MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have debated the causes of the collapse of Communist regimes across Eastern Europe. Early interpretations largely framed this moment as the triumph of Western capitalism over socialism. More recent scholarship, however, has shifted focus toward internal weaknesses within the Eastern bloc, often through a transnational lens that emphasizes the impact of cross-border cultural exchange. Scholars such as Jolanta Pekacz, Timothy Ryback, Peter Wicke, and Tony Mitchell have highlighted the influence of Western culture, particularly rock music, in shaping Eastern European societies. As Pekacz notes, by the 1970s many socialist states had surpassed rigid Stalinist control, thus allowing some room for political and cultural expression. Within this context, rock music has been increasingly recognized by historians such as Wicke and Ryback as a platform through which oppositional ideas circulated and grew. While not identified as a primary cause of the collapse of Communism, recent historiography by historians including Pekacz and Mitchell have foregrounded rock music as a contributor to the cultural conditions that enabled this political transformation.

Building on this scholarship, this project argues that rock music played an important role in fostering a transnational youth culture that contributed to the fall of Communism in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Poland, and Czechoslovakia in the 1980s. Studies by Grzegorz Piotrowski, Jeff Hayton, and Martin Husak emphasize the importance of local rock scenes in providing a platform for dissent and shaping alternative identities within this context. Wicke, for instance, notes how rock musicians bypassed state intervention by circulating coded oppositional messages (1993). This project will employ a thematic structure, examining rock as a transnational language that undermined the Iron Curtain, its role in shaping dissent, state regulation, and rock music’s presence during the 1989 revolution. Drawing on both cross-border and domestic cultural exchanges, this project will employ a transnational cultural approach, with a geographic comparative focus where relevant, to demonstrate how cultural practices contributed to the destabilization of Communist legitimacy in Eastern Europe. 

As well as the authors mentioned, whose works analyze the impact of cultural practice at the end of the Cold War, additional studies will provide further context. This includes G. Musgrave and D. Athanassiou’s work on Polish cultural entrepreneurship and Sabrina P. Ramet and Vladimir Dordevic’s research on Czechoslovak rock. The project will also engage with broader historiography on youth culture and political dissent in late socialist countries, using works by Gabriel Bar-Haím, Robert Sharlet, and Timothy S. Brown. Primary sources will include recordings of performances, song lyrics, and state documents relating to cultural regulation and censorship. Together, these sources will enable a nuanced analysis of how rock music operated within and against state structures in Eastern Europe. 

A key counterargument concerns the extent to which cultural movements, particularly youth culture, can meaningfully influence political change. While some historians downplay this role, this project aligns with more recent scholarship that highlights the political significance of cultural practices. Another challenge is the argument that state control over the music industry limited the ability of artists to express dissent. This project will consider this while also focusing on research demonstrating that musicians employed coded language and informal networks to evade censorship. A further potential issue is the broader question of causation and to what extent rock music contributed to the fall of Communism in 1989. While this project will explore this, it ultimately does not seek to identify the extent of this contribution, but rather to identify the ways in which rock music shaped the cultural conditions that enabled political transformation. 

This project will contribute to the growing historiography that challenges the perceived rigidity of the Iron Curtain by highlighting the importance of transnational cultural exchange. By focusing on rock music and youth culture, it will foreground often-overlooked social and cultural dimensions of political change in late socialist Eastern Europe. In doing so, it hopes to offer a more nuanced understanding of the collapse of Communism, demonstrating that the persistence of rock as a cultural movement played a meaningful role in undermining state authority and shaping broader geopolitical transformations.

Exploring the second wave of feminism in transnational and intersectional perspective

Literature review on the subject

Historiography on the subject of the second wave of feminism has evolved throughout the years. Indeed, the historians first explored those movements within the boundaries of  nation-states, focusing mostly on western countries including two important figures : the United-States and France. Although some transatlantic connections were already highlighted in those studies, the main focus was on national contexts. 

