Table Of ContentPraise for Reassessing the Transnational Turn
“A compelling series of interventions. They speak not only to their direct
disciplinary peers but also to broader currents and concerns across the
social sciences. Anarchists, and Left academia more generally, tend to
occupy a comfortable space in which it is easy to feel like our intellectual
development and ideas are somehow immune from the gritty realities of
social life and the various dimensions of nationalism, parochialism, and
localism that run through it. On the contrary, Reassessing the Transnational
Turn asks us to delve deeply and honestly into the canon and mythology of
radicals past and reconsider their lived ambiguities and complexities,
including the darker sides which we might prefer to ignore.”
—Anthony Ince, Antipode
“In practice the relation between anarchism and national movements is not
as clear as anarchist theory would have it. Therefore, the contributions to
this book, edited by Constance Bantman and Bert Altena, are not just
important from an academic and historical point of view. This is an inspiring
book, with many incentives for an as yet unwritten transnational history of
German anarchism.”
—Dieter Nelles, historian of German anarchism and syndicalism
Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and
Syndicalist Studies
Edited by Constance Bantman and Bert Altena
PM Press, 2017
© Constance Bantman and Bert Altena 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62963-391-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959605
Cover by John Yates/Stealworks.com
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Contents
Figures
8.1 Map of Santiago, Chile, c. 1920. The circle highlights the general area
known as the Barrio Latino. (Source: Map courtesy of Olin Library Map
Room, Cornell University.)
8.2 Detail of Barrio Latino, from Figure 8.1 with residence and workplace of
Casimiro Barrios. The ovals indicate residences of anarchists or anarchist
sympathizers. Addresses are approximate to a given city block. (Source:
Map courtesy of Olin Library Map Room, Cornell University.)
9.1 The imprisonment of Luigi Bertoni, 1912. (Source: La Voix du Peuple, 7,
no. 35 [September 7, 1912], 2.)
Acknowledgments
This book began as two panels at the 2012 Glasgow ESSHC. The
proceedings were published as an edited volume by Routledge in 2015. As
with the first edition, our thanks go to all the contributors to the volume for
their patience, commitment, and excellent contributions; to Ruth Kinna and
Carl Levy for reviewing some chapters; to the anonymous reviewers for their
helpful and insightful comments. Our thoughts remain with Nino Kühnis,
who died in a cycling accident before the publication; we are very grateful to
Béatrice Ziegler, Mark Kyburz, and Konrad Kuhn for preparing his chapter
so it could feature in the volume. On the happy occasion of Reassessing the
Transnational Turn being published for the second time, by PM Press, we
would like to thank Routledge for ceding the rights and making this new
edition possible, and in particular Max Novick for his support in this
process. The PM Press project originated with James Proctor’s enthusiasm
and support, and our thanks also go to the PM Press team, in particular
Ramsey Kanaan, Craig O’Hara, and Jonathan Rowland.
Part I
Introduction
1 Introduction: Problematizing Scales of Analysis in Network-Based Social
Movements
Constance Bantman and Bert Altena
Pre-World War I anarchist and syndicalist movements have proved to be
extremely productive fields of investigation for transnational historians over
the last 10 years or so, largely due to the fact that they formed “the world’s
first and most widespread transnational movements organized from below,”
¹ underpinned by internationalist creeds, at a time when socialism itself was
a uniquely powerful driver of global connections. ² It is fair to say that over
the course of this decade, substantial progress has been made in mapping
out transnational anarchist movements, resulting in methodological
advances that may be of interest to specialists of other periods and
movements. Anarchist-themed transnational history has been bound with
concepts of networks, ³ social fields, social space, cultural transfers, and
cultural brokers; studies have shown how the transnational angle can lead to
a thorough reinterpretation of the history of a political movement such as
anarchism. ⁴
Unsurprisingly, given the global and entangled nature of the anarchist
movement in this period, a great variety of scalar approaches have been
adopted in order to write its histories. This diversity of genres and levels of
analysis is worth emphasizing. They include:
National or regional studies on areas where transnational forces are at play,
largely in connection with migratory phenomena. Examples that can be cited
in this perspective include Steven Hirsch’s work on Peruvian anarcho-
syndicalism, Kirk Shaffer on anarchist movements and networks in the
Caribbean, as well as Kenyon Zimmer’s work on immigration and anarchism
in the United States, to name but a few. ⁵
Studies on movements in transnational configurations rather than specific
locales: Italian anarchists may be the most striking case in this respect. In
this instance, the emphasis has been placed on the connections between
those who have left and those who haven’t, the modalities of transnational
political and social organization, and the repercussions for the movement as
a whole. ⁶
Studies at the urban level, focusing on the depiction and analysis of
anarchist metropolises, global cities, or “hubs,” as they are increasingly
often called: London, ⁷ Sao Paulo, ⁸ San Francisco, ⁹ Buenos Aires. ¹⁰ Such
case studies have usually focused on examining daily political sociabilities
and possible discrepancies between lesser known and more prominent
militants, the role of cultural manifestations in fostering a transnational
exilic culture, cultural practices and their relation with politics, and the day-
to-day interactions between groups of different nationalities, including in
relation with language practices. Commemorations of key events in
anarchist memory (the Paris Commune, “Chicago,” and, later, May Day) are
important transnational events, bringing together local groups and uniting
cities through simultaneous celebration.
