MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

Fionnbarra Ó Dochartaigh, a prominent member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), once suggested he and his fellow civil rights activists ‘viewed ourselves as Ulster’s white negroes’.[1] Indeed, the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, spearheaded by groups such as NICRA and People’s Democracy (PD), established such a connection between the discrimination against African-Americans in the United States and their own experiences of inequality on the grounds of their Catholicism. The success of African-Americans in securing desegregation in the early 1960s thus encouraged these groups in Northern Ireland to pursue similar courses of action in the hope of achieving the same results.[2] Between April 1967, with the foundation of NICRA, and January 1972, the recognised end date of the movement in Northern Ireland with Bloody Sunday, civil rights groups in Northern Ireland assimilated the objectives and approaches of its American counterparts into their own tactics to achieve integration. The transmission of these ideas from America was facilitated by two transnational ‘connectors’ in particular: individual actors travelling between the two locations and the media in their transmission of images and words through newspapers, radio and television. 

Much of the existing historical scholarship in this field, including perhaps the most influential work of Brian Dooley’s Black and Green: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America (London, 1998), focuses largely on establishing these connections between the Northern Irish and American movements. While these sources provide invaluable evidence for the transnational movement of ideas, they do little to evaluate the consequences of their influence. Therefore, the key question of this project is: in light of the differences between the results of the civil rights movements in the United States and Northern Ireland, with the former eventually securing political legislation against institutional segregation and the latter collapsing into a violent campaign defined by paramilitarism, did the influence of the American movement help or hinder the Northern Irish movement? In other words, is there a role for local cultural circumstances in the ‘translation’ of these transnational concepts that resulted in their different effect in Northern Ireland?

To answer this question, undertaking an analysis of the transnational movement of concepts such as ‘civil rights’, ‘non-violence’ and ‘black power’ through the activity of the aforementioned actors and media institutions, and the reasons for the dichotomy in the concepts’ reception and application between the two locations will be necessary. Both contemporary and retrospective accounts from key figures in the Northern Irish movement, including Bernadette Devlin and Michael Farrell, emphasise the importance of such conceptual influences, but also suggest limited understandings of the nature of these concepts.[3] Therefore, it should be considered whether there was ever a real understanding of, commitment to, or possibility of practising these ideas in the movement in Northern Ireland, given the local circumstances. One such example is in the Northern Irish application of both ‘non-violence’ from Martin Luther King and aspects of ‘black power’ from Stokely Carmichael, two concepts with fundamentals that were somewhat antithetical in the American context.[4]

Therefore, at this juncture, I would suggest that while the US movement rightfully inspired those in Northern Ireland to challenge the institutional discrimination against them, the attempt to apply these ideas on the basis of their success in the US without real consideration of the local circumstances in Northern Ireland ultimately rendered them an obstruction to the Northern Irish cause. However, the misunderstanding and misapplication of the ideas of the American movement does not bear sole responsibility for the failure of the civil rights movement; it is a contributory factor to a wider explanation, constructed of issues from both within the movement and the social and political circumstances of the region at the time, yet significant enough that it merits such an individual study. 

[1] Ó Dochartaigh, Fionnbarra, Ulster’s White Negroes: From Civil Rights to Insurrection (London, 1994), p. 14

[2] Guelke, Adrian, Politics in Deeply Divided Societies (Cambridge, 2012), p. 85

[3] See Bernadette Devlin, The Price of My Soul (New York, 1969); Michael Farrell (ed.), Twenty Years On (Dingle, 1988)

[4] Prince, Simon, ‘’Do What the Afro-Americans Are Doing’: Black Power and the Start of the Northern Ireland Troubles’, Journal of Contemporary History 50(3) (2015), p. 524

In 1922, over 2000 women from 23 countries arrived in Baltimore for the Pan-American Conference of Women. The conference, organised by the delegates from the United States, aimed at creating a Transnational Women’s movement across the Americas in order to combat European Influence in the region. Nonetheless, the conference failed at incorporating the needs of women in the North and South, by being heavily centred on the aims of North America and providing an overwhelmingly imperialistic tone towards the Latin American Women. Shortly after the conference, delegates such as Paulina Luisa from Uruguay and Elena Arizmedi from Mexico discussed the creation of an Ibero-American alliance, which brought together the women from the Iberian Peninsula and latin America who shared a common culture and religion inherited from the colonial relations between Iberia and Latin America. The League of Iberian and Hispanic-American women was then formed in 1923, with sections in Madrid and most Latin American capitals. 

Despite the creation of this League arising from a desire on behalf of Latin American women to form a movement which better suited their aims – therefore implying some kind of shared cultural experience of womanhood – historiography regarding first wave feminist transnationalism has failed to explore both the Alliance itself and the aims of Latin American and Iberian Feminists. Studies on movements in which Ibero-American women were a part of, such as the Pan-American Conference have an overwhelmingly Eurocentric focus and relate solely to the needs of North American and European Women. There has been a surge however, by historians such as Pamela Caughie and Francesca Miller to combat the Eurocentrism in the literature by creating links between first wave feminist movements in Britain and its Colonies, demonstrating the relevance of colonial interactions in early feminist movements. This is especially the case for Latin America, who’s liberation movements in the early 19th century must have undoubtedly impacted the first wave feminists which emerged merely decades later. 