Studies of the second wave of feminism, specifically because of this idea of having different waves in which women were fighting for different rights, were also built in comparison to feminist movements of the first wave (mid 19th century-early 20th century). Indeed, the second wave is assimilated to a shift in demands in terms of rights. The main idea was that the private was political, gender violence which women faced in private were the result of systemic violence and discrimination and should also represent a concern for the state. Demands were much larger than during the first wave, which focused on legal rights and mostly the right to vote, and included issues of workplace equality, male violence, reproductive rights, and sexual liberation. Thus, historiography on the second wave of feminism initially focused on the demands of feminists in comparison to previous periods, the mode of actions and the evolution of the movement within national context. 

A shift then occurred with the emergence of “Third world feminism” which led scholars to de-center the study of the second feminist wave from the US and European perspectives and also aimed at highlighting how issues of imperialism and other forms of discrimination could relate to the movement. Still, such studies focused also mainly on national and local contexts. Then, the emergence of transnational history allowed for a reconsideration of the subject in transnational perspective, with some authors such as Molony and Nelson trying to rethink the spatialization and temporalization of the movement but also focusing more on highlighting transnational connections and circulations. 

Final project 

I wish to further explore the subject of the second wave of feminism  in a transnational perspective for my final project. My main goal is to explore how ideas circulated and how such circulation or most importantly the absence of circulation were shaped by national and local contexts. In this final project I will explore the second wave of feminism in a long perspective and will try to expand its geographical boundaries by de-centering my study from the western countries, not only by studying interactions between western countries and non-western countries but also studying interactions between non-western countries. I also wish to explore feminist mobilisations during the second wave through its interactions with other movements and how some struggles converged or not. Some feminist movements of the period, though struggling for the rights of women, also constructed themselves through the exclusion of other women or at least their erasure, and participated in the reproduction of other forms of oppression. 

In their book, Molony and Nelson mention the important connection between transnational perspectives on the second wave and intersectional analysis which I wish to mobilize too. My final goal in this project is to highlight the diversity of experiences of women of the movement, show perhaps that there were differents movements rather than a singular, how those movements were shaped by national or international contexts as well as transnational connections, but also highlight connections with other struggles whether those took the form of solidarity between different movements or rather the reproduction of other forms of discrimination through feminist fights of the period. 

I will be looking at primary sources such as feminist journals, papers of international conferences and exchanges between feminist actors, in order to analyze how feminist actors circulated and how some ideas were represented and received. 

Finally, because this topic is so vast, my project will most likely take the form of a project proposal rather than an essay, highlighting ideas to look further into.

Current scholarly literature on indigeneity is largely preoccupied with two primary themes: a spiritual connection to the land and the experience of colonial oppression.1 While these frameworks are vital, they often fail to account for indigenous groups that do not fit as neatly into these categories, specifically those who may be exploitative or even perpetrators of colonial violence against other indigenous groups. This project seeks to expand the definition of indigeneity by examining the Comanche Empire as a case study in global agency. As well as arguing this case, this project seeks to double as a call to action for international NGO’s and governments to implement more representative environmental and cultural policies for indigenous communities. For too long they have been seen as ‘separate’ as ‘others’ who were passive in the formation and running of our global colonial system. The Comanche Case highlights that this is a limited perspective, one that keeps indigenous groups on the fringes of global change.

Comanche history, and its modern political legacy, demonstrates how indigenous groups can exert significant agency even within a violent, imperial landscape. This research is not an attempt to demonize indigenous groups nor follow a ‘reverse racism pipeline’; rather, it highlights the complexities of communities that were active participants in the development of the modern world. The current international environmental and political climate is rife with violence, perpetuating the brutal context in which it was conceived by major state actors.

Due to this there is a sentiment that the ‘inherently peaceful’ indigenous groups do not have the experiences nor facilities to be actors in this world; for better or worse change. Although hope for a more peaceful and cohesive climate remain, this project aims to highlight that the world does not need to be ‘perfect’ in its environmentalism or international relations for indigenous groups to hold a leading place on the world stage. To achieve this, I am taking on a multidisciplinary methodology, engaging with historical literature, primary source letters, and insights from anthropologists and international policy.