The biographical genre (and its variant, prosopographical studies ¹¹ ), which
continues to garner considerable interest, all the more as anarchism is a
very individualized movement, with a principled lack of hierarchical
organization. In addition to the thrills of embracing an individual destiny and
examining the realities of transnationalism in a very tangible way, it can be
surmised that the popularity of this genre owes to the analytical scope and
the many questionings that it allows for. It affords great flexibility and
nuances, and a space to pinpoint and examine the contradictions that
collective approaches tend to obliterate. Individuals—at least those to whom
specific studies are devoted—are, like cities, the ‘nodes’ in the networks,
and they provide an insight into the latter. Thus, Errico Malatesta has
proved to be an enduringly fascinating topic of study. ¹² Benedict Anderson
has explored the history of national independence and global politics
through a dual biographical monograph. ¹³ Peter Kropotkin’s biographers
have detailed the very rich and varied personal networks with which he was
connected, but there remains plenty of scope for a systematic investigation
along these lines, which would reconstitute the channels of influence that he
received and diffused. ¹⁴ In the context of the French movement, Emile
Pouget, Jean Grave, Louise Michel, and lesser known intermediaries such as
Malato, have been examined as instances of different types of transnational
intermediaries. ¹⁵ Revealingly, several of the studies contained in this volume
illustrate the relevance of the individual level, such as Raymond Craib’s
Chapter 8 on Casimiro Barrios and Bert Altena’s Chapter 4 on Max Nettlau.
Adopting a typology based on types rather than on geographical scales of
entanglement, Davide Turcato has identified no less than eight different
categories of anarchist transnationalism, testifying to both the field’s
methodological dynamism and the ever-growing opacity of the concept. The
categories that he has described are anarchist cosmopolitanism,
internationalism, national transnationalism, linguistic nationalism, cross-
nationalism, third-country transnationalism, migrants’ dual commitment,
and anarchist proselytism. ¹⁶
Through this collective body of work, anarchism and syndicalism have
provided a better understanding of the functioning and limitations of the
First Globalization—based on a Western European chronology at least,
where World War I provides a clear end to transnational endeavors.
Although the relationship between transnational history and globalization
remains ideologically sensitive, with “a risk that transnational history may
become the handmaiden of globalization,” ¹⁷ it is extremely fruitful to
consider this anarchist historiography as a contribution to the history of
globalization or imperialism. Much of the recent research has highlighted
key globalizing processes, both informal and institutional. These processes
include the role and functioning of transnational communication, the
attempted trans-nationalization of police forces and migration control, ¹⁸ the
transnational elaboration and dissemination of syndicalism, and the uneven,
gradual elaboration of a transnational political culture. The anarchist
movement of this “heroic period,” through its themes and functioning, can
also be construed as an early example of antihegemonic globalization/
transnational advocacy networks, ¹⁹ while individual transnational
anarchists provide an early instance of Sidney Tarrow’s “rooted
cosmopolitans,” defined by their social relations, “supported by
technological change, economic integration, and cultural connections,”
engaging in activism beyond their own borders but also reimporting lessons
back to their own societies. ²⁰
The contributions assembled in this volume aim to keep adding nuance and
complexity to our understandings of transnationalism. They highlight the
limitations and problematic implications of this concept, especially the
necessity of carefully choosing and combining scales of analysis. As a result
of the elusive and multiscalar nature of networks, the following questions
are important with respect to scales of analysis. How does the geographical
basis that one adopts affect histories of the anarchist movement? What is
missed when focusing on anarchism within certain state borders, and what
is gained? The same questions apply to international or transnational,
regional, and local angles of analysis. Conversely, can the anarchist and
syndicalist movement be fully captured with a focus on transnational and
national networks only? Should one start from the assumption of anarchism
as a countercultural movement ²¹ and a created space ²² and follow its own
rules, or does a particular geographical (or ethnic for that matter) scope add
something to our understanding?
