‘Forgotten Europeans’: transnational minority activism in the age of European integration

This article examines transnational activism by coalitions of national minorities in Europe from the early 20th century to the present, setting this within the broader ‘security versus democracy dilemma’ that continues to surround international discussions on minority rights. Specifically, we analyse two organisations – the European Nationalities Congress (1925–1938) and the Federal Union of European Nationalities (1949–) – which, while linked, have never been subject to a detailed comparison based on primary sources. In so far as comparisons do exist, they present these bodies in highly negative terms, as mere fronts for inherently particularistic nationalisms that threaten political stability, state integrity and peace. Our more in‐depth analysis provides a fresh and more nuanced perspective: it shows that, in both cases, concepts of European integration and ‘unity in diversity’ have provided the motivating goals and frameworks for transnational movements advocating common rights for all minorities and seeking positive interaction with the interstate world.     

Rebranding the Republic: Rome and the 1960 Olympic Games

The 1960 Rome Olympic Games were held at a pivotal moment in the history of modern Italy and its capital. At the height of the ‘economic miracle’, tourists, international movie stars and entertainers, in addition to a record number of international athletes, flocked to the city to participate in the Games and the dolce vita. As a great ‘national’ project within a global and European context, Rome 1960 offered the organizers and ruling Christian Democratic Party (DC) the opportunity to rebrand Italy and show how far the country had come since the fall of Fascism and the end of the Second World War. While Rome 1960 was a marketing success – Italy’s international reputation was significantly enhanced – close examination of the preparations for the tournament, as well as the Games itself, reveals significant continuities, deep and unresolved political and social tensions, evidence of corruption, and a failure to come to terms with Italy’s recent past and the memory of Fascism. Questioning the extent to which the 1960 Olympics was a turning point in Italian sport and society, it exposes the Italy that existed beneath the sheen: one of stagnation, minimal change, political division and corruption.     

Between diplomacy and solidarity: Western European support networks for Sandinista Nicaragua

Between the 1960s and 1980s, political crises in the Third World became a source of inspiration and action in Western European societies. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was one of the most famous instigators of transnational activism. All over Western Europe, locally organised committees staged public actions, collected funds and educated their societies about the plight of this Central American nation, whose Marxist government faced strong international opposition from the Reagan administration as well as domestic social, political and economic turbulence. This article looks at Third World solidarity activism from a new perspective, assessing the active role of the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) in the emergence and development of activism in Western Europe. It argues that FSLN diplomacy – initially by exiles and later by official diplomats – initiated the creation of transnational networks, driven by the quest for international support. They fuelled activism by providing activists with fresh information, contacts and avenues for action, but also cemented cross-border co-operation between activists and stimulated a ‘Europeanisation’ of local activism.     

Competitiveness through integration in the European Union Strategy for the Alpine Region: a ‘balanced development’ approach

In the last 10 years, the European Union has devoted specific attention and resources to the establishment of macro-regional strategies, with the objective of joining together transnational areas to favour the effective and organized management of common challenges. In most macro-regions, however, the identification of strategies to increase competitiveness is a rather difficult task, given the extreme internal diversity in economic activities. Focusing on the youngest macro-regional strategy – EUSALP – this paper highlights the specific combinations of territorial growth assets that allow to overcome the inefficient use of local abundant strategic resources, in line with a ‘balanced development’ approach. The results, obtained on the basis of a database gathered at NUTS3 level, are useful to provide policy suggestions to support the competitiveness of EUSALP through synergies and complementarities, according to a cooperation networks perspective.     

A postcolonial framing of Indian commercial surrogacy: issues,representations, and orientalisms

Although only legalised in 2002, Indian commercial gestational surrogacy (CGS) is an industry worth an estimated 2.3 billion USD to India at its height. Not only has this contentious topic been researched extensively from a spectrum of academic angles, representations of Indian CGS abound in both the Indian and Western popular media (novels, documentaries, films, etc.), and increasingly online, particularly in CGS websites, advertisements, and (personal) blogs. Popular media representations as well as commercial ones can often be inclined towards the sentimental and even sanctimonious, but are immensely influential in shaping public perception. This article seeks to position the discourse and representation of transnational Indian CGS more explicitly within the postcolonial framework. Thus, it addresses a theoretical gap in explicitly connecting the problematic issues of power and ethics in CGS within the paradigms of postcolonial studies, drawing also on gender and feminist frameworks. The neo-colonisation of the body has been already considered to some extent – mostly in neo-liberalist contexts – but the industry’s systemically orientalistic set up and structure has been surprisingly little mentioned, particularly where transnational surrogacy is involved, with little framing of the imperialistic hangovers and undertones dogging these particular sets of international contracts. This article maps the orientalisms (and sometimes re-orientalisms) at play in this already fraught and contentious context, positioning transnational surrogacy as another instance of imperialism, as yet another form of cultural colonisation, othering, subalternising, and peripheralising working-class Indian surrogate women in the twenty-first century.     