Central to this is the work of historian Pekka Hämäläinen, who argues that Comanches employed aggressive power politics through a hierarchical intersocietal system, achieving agency on the same stage as the Americans and Spanish empire.2 Whilst his argument is central and important to this argument, I will engage with few criticisms concerning his term ‘reverse colonialism’ as to avoid the trend of demonizing minority groups when exploring their complex relations to violence and colonialism.

The Comanches were a nomadic tribe whose practices also moved between raiding, trading, diplomacy, and enslaving, leaving colonial rivals confused.3 This project explores this “ultimate paradox”: while the Comanches initially adjusted their traditions to accommodate Europeans, they eventually forced colonists to adjust to a world that was foreign, uncontrollable, and increasingly unliveable. The Comanche Empire serves as a counter-case to the narrative of the singular national success story of the United States, representing a continental transformation that enabled the rise of the U.S. with global ramifications.4

A significant portion of the analysis focuses on ‘spatiality’ and ‘placemaking’. Placemaking involves three elements: location, a setting for social relationships, and a ‘sense of place’ that gives it meaning for a group.5 In ‘contested geographies’, the Spanish sought to remake indigenous landscapes, but the Comanches simultaneously asserted their own identity within those same spaces. Physical evidence of this persists in Comanche Marker Trees, such as the Storytelling Place Marker Tree in East Dallas.6

Finally, this project links historical agency to current global ramifications, particularly in the realm of environmental politics. Modern indigenous geographers caution against environmental theories that ignore the intricate relationships indigenous peoples have with water governance and climate change.7 Indigenous knowledges were historically discarded or devalued during the establishment of nations like the USA, Canada, and Australia.8 By reconsidering who gets to decide what is ‘useful’ knowledge, this research highlights that indigenous agency remains a fundamental, if often ignored, component of global development and environmental justice.

The Transnationalism of the Nationalist New Right: The Spread to Latin America 

Background

Today, the far right has risen to prominence, shaping policies both domestically and internationally and impacting the lives of many. Although the movement’s popularity has appeared abrupt, the wave of extremist political conservatism the world has witnessed is a product of a long history of intellectual and philosophical conversations across borders in Europe and the United States. The new right movement dates back to the 1960s in France, when militant figures such as Alain de Benoist responded to cultural shifts and economic crises arising from industrialization and globalization. 

Despite the movement in France officially cementing and reinvigorating the right into something more formal, these conversations and intellectual development had been happening throughout Europe. Common strands in the new right’s ideology included European nihilism, populism, anti-elite sentiments, distaste for the managerial state, nationalism, and the privileging of what they termed “organic” cultural groups. Despite disliking the way globalization changed society, the movement still favored modernization. They just wanted the changes it brought to align with an essentialized conception of the interests, values, and morals of their local cultures.

Latin America had a vastly different experience with conservative movements and parties. The far-right parties prominent in the political sphere during the 1980s and 1990s were a result of the United States’ soft power in the region. The parties largely subscribed to the “Washington Consensus,” a set of policies that supported the free market and the privatization of previously communal resources. The right-wing regimes in Latin America were at odds with the ideology of the new right. The European New Right was a reaction to modernization, economic tribulations, and globalization, while the right in Latin America caused the problems (mainly economic) that the New Right mobilized against.

The global New Right movement changed drastically in the 2010s, as it merged with the radical right, the extreme right, and mainstream conservatives under the banner of populist nationalism. Thus, the alt-right was born. Through the internet, online actors began building platforms, communicating with similarly minded people regardless of borders, and making their ideas easily accessible. The alt-right made its way to Latin America as politicians and public figures interacted with and participated in conferences such as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Despite the ideology seeming incongruent with the region’s history, as right-wing parties in Latin America have historically stood opposed to the European New Right philosophies—especially in their anti-elite culture —the transnational networks have allowed the movement to nestle itself in a completely different context. The alt-right in Latin America is a fledgling movement; however, its growing prominence in political circles is increasingly notable. How did this happen? How does the movement look in this region? How do these transnational communities function? How does this global communication of the alt-Right build upon or contradict the intellectual history of the older new right? But most importantly, what does the prominence of global conservative movements in two different periods tell us about the development and spread of political movements? 