The chapters also stress the individualized and network-based character of
anarchism, which means that anarchism may be studied as a template for
other types of informal transnational social movements. This volume
reconsiders the concept of transnationalism in relation to scales of analysis
from four angles: individuals and networks, mobility, cosmopolitanism, as
well as nations and nationalism. These are spatial categories but also, in the
case of nationalism, layers of consciousness.
THE TRANSNATIONAL TURN IN ANARCHIST AND SYNDICALIST
STUDIES
The transnational perspective is now so well established across all the social
sciences that referring to the transnational turn (or variations on the
relational turn) is frequent. Although the fuzziness of the term remains a
constant observation, its epistemological status is perhaps clearer, with a
near consensus on the fact that it is a perspective rather than a field in its
own right. Nevertheless, transnational studies are an amalgamation of
various subdisciplines and cut across almost all fields in the human and
social sciences, which has made their precise focus unclear.
In spite of significant differences, what unites transnational scholars—a
polemic and problematic term, no doubt, adopted here for the sake of
expediency—is a shared awareness of the limitations of an exclusive national
angle in approaching their field of expertise, as well as the determination to
look beyond national borders in their analyses. In the historiographic field,
the consequences of these premises are manifold: “One of the great appeals
of the transnational perspective resides without a doubt in its ability to put
forward alternative ways of understanding processes of social change and,
possibly, to account for them.” ²³ Transnational history was born of efforts to
rectify the national focus of traditional historiography and operates a
process of decentering. ²⁴ It has also resulted in calling into question the
traditional center/periphery dichotomy, especially when it comes to the
great narratives of Western history. ²⁵ As Carl Levy points out in his
discussion of methodological cosmopolitanism, it can “highlight an
alternative history of modernity in which the state form is not the end point
of all narratives, thus a counter-history,” even if the state remains a key
actor and factor in many transnational narratives—including those involving
one of its archenemies, the anarchist movement. ²⁶
The existence and importance (or not) of formal organizations and the role
of the nation-state and supranational institutions are important
discriminating factors. Students of international relations, for example, may
focus on the setting up and role of international or supranational
institutions, and ask how they have affected state policies. Students of
transnational migration, transnational economic relations and transactions,
or transnational social movements, will have other themes to investigate,
use other research methods, and, most importantly, will apply different
analytical frameworks. Even these specializations themselves show a certain
fragmentation. ²⁷ The old definition of Nye and Keohane, who describe
transnational relations as the study of “contracts, coalitions, and
interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by the central
foreign policy organs of governments” will not suffice for those historians
interested in the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). ²⁸ These
will look not only at initiatives from below but also at state-inspired
foundations of NGOs and their role in foreign policies of states, thereby
combining institutional with infra- and suprastate processes. This is another
point of convergence between transnational and globalization studies: the
dual and occasionally ambiguous focus on institutional, government-led
processes and grassroots, informal practices.
Such a focus on formal international organizations, even if it is not exclusive,
differs greatly from the overwhelmingly informal nature of anarchist
transnationalism—a trait that often accounts for the choice of the word
‘transnational’ as opposed to ‘internationalism’ because, in the context of
the labor movement, the latter is immediately reminiscent of the Marxist
tradition. Indeed, a corollary of the transnational approach—although not
necessarily shared by all practitioners, depending on the nature of the
transnational phenomena being examined—has been an emphasis on the
importance of nonstate actors in a variety of spheres. Transnational history
in this case is often defined as the study of interactions that occur outside
the realm of state or trans-state intervention, which frequently goes hand in
hand with ‘grassroots approaches.’ Anarchism and syndicalism have proven
to be especially suited to this approach, as the combined result of their anti-
state ideologies and diasporic, network-based organization.