Between cosmopolitanism and nationhood: Italian opera in the early nineteenth century

The revival of interest in music evident in recent historiography has led to an investigation of the specifically transnational nature of musical languages and practices. This article explores the possibility of re-reading in a transnational perspective the classical theme of the relationship between the Risorgimento and opera. It focuses on two different points of view: on the one hand, the construction of the librettos as a delicate balance between European romantic narratives and dramatic themes evoking nationalistic sentiments; on the other, the fact that ideas and practices of the theatre as a vehicle of political mobilisation developed in a broad international context where Mazzini and many other nationalists found inspiration in multinational political experiences and discourses. The article concludes by saying that the meanings of terms such as cosmopolitanism and nationalism need to be carefully weighed when we look at nineteenth-century opera production. Only in the closing decades of the century did genuine competition between national traditions arise, which led in Italy to a veritable ‘obsession’ with ‘Italianness’ in music.     

Italy's Postcolonial ‘Question’: Views from the Southern Frontier of Europe

In Italy, like in many other European countries, cultural roots and national identity are currently shifting as the result of contemporary transnational migrations and globalization. This essay analyses how the paradigm emerging from the Italian national case contributes to a redefinition of the postcolonial canon centered on British history and culture and to the notion of a “European” postcolonial as a whole. To this aim, the authors identify in colonial history and contemporary immigration the threads that connect the postcoloniality of Italy to that of other European countries. At the same time, they locate the specificity of the Italian postcolonial in the intersection between these factors and other events in Italian history that have strongly influenced the process of shaping an Italian national identity: the Southern question, intranational and international mass emigrations, new mobilities, the subaltern position of Italy within the European Union, and the geopolitical dislocation of Italy as the Southern frontier of Europe. The authors close their essay by presenting a Mediterranean Southern perspective grounded in new forms of knowledge and aesthetic sensibilities that counteract Europe's sense of encroaching and its politics of border protection.     

Exploring textures of Irish America: a new perspective on the Fenian invasion of Canada

Within an Irish nationalist history, for those at “home” and especially for members of the Irish American diaspora, venerating heroic rebels and recollecting attempted insurrections are quintessential narratives used to define Ireland's turbulent past. However, on the fringes in that regard has been the American-based Fenian Brotherhood's attempted invasion of Canada in 1866. Arguably a successful effort – although a very brief one, due to the American authorities' obstruction – its international camber and transnational implications may have kept this history apart from premier narratives of an Irish nationalist past. This paper suggests that although in the long term the Fenian invasion of Canada was largely expunged from the Irish/Irish American nationalist canon, initially it was retained, for a short time at least, in popular expressions of Irishness. By turning to “texts” that contemporaneously venerated the Fenians' efforts and uncovering transnational undertones in the process, this paper offers new suggestions concerning the changing textures of Irish America.     

A False Start? British Perspectives on Italy’s Participation in the Early Phases of the European Economic Integration Process: The Case of the OEEC (1948–1952)

Abstract

This article examines how Anglo-Italian relationships unfolded in the aftermath of the Second World War within the framework of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). By analysing Italy’s participation in the early stages of the European integration process through the lens of British diplomacy, this contribution aims to shed new light on the international dimension of Rome’s post-1945 political and economic strategies. First, the article considers the main concerns that characterized Italy’s involvement in the OEEC activities between the late 1940s and the early 1950s: the promotion of the circulation of the intra- and extra-European manpower and the liberalization of trade and payments. Second, rather than making a ‘classic’ comparison between the divergent policies – particularly the internal and international economic programmes – that Britain and Italy pursued within the OEEC, this article highlights the extent to which an ‘asymmetry of power’ impacted Italy’s ability to realize its strategies. To conclude, the essay assesses how bilateral and multilateral relationships in the OEEC arena mutually contributed to the shaping of Italy and Britain’s patterns of post-WWII economic reconstruction.     

The American war: Italian culture and Hollywood movies on the Second World War

Abstract

This article deals with the reception of American narratives on the Second World War in Italy, assuming the key role that myths and memories about the conflict played in post-war Europe and the importance of transcultural exchanges in the mass-media age. Such narratives were not imported to Italy by official US propaganda, but were mainly conveyed by Hollywood war movies, which were centred on the ideas of the righteousness of the conflict and of the fight between good and evil. The article focuses on a specific sector of the Italian audience, that of critics and film reviewers, who played a key role in interpreting the films and in fostering their acceptance – or refusal. Through the analysis of cinema magazines and newspapers, the research outlines how the reception of such movies was influenced by multiple elements, the different political and ideological allegiances, the cultural gap between elite and popular periodicals, and the interactions with Italian myths and memories about the war. Finally, the article compares the results of the inquiry with the rare sources about the reception of American narratives among a mass audience, and underlines the importance of a transnational approach to the study of cultural issues in contemporary history.     