My working hypothesis is that a period of increased mobility, spurred by globalization, the advancement of communication technologies, and the adoption of new strategies for political mobilization by specific actors, allowed the far right to spread beyond the place of the movements’ original conception. I argue that by understanding the transnational dimension of the earlier New Right movement in the twentieth century, we can understand the expansive nature of the alt-right in the twenty-first century. 

Significance 

Scholarship on the far right has steadily increased as the movement continues to unsettle global politics. Recent works, primarily in sociology, history, and political science, have expanded on the beliefs, interests, and prominence of these parties. However, most of the work is limited to specific nation-states, which is indeed useful when considering the internal diversity of the movement’s ideology. Transnational perspectives are rarer. Works with a transnational perspective have centered on Europe and the United States. I have yet to find research on how the alt-right (specifically) has manifested in Latin America. The existing research is limited to right-wing regimes in the 1980s and 90s.

Methodology and Approach 

For this project, I will compare two time frames: the 1960s-70s and the 2010s-2020s to study the movement’s development and the mechanisms it employs to spread globally. For its transnational approach, I must balance the significance of the nation-state for the movement (as the actors themselves heavily engage with ideas around it), while also emphasizing that we can not just focus on the local and national histories and cultural contexts to understand the new right because of the significant role that transborder interactions had in shaping the ideologies of the far-right. For primary sources, I am considering studying interactions/communications, pamphlets, discussions, and older scholarship to research the New Right. While focusing on online forums, think tank articles, opinion pieces, speeches, and conference information for the alt-right. 

Roadmap 

The current project would be divided into three parts. The beginning of the history of the new right. A section on the historical context of the right in Latin America, and lastly, a portion on the alt-right in the twenty-first century, where I focus on the current state of the movement and its development in Latin America.

For my research project, I am looking at the transnational networks that created and maintained the New Right movement and (in modernity) the Alt-right movement. I read Wimmer and Schiller’s work on Methodological Nationalism, The Social Sciences, and The Study of Migration, to consider different approaches to the methodology in my own work. This piece highlighted various ideas I noted in my pre-liminary research. Most significantly, I believe that the New Right movement showcases how individuals internalize academia’s understanding of the nation-state and nationalism and apply it to their political mobilization.
Schiller and Wimmer discuss how nationalism, the formation of the nation-state, and migration were understood and shaped mutually through global trends occurring from around the 1870s to the First World War. The creation of a global market, a renewed rush for colonization, and an increase in industrialization and modernization led to the more concrete formation of the nation-state. As such, the nation-state became the assumed and natural container of organization, creating an identity shaped by an understanding of “the people” who held rights, responsibilities of mutual aid, and shared a cultural identity. This era gave rise to academia’s understanding ( and the overall organization of knowledge and fields) of the nation and the people who belonged within it. Therefore, the social sciences have hardly questioned the methodological nationalism in their works. The social sciences would either ignore, take for granted, or remain constrained to a specific territorial boundary when touching upon the nation-state and nationalism. In the end, these categories of study were created and formalized because they helped concretize modern ideas of the nation-state.
When conducting my preliminary research, multiple articles and journals expressed shock at the bouts of violent nationalism expressed by the new right. I found this sentiment interesting, as based on my previous knowledge and historical pieces on the evolution of the right, conservatism, and its emphasis on natural and “organic” ethnic groups had been a continuity since the very creation of the nation-state as an identity. Schiller and Wimmer discuss how the social sciences have had amnesia over the role of nationalism (even in its violent expressions) in creating boundaries and national identities. Nationalism was assumed to be foreign to Western states, which were built upon democracy and liberal ideology.
What I found the most interesting was that the individuals who developed the foundational ideology for the new right were rooted in the ideologies that led to the formation of the nation-state. Similarly, how the nation-state was constructed through cross-border interactions, the nationalistic and insular far-right movement was created by transnational networks. The right’s conversations on belonging, modernization, and immigration, and “organic” ethnic groups were the same ideas that built the nation-state.
When working on this project, I must keep this in mind, because if I ignore methodological nationalism in my own work (and in my understandings of others’ research), I run the risk of portraying this movement as inherently shocking and paradoxical instead of portraying it as a natural progression of conversations on belonging and exclusion originating from the formation of nation-states.