Nonetheless, this book fully engages with the role of the state—a dimension
that, for the ideological and organizational reasons just mentioned, is
occasionally ignored or played down in transnational accounts of anarchist
and syndicalist history. It explores the transnational activities of social
movements with a complex relationship with the nation-state. It is, for
example, not possible to study the communist-led protest movement against
the neutron bomb without taking into account the important role of the
communist leadership in Moscow. Transnational social movements may also
support state policies actively and may even be sustained by state subsidies,
as in the case of movements of solidarity with developing countries. The role
of the nation-state in transnational studies seems therefore harder to
dispense with than was implied in the definition of Nye and Keohane. Both
authors, however, acknowledge this when they go on to write that “the
reciprocal effects between transnational relations and the interstate system
are centrally important to the understanding of contemporary world
politics.” Inasmuch as the twentieth century has seen the nation-state
develop into what Saskia Sassen has called “the most complex institutional
architecture we have ever produced,” the question of how transnational
historians should deal with nation-states during the years 1870-1940
becomes acutely important. ²⁹
Nina Glick Schiller has convincingly argued that transnational studies
should take power relations into consideration. ³⁰ Such advice is relevant to
all transnational social movements, but perhaps especially so to anarchist
transnational social movements, which differ sufficiently from other
transnational social movements to exact a framing and methodology of their
own. Anarchism stands apart from all contemporary social movements
because of its radical critique of the state, as a result of which
transnationalism seems to be a natural characteristic of anarchist
movements. However, does this allow the historian of anarchism to leave the
nation-state outside the scope of analysis, especially when state archives are
such important sources? Has anarchist transnationalism been unaffected by
nation, state and nation-state? Is there an urgency to ‘bring the state back
in’?
As compared, for example, to the international peace movement of the
nineteenth century, the anarchists’ complete opposition to the state and the
dual status of stateless transnationalism as both an ideological and
organizational imperative for them are indeed specificities of anarchist
transnationalism. ³¹ Whereas the peace movement strove to preserve
international peace through transnational activities (like congresses), it also
appealed to states to use no other means than diplomacy and mutual
understanding in their foreign relations. The anarchists, however,
considered states as their enemies; their transnational relations were
predominantly used to keep anarchist movements in their native countries
alive during times of repression and to undermine the power of states, for
instance, by pooling revolutionary tactics and promoting anarchism and
antimilitarism. This may be perceived as a possible limitation for the
terminological choice of ‘transnationalism’ to describe the specificities of
anarchist cross-border activism since, as several contributors to this volume
point out, “ ‘transnational’ sounds off-key, containing as it does an explicit
invocation of the nation.” ³² On the other hand, transnationalism and the
nation-state are often thought of as antithetical, especially in the context of
anarchist studies, and as has been suggested, the contrast with
‘internationalism’ and its assumed institutional character is often what
presides over the use of the term ‘transnationalism.’
Without claiming to resolve this tension inherent in the terms and their
various academic appropriations, what the studies contained in the book
evidence is far more complex and suggests that the importance of the state
may have been dispensed with too quickly by anarchist scholars. However
much anarchists may have endeavored to ignore or neutralize the state
through their militancy, the latter was an increasingly pervasive parameter
for them, in its different functions, and historians should be wary of
replicating their subject of study’s disregard for the state and boundaries.
This is quite clearly documented when it comes to efforts to transnationalize
police surveillance and border controls in order to neutralize anarchists,
which highlights the role of antianarchist repression in prompting a
development and formalization of state apparatuses both nationally and at
the suprastate level. ³³ The state—in the form of laws, spies, prisons—is
present in most of the empirical studies gathered here, and its ability to
restrict militants and their activities is undeniable. Transnationalism was an
organizational reality and an ideological tenet for the anarchists—but also
for those seeking to control and hinder them. However, in the latter case,
this transnationalism was far more structured and hierarchical, resulting in
the elaboration of a complex system of surveillance extending abroad the
power of national states (London probably provides the best locale to study
the problems that this raised ³⁴ ), as well as international agreements such
as the Rome and St. Petersburg protocols. Considering anarchist
transnationalism in complete isolation from the history of the national state
and the various forms of transnationalization affecting it therefore means
discounting a prime determinant in the history of anarchist
transnationalism. It also leads to a partial understanding of the impact of
anarchist militancy in the history of the nation-state, at a time when
surveillance became increasingly organized and bureaucratic across the
Western world, largely in reaction to the perceived anarchist peril. More
generally, “the very circuits and centres of imperialism, industrial
capitalism, and state formation provided the nexus in which their nemesis,
the anarchists and syndicalists, emerged” ³⁵ —a complex interaction that has
to be probed. This is another instance of the importance of “articulating the
global and national scales of historiographic thinking,” precisely when new
paradigms have supposedly made the nation-state seem irrelevant. ³⁶
