[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: The Transnationality of Social Movements - Leuven (Belgium)

[Gonul Pultar]

*The Transnationality of Social Movements*

	

	

	
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CFP: The Transnationality of Social Movements - Leuven (Belgium)
History department
Free University of Brussels (VUB)
research unit MoSA
Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven)

21.05.2010-22.05.2010, Leuven (Belgium)

In recent years, an interdisciplinary community of scholars has engaged 
in a debate about the transnational scope of social movements with an 
international focus. The anti-apartheid movement is considered by some 
as a trailblazer of present-day protest against neoliberal 
globalization, climate change, etc. Many of the current 
“anti-globalization” movements’ features, such as transnational 
cooperation, the use of media, and the mobility of activists, are said 
to have been prefigured by this important social movement of the Cold 
War era. Others argue that the nation state was, and still remains, the 
primal context of social movement mobilization. Despite common political 
goals, cultural symbols, patterns of protest, and synchronization of 
mobilization waves, and antipathy against the U.S., the peace movements 
in the 1980s, for instance, are presented by many as primarily national 
phenomena. The solidarity movements that were sparked by the crisis of 
the Polish communist regime are discussed in similar terms.

These debates are part of a larger debate on “globalization” and the 
role of NGOs therein. In an effort to historicise this process, a host 
of scholars are re-examining the projects of “internationalism” that 
have been propagated by NGOs and within inter-governmental bodies since 
the later decades of the nineteenth century. Far from being a 
straightforward affair of spatial reconfiguration, this turn towards 
architectures of “global governance” has spawned many complementary and 
competing projects under the rubric of Westernization, Europeanization, 
Third Worldism, etc. The conference aims to gather historians and social 
scientists having an expertise in the study of social movements in order 
to discuss the issues of national differentiation, cross-border 
cooperation and transnational identity construction. It is especially 
concerned with transnational contact within the Atlantic World of Europe 
and northern America and aims to analyze social movement structures, 
networks, identities, and praxis. It encourages comparative analyses of 
a diachronical or synchronical nature. Papers that elaborate on a more 
theoretical level are particularly welcomed.

Possible questions for analysis
-Is it possible to discern longer-term cycles of grassroots mobilization 
and social movement institutionalization?
-What are the differences between the contributions of “older” social 
movements (e.g. labour and church organizations) and “newer”, more 
specialized social movement organizations?
-Should certain transnational “moments of change” (1884, 1917, 1945, 
1968, and 1989) be regarded as thresholds in a widening and deepening 
process of globalization?
-Why did certain geographical regions or international issues develop 
into focal points of social movement mobilization?
-Have current social movements made a faithful leap from 
internationalism to globalism?

Practical
- organized by the history department at the VUB & the research unit 
MoSA at K.U.Leuven
- The conference is scheduled in May 2010
- Selected papers will be published in Revue Belge de Philologie et 
d’Histoire – Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 
accepting contributions in English, French, Dutch or German

Applicants should submit a 500 word proposal and a brief C.V. (in Word 
or PDF format) before 31 October 2009 to Mr. Kim Christiaens 
Kim.Christiaens at arts.kuleuven.be . Participants whose papers have been 
accepted will be notified by 30 November 2009.

Please send all queries to the same address.

Kim Christiaens KU LEUVEN

	Kim Christiaens
KU Leuven
Research Unit Modernity & Society 1800-2000

Email: kim.christiaens at arts.kuleuven.be 
<mailto:kim.christiaens at arts.kuleuven.be>