There is therefore a gap in the historiography of the field, which this project aims not only to fill but to spark further research on the transnational gender relations between Latin America and Iberia. This project strives to explore the questions as to why the League was formed and argues that the aims of Iberian and Latin American women relate due to cultural interactions as a result of colonialism. The research questions are built upon the idea of a common, cultural experience of womanhood between Ibero-America which then shapes the aims of transnational first wave feminist movements these women participated in:

• Why is there is desire from women on both sides of the Atlantic to form this Ibero-American relationship? 
• Is there a common experience of womanhood, shaped by ‘Machismo’ as well as the Catholic Religion in Latin America as a result of Spanish and Portuguese colonisation?
• To what extent is this relationship the drive for first wave feminists in Ibero-America to unite?
• What were the precise aims of the Ibero-American first wave feminists?

The focus of this project is therefore the transnational exchange of cultural gender norms as well as the translational interaction of first wave feminism.The project will look firstly texts which speak of feminist and gender history and philosophy in Iberia and Latin America, in order to search for a common cultural experience of womanhood. It will then move onto analysing the Ibero-American Alliance itself, through an exploration of letters, periodicals (La Raza, El Imparcial, La Epoca), speeches and legal documents which a precise focus on the aims of the alliance.

Due to the lack of historiography on the League itself, it will rely heavily on the personal correspondence and publications by the members of the League, specifically: Carmen de Burgos (Spain), Belén Sarraga (Spain & Portugal), Paulina Luisi (Uruguay), Elena Arizmedi (Mexico) and Bertha Lutz (Brasil). The timeline relevant to the project is that of 1900-1935, as first wave feminism arose later in Latin America and Iberia, and feminist movements were haltered due to the Spanish Civil War starting in 1936 and the rise of Franco’s right-winged authoritarian government. 

My project is an examination into the transnational elements of Maoism as an intellectual movement. Firstly, I will explore how Marxism transitioned into Marxism Leninism as it spread from Western to Eastern Europe. Then how Marxism Leninism transitioned into Maoism in China. How did this ideology cross borders? What parts of it changed, and what stayed the same? How much influence did important figures like Lenin, Stalin and Mao have on the ideology’s changes, and how much was a response to the different conditions in their countries? How does the ideology develop in times of peace and of war? This will be followed by an examination of Maoism outside of China and following the death of Mao. Particular attention will be paid to its influence in American and India, but Turkey, Peru, and the Philippines will also be covered. The ultimate question of this project is can we track a consistent intellectual history of Maoism, and if not, what are the reasons for this rupture.

So why is this project interesting and worth pursuing. Firstly, I would argue that it has significant modern relevance. While there is a tendency in the west to view Maoism as a dead letter, this is simply not the case. There are only two leftist ideologies currently engaged in armed conflict in the world, Democratic Confederalism and Maoism. And the Confederalists of Rojava are supported in their struggle by Turkish Maoists groups. Also, the main thrust of the article being the way in which ideologies mutate across borders and in different cultures has relevancy outside the left. The far right is increasingly globalised, from the neo-fascist groups like Atomwaffen and The Base taking inspiration from Islamists, to the increasing fraternisation between Republican diehards and Hindutva ideologues. What I will uncover in this project will, hopefully, be applicable here as well. But even if the project was totally irrelevant to our current condition, it would not be without value. The story of global Maoism is one that stretches from the 19^th century to the present day. Its geographic scope stretches from Paris to China to America. It takes in men and women at every station of life, from the ruler of the most populous nation on earth to toiling peasant-farmer guerrillas. The way that Maoists tend to form small, insular communities also provides fascinating opportunities for a micro historical look at what could otherwise be a very macro subject. Particularly interesting is the American Maoist community, as fractious and fragmented as it can be. What shape does an ideology rooted in peasant guerrilla warfare and founded in a colonial context take, when it is recapitulated within the imperial core?

There are also some interesting sources that will be included in this project. I intend to tell this story largely using the words of the figures discussed. In other words, using the writing so of prominent Marxist figures. This will obviously include using the works of major figures like Lenin, Stalin, Mao but also those colleagues of there’s who are less well known to laymen. Seamus Costello, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, and Azad will all have their voices heard and they will not be alone. Modern Maoist theorists in North America like Kevin Rashid Johnson, J Moufawad-Paul, and Jason Unruhe will be considered, both their writings and if possible, interviews with them. Fortunately, unlike Trotskyites Maoists seem to do most of their writing online rather than in newspapers, so it is easier to keep track of their statements. We should not only consider the words of intellectuals, however. We are lucky that Indian universities have good English language records of interviews conducted with Naxalite fighters, allowing us a glimpse at their conceptualisation of Maoism, one apart from the intellectuals in the leadership of their organisation and in the west. Finally, it would be hubristic to act as if I could write an entirely unique history of Maoism as an intellectual movement from primary sources. While most works on Maoism are almost solely concerned with it as a physical force, some secondary sources will still be used.