With the project presentation coming up, I used most of my time to look into more secondary sources on the subject of the second wave of feminism from a transnational perspective and think of where I wanted to go with my final project. In my last blog, I mentioned my desire to go further than a western centered analysis of the subject and try to highlight not only the exchanges but also the absence of circulation in some cases and the barriers to the circulation of feminist ideas. My main aim is to explore how a transnational approach can help rethink and offer new perspectives on the subject of the second wave of feminism. 

In that sense Molony and Nelson’s book Women’s Activism and « Second Wave » Feminism: Transnational Histories is particularly interesting in how it highlights the role of transnational perspectives in reshaping the spatialization as well as the temporality of the second wave of feminism. Indeed, they argue that the idea that the second wave of feminism started in the early 1960s and continued throughout the 1970s is due to historiography having mostly focused on anglo-saxon and french movements. 

However, by using a transnational approach and trying to expand and de-westernize the study of feminist movements of the period, the second wave of feminism appears as a larger and longer process which, the authors argue, could be defined as starting directly following the beginning of the cold war and ending in the early twentieth century.

Molony and Nelson also question the relevance of the image of the wave in scholarly work on feminist movements of the period as it conceals the continuity and gives the appearance that there were no feminists mobilizations in between waves. They mobilize Molyneaux’s work on feminism and women’s activism and highlights the continuity between both as although women’s activism is not inherently feminist it can serve as a catalyst for feminist demands thus again putting into question the relevance of the wave image. I found this particularly interesting and I wish to keep in mind some of those concepts and points of critique that both authors made while working on my final project.

For my research project I will be exploring Jewish resilience in London during the Blitzkrieg. Specifically, I will be focusing on the targeted destruction of Jewish communities during the bombings and the persistence of antisemitism in London. While the Blitz is oftentimes remembered as a moment of British unity and patriotism, this narrative oftentimes complicates experiences of minority communities during this time, particularly London’s Jewish population.

Jewish communities were heavily concentrated in East London, including areas such as Stepney and Whitechapel, which were some of the most heavily bombed and targeted areas of London. These neighborhoods had been long standing centers for Jewish community and culture which was shaped by earlier migrations from Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. I will also be briefly discussing the broader history of this migration and urban settlement in British in my project.

When thinking about the readings for this week, the arguments made by both Wimmer and Schiller suggests that national histories, such as British unity during the Blitz, can obscure the experiences of minority communities in those said nations. Furthermore, when looking at Jewish domestic suffering in London, this ‘national unified experience’ blurs. Wartime suffering directly intersects with histories of immigration and minority identities that are so oftentimes overlooked or disqualified.

Reinecke’s work on immigration policies also intersects with my project. Reinecke’s work highlights how states were increasingly intent on monitoring the movement of foreign populations in the early twentieth century. Despite Jewish communities in London having citizenship status or long standing roots in Britain, they were still targeted by restrictive immigration policies like the Aliens Act of 1905. Consequently, due to these policies and cultural attitudes, perception of Jewish migrants during the wartime bombings were under looked.

Paul van de Laar’s work on migration and urban spaces is also useful when thinking about Jewish communities located within the city. Migrants were often concentrated in specific areas that could become densely populated but also socially marginalized, and East London fits this pattern well. Migration districts like those of East London (which were heavily bombed) meant that Blitz struck communities already shaped by migration, economic precarity, and ethnic diversity.