Arguing for a worldwide perspective: Italy and the reform of the international monetary system between transatlantic cooperation and European integration (1971–73)

The end of the Bretton Woods system, following the US decision of August 1971, and the simultaneous re-launch of the European integration with the enactment of the Werner plan came at a critical moment of internal weakness for Italy. This article highlights how the Italian government and the monetary authorities – while not always on the same wavelength – tried to tackle these challenges with a view to preserving the principles of multilateral cooperation that had promoted the country's recovery in the post-war years. By launching the project denominated ‘Global Approach’ in the summer of 1972, Italy tried to interconnect the modification of the Werner plan with the reform of the international monetary system within the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to restrain the growing trends towards unilateralism. However, despite all efforts, both initiatives were doomed to failure while the country entered a dramatic period of political instability and social unrest.     

The ummah as nation: a reappraisal in the wake of the ‘Cartoons Affair’†

ABSTRACT. In the wake of the 2006 ‘Cartoons Affair’ which saw international protests by Muslims against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, it is clear that identity based on membership in the Islamic ummah goes far beyond simple religious affiliation. This essay presents a novel argument for treating the ummah (the transnational community of Muslim believers) as a nation. I begin with a theoretical treatment of the ummah as nation which employs historic and current interpretations of what constitutes nationhood. I then turn to the current state of the ummah; my findings present a potent nexus of information and communications technology (ICT), emergent elites, and Muslim migration to the West that has facilitated a hitherto impossible reification of the ummah. I also discuss how globalisation, Western media practices, and the nature of European society allow ‘ummahist’ elites to marginalise other voices in the transnational Muslim community. Based on the global events surrounding the Danish cartoons controversy of 2005–06, I conclude that there is need to recognise ummah‐based identity as more than just a profession of faith – it represents a new form of postnational, political identity which is as profound as any extant nationalism.     

War veterans as transnational actors: politics,alliances and networks in the interwar period

Historians have often considered the international veterans’ organizations which came into being after World War I as proof of the pacifist, internationalist orientation of the majority of the Great War ex-combatants. However, veterans active in these organizations were often inspired by specifically national and partisan objectives that belie any simplistic equation between altruistic transnational activism, international cooperation and pacifism. Conceiving of war veterans as transnational actors, this article explores the origins and decline of the veterans’ transnational sphere in the interwar period. It singles out four shades of competing veterans’ internationalism and describes the crucial differences that separated actors such as Henri Barbusse, René Cassin, Henri Pichot and Carlo Delcroix, among others. The article argues that both the veterans’ organizations and their protagonists, while reaching out across national borders, remained embedded in specific constellations of personal trajectories, political partisanship, nation-state interests and inter-state alliances. Their political and social activities also tried to reshape, and were subjected to, existing or emerging spatial configurations such as Great Power alliances and wider internationalist projects. Thus, the article shows that there was no homogeneous transnational sphere in international veteran politics; it was rather the competition between different internationalist practices and projects which shaped veterans’ transnational activities.     

Caught between nationalism and internationalism: replicating histories of Antarctica in Hobart

In December 2013, a replica of ‘Mawson’s Hut’ (a historic structure in Antarctica) joined a growing list of polar tourist attractions in the Australian city of Hobart, Tasmania. Initially promoted as the city’s ‘latest tourist hotspot,’ the ‘replica museum’ quickly took its place in Hobart’s newly redeveloped waterfront, reinforcing the city’s identity as an ‘Antarctic Gateway’. The hut forms part of a heritage cluster, an urban assemblage that weaves together the local and national, the past and present, the familiar and remote. In this article, we examine the replica hut in relation to the complex temporal and spatial relations that give it meaning, and to which it gives meaning. Our focus is the hut as a point of convergence between memory, material culture and the histories – and possible futures – of nationalism and internationalism. We argue that the replica hut, as a key site of Hobart’s Antarctic heritage tourism industry, reproduces and prioritises domestic readings of exploration and colonisation over a reading of Antarctic engagement as a transnational endeavour. However, like other ‘gateway city’ heritage sites, it has the potential for aligning with a larger trend in international heritage conservation and heritage diplomacy, that of prioritising narratives of the past that weave together transnational connections and associations.     