Though whaling has existed since ancient and prehistoric times, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries it experienced its rise, height, and decline as a commercial industry. As a facilitator of transnational maritime networks, the introduction of new whaling technology in the late nineteenth century altered hunting methods that led to the modernisation of whaling, eventually reducing the reliance that national whaling companies had previously had on Inuit and other indigenous communities.[1]

For my project I propose a closer in-depth exploration of the people within the industry – the whalers themselves, their wives and families, others who played a role in making the industry function – and the concept of identity that was formed and associated with them. Current scholarship on the history of whaling is overwhelmingly economic in focus, and while I agree that the history of whaling would be incomplete without these numbers, I believe that it is a disservice to the whalers to restrict their legacy to one of economic statistics.

Utilising Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of ‘contact zones’, “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination,” I intend to argue that a transnational history of whaling does exist, and that by exploring the concept of identity and gender roles within the industry in the nineteenth century, we gain a better understanding of the significance of the industry’s connection to global ideologies such as imperialism and colonisation.[2]

I propose the investigation into three contact zones: Nantucket, Greenland, and the South Pacific islands.[3] Specifically, I will analyse the relationships between Nantucket whalers and Native Americans, whalers in Greenland and Inuit communities, and whalers in the South Pacific and Pacific island communities. Deriving off information gathered from my historiographical essay, I hypothesise that in each of these locations unique relationships between the whalers and the local populations manifested themselves, resulting in the generation of cross-cultural melting pots where transnational identities were created. Further examination into how gender influenced these relationships will assist in filling the identity/gender-gap that exists in the historiography of whaling, and will lead to a better understanding of the conception of the whaler as a unique figure, and the role of women in the enforcing or challenging these conceptions.

The main overarching questions I would like to answer with this project are as follows:

• Is there a transnational history of whaling?
• How can the implementation of a transnational perspective on the whaling industries help us to better understand themes in the nineteenth century?

I hope also to address the following:

• How are whalers represented in historiography and literature? [4]
  • How are women represented? Native Americans? Inuits?
• Are there local and global narratives from whaling communities that can be reconstructed? If so, what can these narratives tell us about transnational actors, approaches, and the world that they lived in? Why do they matter?[5]
• In what ways do whalers and their communities serve as transnational actors?
• How are whaling communities contact zones?

I hope to utilise archival material (logs, letters, journals), secondary historiography, and literature to assist in creating the narrative of whalers, lesser-known actors, and their communities, moving away from the statistical narrative that already exists. However, I expect acquiring some of these sources may present a challenge.

[1]  J. N. Tønnessen, and A. O. Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling, trans. R. I. Christopherson (London, 1982), pp. 3, 6-7.

[2] Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London, 1992), p. 5.

[3] Greenland as a contact zone may be subject to change later if there is not a suitable amount of scholarly literature to research. I may expand it to Greenland and Alaska, or just Alaska. I am also considering Dundee, as there might be greater potential for a gender perspective, but this depends on whether or not the other contact zones chosen provide enough material.

[4] Such as in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick or, the Whale (originally published 1851).

[5] These questions were inspired by Martha Hodes, ‘A Story with an Argument: Writing the Transnational Life of a Sea Captain’s Wife’, in Desley Deacon, Penny Russell, and Angela Woollacott (eds.), Transnational Lives: Biographies of Global Modernity 1700-present (London, 2010), pp. 18-19.

From the early colonisers and traders going out into the world, to leading intellectuals of the Enlightenment, we can recognise many Scots as significant examples of Transnational and Global actors. So, should we really be surprised by the involvement of Scots in the Esperanto movement, right from the movement’s origins? Perhaps not. In 1911, 100 Scots travelled to Antwerp in order to attend the 7^th World Esperanto Congress. This is where this study shall take its starting point.

The Antwerp Congress 1911 was the largest World Esperanto Congress to have been held since the first in 1905, with a recorded 1,800 attendees. Esperanto itself, is a constructed language, intended to bring together people and nations, creating a transnational network through language and the communication of likeminded individuals and groups. In creating this network, a route for communication and connectiveness, it provides a clear example of a Transnational environment and interaction, through which we can investigate the interaction and experience of Scottish individuals within the Esperanto movement.

Using the register of attendees – where the 100 Scottish attendants are recorded – we can begin to pose questions to drive and direct further study into the level and character of Scottish interaction with the Esperanto movement. To do this there will be an initial analysis of the data using comparative methods. By systematically comparing this data with other sets it will become clear as to the extent of the abnormality, or normality, of this level of Scottish participation in the Esperanto movement. Comparison is a good analytical method to be applied and viewed through a transnational lens as it can show relationship Scotland had with the movement and other nations. Firstly, we can compare the number of Scottish attendants with the number of attendants from countries of a similar population. Initial observation indicates suggests a higher involvement from Scots than comparable nations such as Denmark.[1] From here there will be further comparison made between Scottish attendance numbers at the 1911 Congress and at former and subsequent Congresses in the pre-war period. These comparisons will indicate the consistency and character of Scottish participation within the Esperanto movement.

In doing this we will be able to see whether there were any significant increases or decreases in Scottish attendance and when. If we see an increase in Scottish attendance at this congress, whether sudden or gradual, we can begin to pose other questions that can gradually become increasingly detailed in aim and scope. If we see an increase the next driving question becomes why? More specifically, why Antwerp? – Was it easier to travel to; was this a response to a growing movement in Scotland or the work and influence of key individuals; was there an underlying social sentiment among the Scottish that they want more international interaction, possibly distinguished from the influence of England?