These readings together will help frame my project in a broader context. I want to examine the Blitz more closely and how wartime experiences and memory were also shaped by migration, urban geography, and the politics of belonging. With the focus on Jewish Londoners, I hope to explore how minority groups navigated both the physical devastation of the Blitz as well as the social challenges that existed alongside it.

The distinction between “domestic” and “foreign” Poles is a pattern that I’ve found particularly relevant to my project’s exploration of indigenous communities. While we traditionally define indigeneity as an isolated community tied to land and victimised by colonialism, I want to “spin it on its head” and ask: is it really that black and white?

Conrad’s work shows that globalisation around 1900 didn’t just move people; it forced the state to redefine who belonged to the land. This reflects a core question in my research: what defines indigeneity? If a community has a transnational reach or moves out of their own free will, does that change their status as “indigenous”? For the Germans, the “foreign Pole” was a threat precisely because of this mobility, whereas the “domestic Pole” was accepted only because they were legislatively “locked” into the Prussian state.

This tension between land and identity is also evident in the “land struggle” (Bodenkampf) in Prussia’s eastern provinces. This was effectively a form of “continental imperialism,” where the state used geography, through language and schooling, as a tool for “Germanisation”. In my research, I’m looking at how war and the movement of land can be viewed as an indigenous “colonial” method. Just as the Comanche used tree marking to establish a history and legacy with their land, the Prussian state used the trope of “German work” (deutsche Arbeit) to claim a superior, “natural” right to the territory.

However, where the Comanche markers were organic, the state’s markers were bureaucratic. The introduction of the “Obligation of Domestic Legitimisation” and identity cards transformed the worker into a seasonal “vector” rather than a resident. This suggests that “culture can function like a nature,” locking groups into a specific genealogy and determining who is a “danger” to the national identity based on their origin.

Ultimately, my project will argue that understanding nations and natures requires looking at both “roots” and “routes”. The geography of belonging isn’t just about a static tie to the land; it’s about how states and communities use movement, work, and even war to define who they are in a globalising world. As I continue to hone my definition of indigeneity, Conrad’s “real” colony provides a vital framework for seeing how identity borders are drawn long before a physical border is ever crossed.

As there were no assigned readings during the spring vacation, I started looking further into my final project and had the opportunity to dive deeper into some works on the subject of the second wave of feminism of the 1970s in a transnational perspective.

For this week’s blog I thought I would explore an article that I stumbled upon almost two years ago for a gender study class and which was one of the starting points for my final project. In American lesbians are not French women: heterosexual French feminism and the Americanisation of lesbianism in the 1970s, Eloit offers an insightful study of the relations between French and American feminists and highlights how the French movement was shaped in connection with but most importantly against the American example in some cases. Indeed, she argues that the American multiculturalist society was viewed as producing separatism between communities, and American feminists and the “sex war” were used as a boogeyman by French feminists. French feminists were largely influenced by universalist ideals in which, contrary to their perception and representations of the American society, differences had to be erased in order to come together. Those different contexts were both largely influenced by national trajectories and histories. Eloit then argues that French universalism as well as the myth of a French singularity, defined by its natural harmony and coming together of men and women under the the banner of “love” which French feminists also mobilized in their discourse, was threatened by the figure of lesbian women and thus lesbian identities were erased from the french feminist movement in the name of unity under the common identity of women. She highlights how the issue of lesbianism in French feminist movements and representations of lesbian women were directly linked to representations of the American movements but also became intertwined with racial representations.

I found Eloit’s work particularly interesting as some previous readings which were assigned for this class had highlighted how transnational or global history often emphasize exchanges and the circulation of ideas rather than also focus on the limits to this circulation and how actors sometimes act against those exchanges. Eloit’s article highlights how although feminist ideas circulated during the Second wave of the 1970’s those were also sometimes stopped and limited by national or local contexts and how similar movements at first could also be built against each other. Thus, Eloit’s article shaped my desire to not only explore exchanges and circulations during the Second wave of feminism but also how and why some ideas did not circulate. In this blog I focused on French and American movements but I also aim at decentralizing this western perspective for my final project.

