways my understanding of it is still expanding to meet my interest in queer history. His categories of ‘time, manner, and place’ look different for different fields of research, and I’ve spent time considering how they might look in queer history. 

Starting with Time. Clavin discusses eurocentric periodization, and how that has created ideas of progress, as it relates with colonialism, that have been imposed on the rest of the world. For queer history, there seems to be a distinction made between before and after the Stonewall Riots (a revolt led by queer and transgender people of color in New York City, which garnered international attention towards LGBTQ+ rights movements). And before and after the AIDS crisis (which created a necessity for organized activism). Because of the proximity of these two events to each other, and the considerable progress made in parts of the world after the fact, a lot of scholarship in queer history is confined to the past 75 years alone. It’s important to note of course that the progress following these events was not global, and should not be taken for granted as watershed moments across the world when in reality it was largely confined to the west (which also gets into a whole thing about homonationalism which I will discuss in another blog post). Queer people have existed across the globe throughout all points of history and continue to do so today, finding ways to look for them outside of modern resources and the western world is important. 

Next, Manner. Manner is interesting to consider when looking into queer histories. Many of the sources available in the archives are ephemeral objects such as flyers for events or badges, existing only in small moments of time. However other ways to look for queer people in history is through the law. Though rarely explicitly mentioned in legal proceedings, the existence of anti sodomy policies, or strict gender codes hint towards an existence of queer people that those in power sought to hide. Other forms of sources available, could be letters and housing records, though historians have traditionally been quick to dismiss such evidence. I’m curious to see how the internet will begin to play a role as a resource for studying queer history, with cites like discord creating spaces for shared communities for queer people across the globe. Or what methods will be discovered in use of uncovering pre-colonial queer cultures in indigenous and non-western local communities.

Through a queer lens of analysis, Clavin’s discussion of place is deeply entwined with the discussion of time, and looking for queer history outside a western context. There is not a singular, universal queer experience, though homonormative assumptions generated in the West largely influence how and what historians look for when searching the archives for queer history. LGBTQ+ identities take many forms and influence people’s understandings of themselves differently. Looking at local communities within a transnational context can help us understand the variety of experiences and how terms have been shared across spaces.

I think that there is so much potential exploring queer history through a transnational lens, and I’m excited to see where my project continues to take me and what I can do with it later on. 

This is a fascinating project proposal. I really like how you start off by setting out the dividing lines within cold war historiography. By using Pekacz and Mitchell you also effectively place your project within its historiographical context.

By highlighting local rock music as a tool of opposition and resistance, you make a compelling point for why your project is important. You move away from grand narratives of history, which see the Cold War as an ideological clash and look at the personal stories of the Cold War. As looking at local experiences is important to your project it may be worth looking at some scholarship on micro history, though this is just an idea.

I think your thematic approach is certainly appropriate for this essay as it will allow you to compare nations and movements. I am particularly interested by the section you say you will do on how the state regulated rock music. It may be worth comparing different state approaches across Eastern Europe as this may provide more context as to how much of a threat rock music was seen in these nations.

Your array of primary sources are novel and brilliant. I think it will be particularly interesting to use recordings of performances and lyrics. It may be worth trying to embed some of these sources within your work to give the reader some visual examples and further engage them.

I like that you already lay out counterarguments your project may face. The use of coded language is an interesting example of how musicians evaded censorship. However, does this not mean that these messages of dissent were only accessible to a few people. Surely if the messages of dissent were coded, they cannot be accessible to masses of young people.

Another small criticism is that using the term “fall of communism” may be a bit too broad. Communism fell across Europe for any different reasons. Whilst rock music may have contributed to its downfall in Germany and Poland you do not explore the impact of Rock music in nations like the USSR or Yugoslavia. Therefore, attributing the rise of rock music to the fall of communism may be too much of a generalisation.

Overall, I think this is an interesting project which will highlight the forgotten dissidents of Eastern Europe. I am really looking forward to seeing the finished result which I am sure will be a very enjoyable read.

This is a highly interesting project proposal. To me, it possesses a particularly sharp historiographical edge as an application of transnationalism. Immigration is, of course, a prominent subfield within transnational history, yet political exiles — such as the White Russians in Paris and  Shanghai — stand in marked contrast to migration in its conventional sense. Their experiences are distinguished by the immediacy and rapidity of their departure, as well as by the near-total loss of a legitimate existence in their homeland. This, in turn, often produces a heightened sense of displacement and rootlessness. For this reason, I think your chosen subject group addresses a relatively underexplored dimension within transnational studies of cross-border movement. Equally compelling is the concept of “statelessness” that you foreground. It strikes at the heart of common methodological assumptions of nationalism —  namely, that people, organisations, and events operate within a clearly defined national framework. By focusing on statelessness, your project demonstrates that individuals were not always anchored to a stable or recognised nationhood, thereby revealing the ambiguity — if not the outright absence — of national identity. In this respect, both your subject and conceptual framework effectively challenge assumptions that are often taken for granted.

While I am not especially familiar with Paris, as someone born and raised in Shanghai I find the potential findings of your research particularly engaging. The legacy of the city’s historical extraterritoriality remains visible today, especially in its central districts, where the streetscape differs markedly — indeed, appears more “Western” — than in suburban residential areas. The period your project examines coincides with the height of privileged foreign presence in Shanghai. Within this context, the case of the White Russians is especially intriguing. Although their foreign background may have spared them the most extreme forms of deprivation, their status as dispossessed political exiles likely placed them below more established communities such as the French, British, and Americans within the city’s hierarchy of power and respectability. This multiplicity of authority makes Shanghai an especially rich setting in which to study stateless communities. In determining their legal status and social treatment, how did White Russians interact and negotiate (perhaps differently )with local Chinese authorities and the various Western powers present in the city? Which authorities did they perceive as most capable of serving their interests? To what extent were they able to exploit tensions between these groups to their advantage? The juxtaposition between the émigrés’ statelessness and the city’s intense cosmopolitanism offers fertile ground for uncovering complex and multilayered transnational connections.

The range of sources you propose to use is impressively broad, encompassing both official archival materials and more grassroots productions generated within the émigré community, as well as records from international organisations and host-state authorities. Together, these promise to build a comprehensive picture of how White Russians abroad navigated their stateless condition and engaged with local structures of power. One possible extension might be to look beyond their interactions with governing authorities and consider their relationships with ordinary residents in their host societies. A small, anecdotal example that I can provide may gesture toward the significance of such interactions: in Shanghai, many locals have long held an affection for a dish known as luó sòng tāng (“Russian soup”), a domesticated version of borscht. While very partial and inconclusive, this hints at the legacy of everyday forms of cultural exchange between Shanghainese and Russian emigrants. Tracing these kinds of popular and social interactions could shed further light on how stateless communities integrated into local environments through personal connections and shared cultural practices. This, in turn, might reveal an additional dimension of their stateless existence — one that complements their more formal efforts to navigate identity and, perhaps, to maintain aspirations of restoring themselves to Russia.