At this point, initial ideas indicate that there was an increase in the participation of Scots in the Esperanto movement at home, and so increased participation in the Congress makes sense. If this is the case, then the next step would be to question, once again, why? Was this increase the work of clubs and Esperanto organisations, or that of key individuals? Furthermore, increased participation begs the question of who within Scottish society this may include – was there a specific profession, or a preference of gender within the Scottish Esperanto movement. The register indicates the professions of many of the participants. Also, a collection of Scottish Esperantist, John Beveridge, are available. Analysis of these should point to some of the answers to these driving questions

Once some of the specifics of what made up the Scottish Esperanto movement are established, it may be prudent to question why Scottish attendance was so high when compared with other countries of similar population size. In doing this we should be able to identify some of the ways in which social and intellectual cultures in Scotland and other European countries converge, diverge and interact. Mostly, it should point to key factors that influenced Scottish involvement with the Esperanto movement.

[1] Scottish population 1911 – 4,761,000*; Scottish attendance – 100

   Danish population 1911 – 2,747,000*; Danish attendance – 9

   Austrian population – 6,669,000*; Austrian attendance – 37

  *rounded to the nearest thousand. r

In his posthumously-published work, Datong Shu, or The Book of Great Unity, Qing intellectual and statesman Kang Youwei (1858-1927) outlines a utopian image of a united “One World,” or “Great Unity.” In Kang’s utopian society, the “nine boundaries” of human suffering have been abolished: the very concepts of nation (national borders), class, race, sex, family (and its relationships), occupation (private ownership), disorder (unjust law), kind (the separation of humans from animals), and suffering itself (as it provokes further suffering). The One World imagined in Datong Shu is one that prioritizes “rightness,” which is defined loosely as what brings people happiness. It is characterized by the fulfilling, harmonious lives led by its inhabitants, citizens of a united world whose only borders are its arbitrary administrative units.[1]

What is most striking about Datong Shu is the ideological contrast that exists between the ideas Kang presents in his work and the historical context of his times. The world Kang lived in was one dominated and divided by Western imperial domination, yet a work predicting the creation of a harmonious Great Unity was still written in it. The very fact that a text as radically-minded as Datong Shu was written within the context of its times provokes pressing historical questions, questions that are best answered via the methods and perspective of global intellectual history.

In their 2013 work on Global Intellectual History, Moyn and Sartori propose a number of paths that may be adopted by the global intellectual historian. One takes its starting point by defining the “global” as a “subjective category used by historical agents.”[2] In other words, the approach considers how historical actors themselves perceived the concept of the global. This is the historiographical angle that I will take in considering Datong Shu, as I will analyze how Kang conceives of the “global” within his text.

My proposed project seeks to question the ideological disparities between the imagined world of Datong Shu and the historical context in which it was written in order to better understand Kang’s times. What is the vision of the “global” that Kang articulates in his work? What underpins his ideas toward the idea of a world government, a fully-realized “Great Unity?” What does this tell us about the historical nature of 19^th and 20^th century China, let alone the world? These are the kinds of historiographical questions my proposed project will ask of Datong Shu and its place within history.

My global intellectual approach will be centered around a close reading of Datong Shu. My project will utilize a 1958 translation of the work by Laurence G. Thompson, as I am unable to read the Classical Chinese of the original.[3] I will disclaim this clearly within my work. However, I believe that the inevitable distortions of Datong Shu’s translation will have little impact upon my overall project; I will focus upon Datong Shu’s concepts within a broad historical context, rather than consider the text’s precise definitions and wording.

My close reading of Datong Shu will be informed by a global intellectual history framework that will place it in conversation with other texts and within the context of its times. Much has already been written on Kang as a historical figure and Datong Shu as an intellectual text, but there has yet to be a work that considers Kang’s conception of the global within Datong Shu.[4] Through completing this project, in addition to remedying this historiographical gap, I hope to foster better understandings of Kang’s times and historical conceptions of the global.

[1] K’ang Yu-Wei and Laurence G. Thompson, trans., Ta T’ung Shu (New York, 1958).

[2] Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History” in Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, eds., Global Intellectual History, (New York, 2013) pp. 4, 16-17.

[3] K’ang, Ta T’ung Shu.

[4] See Jonathan Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution (New York, 1981) and Ban Wang, “The Moral Vision in Kang Youwei’s Book of the Great Community” in Ban Wang, ed., Chinese Visions of World Order: Tianxia, Culture, and World Politics (Durham, 2017), pp. 87-105.

Probably one of my greatest struggles is decision making. I hate having to choose what to have for dinner, what movie to go see, what modules to take and, mostly, what topic I should choose for projects and essays. It just seems like a big decision. Make the wrong choice and you end up having to write 4,000 words and spend who knows how many hours, reading, researching and writing about something you aren’t actually interested in, or feel is unimportant or insignificant. At the same time, make the safe choice, choosing a general topic area previously studied, because maybe knowing some background which will help and make it easier, is rarely truly interesting, inspiring or rewarding. Personally, I often fall back on British Imperial History. It’s something I have previously studies through school and sub-honours and feels safe, but, while there is a place for further study there, I’m not sure its mine. So again, we return to the question – what topic?