Renaissance and ‘Made in Italy’: marketing Italian fashion through history (1949–1952)

Until 1950, Italian fashion did not exist: there were able tailors and creative designers, but they were known only as individuals and not as part of a wider movement that identified with a specific Italian style. Despite the existence of advanced skills, with the potential to realize an Italian fashion in its own right, there was neither a cultural identity to bind them together nor an international legitimization that would allow the new form to compete with the dominant haute couture of Paris. The revival of the Renaissance and its invention as an intangible asset was fundamental in resolving this ‘dual’ absence, and it therefore became a key factor in the international success of Italian fashion. From the 1950s to today – the period of increasing international success of the ‘Made in Italy’ label – in the rhetoric of entrepreneurs, managers and marketing experts, the Renaissance has become almost an integral part of the DNA of Italian fashion, itself at times represented as the direct descendant and legitimate heir of the excellence of Renaissance taste. This is a link, now taken for granted, for which a term has even been coined: the ‘Renaissance effect’. The fundamental argument that supports this so-called Renaissance effect is in fact that of the continuity between the craftsmanship of the Renaissance age and today's fashion houses; a continuity, however, that has been elaborated through ‘manipulations’ of history which are in part simplistic and in part distorted.     

'New Programming' and the Influence of Transnational Discourses in the Reform of Regional Policy in Italy

Recent developments in regional policy in Italy may be interpreted as outcomes of a mutual fertilization between two distinct policy discourses, concerning the reframing of regional programming in the framework of a reform of the State, and the promotion of local initiatives in a perspective of endogenous development. This paper presents a critical itinerary of the mutual evolution of these lines of discourse during the 1990s. Their provisional merging in the framework of the strategy of 'new programming' adopted in connection with the reform of the Structural Funds and with the new community support framework (CSF) for the period 2000-2006 is interpreted in light of the 'Europeanization' of Italian public policy and of the influence of its progressive embedding into transnational policy discourses.     

Spatiality,sweatshops and solidarity in Guatemala

Uneven development in Guatemala has been fuelled by international investment flows and a 1984 law that established a patchwork pattern of each factory as its own free-trade zone. The spatial and social flexibility of this form of labour regulation requires workers to be creative in defending their rights. Our paper explores the creative potential of transnational worker/consumer/student alliances, or mixed coalitions as we call them, to influence global production. We analyse one international solidarity campaign (1991-1999) focused on a shirt factory of Phillips-Van Huesen, the world's largest manufacturer of men's shirts. A co-ordinated strategy linking Guatemalan workers with the US-based anti-sweatshop movement led to the approval of the first collective bargaining agreement in the maquila sector in Guatemala, yet long-term results proved illusive. The factory shut down shortly after the contract was signed and production moved to lower-wage maquilas in the same city. The struggle at the Phillips-Van Huesen shirt factory illustrates the importance of critical geographical knowledge for labour organizing and solidarity politics.     

Transnational Advocacy Networks and Affirmative Action for Dalits in India

In India, movements and parties representing the lowest ranking dalit caste groups have followed different strategies in their struggle against social, economic and cultural discrimination. In this article, a new dalit movement making use of a ‘transnational advocacy network strategy’ will be compared to a more ‘classical’dalit political party. The main policy target for the new movement is an extension of existing affirmative action policies, while the dalit BSP party focuses more on emancipatory issues. Based on an analysis of the impacts of the BSP and of the new movement at the grassroots level, it is argued that the achievements of the new movement are tempered by the fact that in order to make use of international discourses and political pressure, the movement has had to develop a strategy and policy proposals compatible with existing mainstream neoliberal discourses. This depoliticizes the policies, and hence makes them of less importance strategically. It is argued that this is likely to be a difficulty for transnational advocacy networks in general.     

Thai wives in Singapore and transnational patriarchy

International marriage migration is a fraught terrain of gender and power relations. Based on research among Thai women married to Singaporean men, we argue that patriarchal outcomes – a distinctive system of transnational patriarchy – result from a complex interaction of women, men and nation-states. We draw on Deniz Kandiyoti's insights into patriarchal bargains as a productive framework through which to identify key elements in the making of transnational patriarchal relations. This article provides a detailed account of conditions in Thailand, Singapore and the contact zones in which Thai women and Singaporean men negotiate marriage migration. Relating this case to previous research, particularly among Filipina migrant women, demonstrates points of commonality while also highlighting the importance of attending to difference and diversity among transnational contexts.     

Foucault and the French tradition of historical epistemology

A recently published volume – edited by Walter Tega and Luigi Turco – celebrates the Italian historian of philosophy Antonio Santucci. One of the founders of the neoilluminismo (new-Enlightenment), Santucci blended strong civil commitment with rigorous textual analysis and contributed to the popularisation of British and American philosophy in Italy. The book describes Santucci's contribution to the historical research on empiricism and stimulates a reappraisal of the heated cultural debate which flourished in Italy after the Second World War.