For my blog post this week, I wanted to reflect on the research I’ve done so far for my long essay to work through my ideas and hopefully receive constructive feedback. Currently, I am focusing it on uncovering how the interaction between Eastern Europe and the West in terms of consumerism and rock music specifically contributed (and to what extent) to the collapse of communism in the Eastern bloc, specifically looking at Eastern Europe in the 1980s. The goal is to prove that the iron curtain was actually somewhat broken down by transnational engagement with cultural practices. After the research I have done thus far, including key texts such as “Did Rock Smash the Wall? The Role of Rock in Political Transition” by Jolanta Pekacz and “The Times They Are A-changin’” by Peter Wicke, I am leaning towards exploring Poland and the GDR as case studies. There have also been references to the case of rock music’s role in the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. As such, I am continuing to research about these countries to see if either can be used as an additional case study if relevant. 

In noting down potential arguments and things to preface or explore further in my essay, I have made a list of questions to consider. These include: What did communism look like on an everyday basis and to what extent was this offset or shifted by the development of local rock music in the 1980s? What were all of the major factors that contributed to the collapse of communism in these countries and where did rock music and Western consumerism fit into this? Are there historiographical gaps regarding how these major factors were affected by rock music both domestically and internationally? Was most of the local rock music written in these socialist countries in English and if so, what does this say about the impact of Western culture on the Eastern bloc in general? 

My research so far has been fascinating. I am especially interested in how the systems behind socialist governments ironically helped to establish a platform for rock music to prevail and for individualism and political opposition to grow. For instance, the linguistic codes behind communist-charged language, which was understood by citizens in countries such as the GDR and Poland, established an ability to ‘read between the lines.’ This meant that rock musicians could discreetly insert political messages into their music which they knew their audiences could decode. All in all, there is more to be done and I look forward to continuing to build the essay and engage with this topic further.

This week I read Alcade’s work and Dietze and Naumann’s work, both of which offered interesting methodological nuances to the practice of transnational history. Alcade’s text, which focuses on the historiographical shift toward ‘historical space’ as opposed to the mainstream temporal focus, highlights how nation-states and borders need to be discredited from concrete entities determined by physical features but rather should be interrogated as historically constructed arenas. Dietze and Naumann’s text, on the other hand, acted as an intervention to the tendency of transnational historians to assume international or cross-border actors as passive or detached from ties to their local or national influences. This text highlights the need to emphasize, or at least acknowledge in transnational historiographies, that historical actors did in fact carry influences, biases, and knowledge from their place of origin, as well as from their previous cross-border experiences, which ultimately impacted the way in which they operated internationally. 

After reflecting on both texts, which I believe serve complementary critiques and solutions regarding the practice of transnational history, I wondered how I would implement or at least consider implementing these methodological adjustments into my long essay. Since my long essay will center around rock music and Western consumerism and the impact of both on the collapse of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe during the 1980s, I do not think that Alcade’s work will apply as it is mainly grounded in comparative history. Unless, however, I implemented it in another way through focusing spatially on the interaction between the West and Eastern Europe in the same time frame. However, I do think that Dietze and Naumann’s work and its emphasis on actors and how they ‘remain anchored’ to their origins and international experiences could potentially apply to my long essay. By this, I mean that a section of the essay could include exploring how international actors travelling between the West and the Eastern bloc, especially in the case of divided Germany and the Berlin wall, played a role in introducing and exacerbating the presence and popularity of Western consumerism and rock music. I look forward to doing further research and finding substantial sources to see if this can become a considerable argument within my long essay, in which case I will undoubtedly return to Dietze and Naumann for theoretical support, particularly in my short essay.