            Maybe something with that can teach us about our society? Maybe we should choose our questions based on what is happening in our world now and why that is happening? Maybe something that can teach us lessons that we can apply now? Something to do with global connections and communications? Maybe associated with political and cultural division? Why are we divided? Why are so many peoples oppressed or excluded from society? Is there an ideal societal make up? Are we getting closer to it? Or further away? What can history, historical events and phenomena, show or teach us about the human condition? As far as I can tell we are all as messed up as each other. No, maybe the big questions are not quite the starting place I need.

            So maybe something with a personal connection? But I must be honest, there’s not a lot I feel a personal connection with that I am yet that interested in studying. So there goes that option.

            What I am interested in is connections. Connections, networks and infrastructures. There’s a running joke among my friends that I am going to write my dissertation on trains. While I’m not sure this will happen in its entirety, I will try work a reference to my first network love in there somewhere. Ok, anecdote over – trains did spark in me an interest in networks and connections and the influences of these on how societies have grown and events that have taken place. So here is a starting point perhaps? But I still feel no closer to a topic or question for study specifically.

            So, what now? Well, now I’m going to ask someone’s advice. No point going around in circles. After meeting with Bernhard, I have now been reading and looking at the Esperanto movement, especially the Scottish connections and participations. While I admit I was a little sceptical at first, I was told that sometimes you just have to go for it – and now I’m glad I did. This is something I had honestly barely heard of before, but now I realise this movement brings some many different cultures, regions and people together. It provides an extensive network, examples of connections, and a need and examples of the use of infrastructures (so I can look at trains, even if I don’t directly mention them…).

            The point is, after all that faffing with what topic to choose I was never going to get anywhere until someone told me to go for it and run with it. To just take the leap. Sometimes we become so preoccupied with finding the big or important question, or simply completing the task, that we miss the opportunity to immerse ourselves and really enjoy history. I’m not sure yet where this project will take me, but I can already see so many options, and whether I answer the big questions or complete the task, I’m sure I will find something interesting and enjoyable along the way. In addition, I’ve realised the importance of taking the leap: next step – do it without being pushed! So, now it’s your turn – Take the Leap. and reall

‘Migration’, the movement of people across borders, is not alien to historical research. Recently, historians have examined the way migration has influenced identity in ‘diasporas’: migrants from the same origin that have settled in a new place. This research has opened up inquiries into the complex identifications that diasporic communities have with ‘citizenship’ and ‘belonging’.[1] They are people with ‘feet in two societies’: simultaneously attached to their new nation and birthplace.[2]

I am particularly interested in this identity question vis-à-vis Chinese-Cuban diasporas. Coinciding with the rise of Subaltern Studies, the histories of previously neglected spaces and groups of people, previous work on the Chinese-Cubans has focused on them in the nineteenth century, especially during the Cuban Wars for Independence (1894-98).[3] Few of these works have focused on Chinese-Cubans in the twentieth century – or if they have, the twentieth century is written alongside the nineteenth century as part of a broad overview of how Chinese-Cubans have never conformed to political and legal definitions of national identity and citizenship.[4] Moreover, these works are written about using traditional historical methodologies. Only a few authors, like Kathleen López, are incorporating new methodologies, like transnational history, into their research. There is, therefore, a need to write a twentieth century history of the Chinese-Cubans through the use of new methodologies, like transnational history.

To fill in this gap, I will use global microhistory to conduct a survey of the Chinese-Cubans during two periods of upheaval: the Chinese Civil War (1945-49) and the Cuban Communist Revolution (1953-58).[5] During these periods, I will examine how ‘Chineseness’ and ‘Cubanness’/’cubanidad‘ manifested in the writings of three notable Chinese-Cubans: Antonio Chuffat-Latour, and Pedro Eng Herrera and Mauro García Triana. Chuffat-Latour was a supporter of Sun Yat-Sen’s Kuomintang Party.[6] Eng Herrera and García Triana played a large role usurping Fulgencio Batista and bringing Fidel Castro into power.[7]

Tentatively, I argue that our current understanding of identity-formation is too simplistic. In comparing identity in these two periods of upheaval, it seems that in both, the shared experiences of colonialism and revolution in both China and Cuba were what allowed Chinese-Cubans to feel like – and become regarded as – members of the Cuban nation and nation-building project. To show this, I utilise Chinese and Cuban epistemologies in my analysis, examining how bodies are imagined and used in both. From this, I hope to show that claiming Chineseness allowed Chinese-Cubans to access experiences and understandings of colonialism and revolution. This access gave them power to speak about these topics as they manifested within Cuba. In turn, this power is what allowed the three men to acquire cubanidad and become key members of the Cuban nation-building projects in their respective contexts. Overall, this reveals a paradox – people can be acknowledged as outsiders and yet still be considered integral to their new home’s nation-building project.

[1] Wendy Kozol, ‘AHR Conversation: On Transnational History’ in American Historical Review, Vol. 111, No. 5 (December 2006), p. 1445

[2] Elsa Chaney, ‘The World Economy and Contemporary Migration’ in International Migration Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1979), p. 209

[3] See Robert Evan Ellis, China in Latin America: the Whats and Wherefores; Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, Cuba: Idea of a Nation Displaced; Lisa Yun, The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba; L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Revolutionaries, Monarchists, and Chinatowns: Chinese politics in the Americas and the 1911 Revolution; Lok Siu, ‘Chino Latino Restaurants: Converging Communities, Identities, and Cultures’ in Afro-Hispanic Review 27:1; Mauro García Triana, Pedro Eng Herrera, Gregor Benton (tr.), The Chinese in Cuba, 1847-Now; Kathleen López, Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History; Gregor Benton, Chinese Migrants and Internationalism: Forgotten Histories, 1917-1945

[4] López, Chinese Cubans, p. 5

[5] See Tonio Andrade, ‘A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory’ in Journal of World History; Martha Hodes, ‘A Story with an Argument: Writing the Transnational Life of a Sea Captain’s Wife’ in Transnational Lives: Biographies of Global Modernity, 1700-Present 21:4, Bernhard Struck, Kate Ferris, Jacques Revel, ‘Introduction: Space and Scale in Transnational History’ in The International History Review 33:4

[6] Antonio Chuffat-Latour, Apunte Histórico de los Chinos en Cuba

[7] Mauro García Triana, Pedro Eng Herrera, Gregor Benton (tr.), The Chinese in Cuba: 1847-now.

The last of the Mitford Sisters died in 2014. Deborah Cavendish, known to the world as Debo the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, was a well liked English eccentric of the sort the aristocracy can be relied on to produce. She famously decided at a young age that she would marry a Duke, and sang to herself a version of “The Man I’d Like to Marry”, with the word “Man” replaced with “Duke”. However, all her eccentricities were not what set her apart from the rest of her sisters. The reason for that is her dogged refusal to leave England, or even Devonshire. Not so the other Mitfords, whose transnational lives are a worthy subject of conversation, as examples of the many and varied paths of the lower rungs of the aristocracy in the 20^th century.

First to be discussed should be the Mitford who did the most to establish and maintain the families name in the public eye. Nancy Mitford was a novelist and socialite most famous for two semi-autobiographical works, The Pursuit of Love, and Love in a Cold Climate. These novels were heavily based on her life and the lives of her sisters, with Jessica Mitford being one of the models for the protagonist of The Pursuit of Love, for instance. Nancy is an example of the transnational socialite class. One of the “Bright Young People” of inter-war Europe, she was a frequent international traveller. Eventually falling in love with a former Free French resistance fighter (while married to another man) she settled down in Paris as so many writers of the time did. She is in this way a model of the transnational bohemian.

Next, Jessica Mitford should not go without discussion. Like Nancy she had left wing politics, however Jessica’s were far more extreme. Along with her husband, Jessica went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War, alongside many from the worldwide communist movement. It is hard to think of a more transnational armed body than the International Brigades. After the end of the civil war Jessica returned to England, where she engaged in the battle with the Blackshirts, before travelling to America. There, like many communists, she became highly involved in the struggle for civil rights, which led to her being called in front of HUAC. However she like many others left the communist party in ’58, after Khrushchev’s Secret Speech. It is also in America where Jessica wrote her most well-known book, The American Way of Death, an expose on the abuses of the funeral industry.

Finally, we come to the most sordid of the Mitfords, Unity and Diana, the fascists. Diana married Sir Oswald Moseley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, in 1936. The wedding took place in the house of Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich’s Propaganda Minister. For her involvement with international fascism she was interned for three years during World War Two, along with her husband. She remained with him for his entire life and was an unrepentant fascist to the end. This did not stop her being a member of high society, or from contributing to several high-profile papers including the Independent. However, her fascism, while a part of the international current, was a largely English phenomenon. It is her sister, Unity, who truly embodied the transnational nature of inter-war fascism. A convert to the cause, just like her sister, Unity travelled to Germany in 1934 due to her obsession with Adolf Hitler. Her familial connections with Hitler’s beloved Wagner granted her access to his inner circle of friends. When Hitler announced the Anschluss with Austria, it was Unity who stood next to him on the balcony. She was a passionate supporter of an Anglo-German alliance against Judaism, and frequently pleaded with Hitler to this effect. When Britain declared war on Germany, she was so distraught that she shot herself in the head in the English Garden in Munich. While she lived for several years after, she never recovered mentally, and died in 1948.

It is clear that these four women, the bohemian, the communist, and the fascists, represent different strands of development for the lower-ranks of the aristocracy following the first world war. With the old world dying, they had to find places in the new one. Clearly this turned out better for some than for others, but it is clear that all four embarked on clearly transnational paths.

The text I have chosen to base my upcoming project proposal on is perhaps the most bizarre, ambitious work I have ever come across in my two and a half years of studying history at the university level. Its title: Datong Shu, or, The Book of Great Unity. It was published posthumously in 1935, seven years following the death of its author, the Chinese intellectual and statesman Kang Youwei (1858-1927). Historically, he is most well-known for his intellectual works and his leadership of the Qing Dynasty’s Hundred Days’ Reform (1898), which sought to modernize China along national, cultural, political, and educational lines. The movement ultimately failed, as it was quashed by reactionary elements in the Qing court.