Transnational history is often presented as a solution to the so-called ‘methodological nationalism’ that was and is prevalent amongst the social sciences. However, Naumann’s Revisiting transnational actors from a spatial perspective and Alcalde’s Spatializing transnational history: European spaces and territories argue that this new methodology is far from something that should be adopted uncritically, and it can itself fall into the same pitfalls as the methodology it was designed to supersede. 

Naumann argues that the ‘transnational’ has begun to increasingly resemble an essentialised ‘sphere of its own’. More specifically, how focusing only on mobility risks turning ‘transnational actors’ into cosmopolitan ‘free agents’, and treating the transnational as something entirely detached from local and national contexts. They instead posit that actors are, no matter their stripe, always present in multiple, layered spaces, the local, the regional, the imperial, and the international.  

Alcalde, meanwhile, connects transnational history and the ‘spatial turn’, arguing that, if done improperly, transnationalism will only replace the nation-state container that once confined how people approached history with new, larger, but still abstract containers, such as Europe, essentially resulting in the recreation of ‘methodological nationalism’ as ‘methodological transnationalism’. He instead calls for a flexible use of scales and spatial units derived from the research question, not assumed in advance.  

Both articles also clarify what makes a source ‘transnational’, arguing that some documents are not magically ‘global’ and others ‘national’, but that, a source becomes transnational when it allows us to trace cross-boundary relations. Such as an activist whose correspondence about a local political or environmental campaign is relayed to an international organisation. Naumann echoes Pierre-Yves Saunier’s metaphor of the ‘historian’s Trojan horses’ to describe sources about actors who migrate between spatial orders, allowing historians to better discover and measure transnational connections. 

Both texts also provide suggestions about how sources can be interpreted transnationally, which can be boiled down to approaching sources from a ‘spatial’ lens: what spaces does the source assume the reader is fluent in, what borders does it cross, and how are its actors positioned socially. Even relatively small sources can be used to reconstruct larger transnational spaces if we simply follow the networks they exist within.  

This week’s readings challenge the positive narrative surrounding transnational actors. Dietze and Neumann show that the “transnational” is not a free-floating space, arguing that actors remain embedded in layered socio-spatial contexts even as they build cross-border connections. Similarly, Alcalde argues that space itself is historically constructed and a territorially organised, hence transnational processes unfold within uneven and contested orders.

I believe this becomes particularly revealing when applied to contemporary short-term missionary trips from Europe or North America to African countries. On the surface these missions seem to embody transnationalism, as these individuals that cross borders to build communities and share their faith operate outside of formal state diplomacy, often emphasising solidarity and humanitarism. Nonetheless, when viewed through this week’s spatial lens, these actors are very much intertwined with structures of power. Mission trips are embedded in institutional church networks, as well as visa regimes and global inequalities that enable certain forms of mobility while restricting others. These participants usually travel from economically privileged states with strong passports and they come into regions marked and often scarred by years of colonial intervention, which coexisted with missionary activity. Their mobility is structured by territorial hierarchies that still remain deeply uneven.

In this sense, transnationalism reveals how differently borders operate for different actors. While for missionaries they might function as manageable crossings, for many locals, their mobility, especially towards North America or Europe, is highly restricted. These cross-border encounters therefore, take place within unequal systems of territorial control.

Furthermore, missionary projects often have universalist claims. For instance, like Esperanto, seeking to transcend national divisions through a neutral language, missionary movements make their mission seem as globally applicable and culturally transferable, but such universalism often emerges from historical and cultural contexts. In this case it is Western Christian traditions shaped by imperial pasts. While it appears as spiritual outreach, it may also reproduce/reinforce older hierarchies of knowledge and development.

Nonetheless, this does not mean that all transnational religious actors are consciously reproducing colonial ideologies, but it underscores the key insights of the readings, arguing that transnational actors are producers of space and these spaces they produce are never neutral. Henceforth, while mobility can connect, it can also platform inequality.

It is then safe to say that transnationalism is not inherently emancipatory, as it is embedded and often asymmetrical, unfolding within the very territorial and histoical hierarchies it sometimes claims to transcend