Reportedly, Kang refused to publish Datong Shu despite urgings to do so on the basis that its ideas were too ahead of its times. Upon reading parts of Laurence G. Thompson’s translation of the work, it’s easy to see why. The book imagines and predicts a future in which the world is unified into a “One World,” a utopian “Great Unity” in which all of the sources of humankind’s sufferings are rendered obsolete. As put by Kang, “The Way of One World is [the attainment of] utmost peace-and-equality, utmost justice, utmost jen [a term that loosely translates to “goodness”], and the most perfect government. Even though there be [other] Ways, none can add to this.”[1]

What, according to Kang, must be abolished in order to achieve the One World? The “nine boundaries” that represent “the sources of all suffering.”[2] According to Kang, these boundaries cause humans to suffer due to the obligations that they place on them. They are nation (national borders), class, race, sex, family (and its relationships), occupation (private ownership), disorder (unjust law), kind (the separation of humans from animals), and suffering itself (as it provokes further suffering). Essentially, Kang’s Datong Shu imagines a global utopia that links all of humanity.

The entirety of Datong Shu is based upon the idea that what constitutes “right” and “wrong” is dependent on if and how they contribute to human happiness. Kang maintains this idea throughout Datong Shu, and this results in truly radical, utopian ideas that would be considered as such even in our day and age. For instance, he proposes the destruction of the family unit, given how it obligates its members to defer to and support one another. He reimagines marriage as a series of one-year contracts of alliance that may be signed between two people. Men and women are not to be differentiated from each other, and all of humanity is to eventually coalesce into one great global race.

The fact that such sentiments were espoused by a 19^th and 20^th century Chinese scholar are even more confounding. While the Datong Shu is based upon radical interpretations of classical Chinese thought (and perhaps slight Western intellectual influences), Kang espouses a global, universal vision of the world throughout. Miraculously, he speaks of a Great Unity and a One World in a time when European powers dominate the Earth and subjugate its vast subaltern populations. While it is arguable that Kang imagines a Chinese-inspired global vision in Datong Shu, he ultimately thinks in terms of the global. He thinks transnationally as well; key aspects of his description of a One World government involve dividing up the Earth into equal geographic sections for administrative purposes and the global abolishment of political borders, complete with all of their restrictions.

I’ve yet to properly imagine the historical questions I need to ask of this work, let alone an answer to the ever-pervasive “so what” question Konrad Lawson drove into my head last semester: “why does this matter?” However, in Datong Shu I see that there is quite a lot to be analyzed, especially through the practice of global intellectual history. In their important 2013 work on Global Intellectual History, Moyn and Sartori propose a number of paths that may be adopted by the global intellectual historian. One takes its starting point by defining the “global” as a “subjective category used by historical agents.”[3] In other words, the approach considers how historical actors themselves perceived the idea of the global.

Perhaps my research will go down this path. Wish me luck.

[1] K’ang Yu-Wei and Laurence G. Thompson, trans., Ta T’ung Shu (New York, 1958), p. 72.

[2] Ibid., p. 74.

[3] Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, “Approaches to Global Intellectual History” in Moyn and Sartori, eds., Global Intellectual History, pp. 4, 16-17.

I have struggled to find a topic to focus on for my historiographical essay. I have wrestled with terms of identity, hybridity and struggled to pinpoint definitions this week. Identity, I have been told, is a hard to think to write about and research because it is such a difficult concept to nail down and quantify. It cannot be measured because everyone’s is unique and different. People identify as nationalities, genders/sexes, they see themselves as belonging to races and yet no two people’s combinations will be exactly the same. As Bernhard rightly pointed out to me, this makes it difficult to research. However, this seems to only fuel my fascination.

I read an article this week called Negotiating Hybridity: transnational reconstruction of migrant subjectivity in Koreatown, Los Angeles. It focuses on the physical space that Koreatown occupies as well as what it has come to represent both within its communities and those outside of it. The community within LA’s Koreatown is one of the largest outside Korea, and the authors argue that it should be seen as a hybrid space rather than one that is strictly homogenous as Koreans abroad. This article caught my eye because I grew up close to San Francisco, which hosts the ‘largest Chinese enclave outside Asia’. This grouping of Asian identities into almost ghettos (for lack of a better word, meant in terms of a minority group) is echoed in many other cities and countless other minorities in all parts of the world. The article gave great insight to why ethnic identities intensify when people migrate elsewhere. As they are seen as different, they forced to cling to what these are. Ethnic identity is not a natural phenomenon. It is a social identity, that is created deep within the psyche of self and other. To identify yourself is to see yourself in comparison to other people. My parents have recently moved to Mannheim, where they see the same thing with Vietnamese and Persian communities. No one place is ethnically/culturally homogenous anymore, which is something inherently positive. We all love greater food options, exposure to other cultures.

I really enjoyed reading Lee and Park’s personal take on transnationalism. Both Korean, this article was written while Lee was a visiting scholar in Ohio. Their interest emphasized that transnationalism is bounded to local places, and the opportunities and constraints of the people that occupy them. They quote Bhabha in that ‘all forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity’, and from this that Koreatown is not aptly named. Chinatown in San Francisco falls victim to this as well. It is not internally homogenous, but rather is home to multiple Asian and minority identities, and does not even encompass the same ones that it did half a century ago. They call this an ‘imagined geography’, which harks back to sub-honours IR and history constantly throwing Anderson’s Imagined Communities on the reading lists. Identity here is forced upon a physical geography and space, but the identity is constantly adapting, as are the parameters of ‘Korean-ness’.

Maybe it’s because I struggle with my own identity, proving Bernhard’s point that it is hard to define. Perhaps identity cannot be quantified, but that does not mean there isn’t  scholarship attempting to draw some links between the spaces, our backgrounds and the way in which we interact.

“Mechanically I laid myself back in the sledge and let my horse run for safety. The wolf did not mind me in the least, but took a leap over me, and falling furiously on the horse, began to devour the hind-part of the poor animal, which ran the faster for his pain and terror. Thus unnoticed and safe myself, I lifted my head slyly up, and with horror I beheld that the wolf had ate his way into the horse’s body; it was not long before he had fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage, and fell upon him with the butt-end of my whip. This unexpected attack in his rear frightened him so much, that he leapt forward with all his might: the horse’s carcass dropped on the ground, but in his place the wolf was in the harness, and I on my part whipping him continually: we both arrived in full career safe to St. Petersburg, contrary to our respective expectations, and very much to the astonishment of the spectators.“

This extract from the Travels and Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, published in 1785, made me laugh because of its sheer preposterousness. The phenomena it contributed to however, namely the literary invention of a wild and retrogressive Eastern Europe in need of taming by the West, was a very serious one.

First thing to note: a wolf is a beast. The wolf represents Eastern Europe. Baron Munchausen’s choice to present a wild animal as characteristic of the East instead of a human being is significant. It implies that the territory he is exploring is an uncivilised, dangerous wilderness. The wolf is ferocious, but is eventually made to seem ridiculous by the sly baron, who uses his superior intelligence to trick the wolf into the harness. Read symbolically, the West has tamed the East by the end of the story, and even exploited its resources. The East has been put to the service of the West.

Second thing to notice: the explicitly sexualised imagery. ‘Hind-part’, ‘butt-end’, ‘forced himself in’; the crude analogy with anal rape is perhaps partly an attempt by the author to appeal to the low-humour of his readership. On the other hand, it is also an allusion to a violent, intimate form of domination. Eastern Europe is the victim, humiliated by the dominant West. It reflects both the deep-rooted inter-penetration between the East and the West (a transnationalism apparent in the sheer quantity of travel literature), and the power hierarchies that came with it. Echoing the thesis of Said’s Orientalism, Eastern Europe was imagined as representative of everything the West was not. The two were complementary and opposing.

Third thing to consider: the fantastical element. This extract is clearly fictional, the figment of an overcharged imagination. But it was swallowed up, regardless, by countless readers, shaping and colouring their mental maps of Eastern Europe in the process. Readers often don’t care if what they are reading is rooted in factual reality, and authors exploit this. Voltaire wrote extensively about Russia without ever having visited. Rousseau spoke on behalf of Poland, despite never having ventured further East than Switzerland. These two hugely influential Enlightenment authors exemplify the lack of concern about travel literature diverging from reality. It is why I use the words ‘invented’ and ‘imagined’. The West took control of the East through symbolic language.

These past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the topics for my historiography essay. The one ‘common denominator” that have always had when looking at topics for my m writing has been that I have wanted to do a transnational history which is related to women and gender. Last semester I took the module “Men and Women 1500-1800”, a module which focuses primarily on the daily lives of women in Early Modern history, and themes such as marriage, women in work and sexuality. What I learned through the models is that in order to study Gender history, especially in the early modern period historians have to take an approach which focuses on what most would call ‘the private sphere’. This is partially due  the age old framework that the private is feminine and the public is masculine, as most sources available on women are related to the ‘private sphere’ as women were excluded (at least ordinary women were) from publicly exercising power outside of the domains of the home. 

The sources that we looked at ranged from marriage contracts, to private letters, to shopping lists, and court documents. All sources which for most of the time looked at the individual, private lives of women. When reflecting on this, I saw an immediate connection with micro-history. When approaching gender studies, especially in the early modern period historians have to attempt to look at individual stories for most of the time. If women were confined to a private sphere, then it is the private lives of women which will give us a more detailed and accurate picture of women at that period, whilst also showcase their exclusion from the ‘public sphere’. Natalie Zemon Davis is well known for using micro-history as a tool to for studying gender history, most notably in her book ‘Women on the Margins’. 

If women are mostly absent from documents relating to economics and property, travel, and even literature and intellectual history during the Early Modern period, it is perhaps through a microhistory, which speaks of ordinary women’s lives, that we will truly be able to paint a picture which reflects the complexity of women’s lives. This could also be relevant to exploring women of upper classes which (outside of immigrant or slave women) had the greatest chance at leading ‘transnational lives’.  As Isabelle said in one of her blogposts, Microhistory isn’t actually little, and the exploration of women’s live through a micro-historical lenses could help us position women in a ‘transnational’ or ‘public sphere’, which they rarely appear on in the Early Modern period.