Call for Papers: From Student Unions to Trade Unions

 

Call for Papers

From Student Unions to Trade Unions: Campus-Based Activism and Beyond

13 January 2023

Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne

 

 

This workshop will explore the different ways in which campus-based activism linked to wider goals of social and political change as well as tracing the conflicts that emerged in such settings. It will bring together historians working on different countries and regions, with discussions that encourage comparative and transnational perspectives.

 

In 1922, student leaders from England and Wales established the National Union of Students (NUS) and, in doing so, connected local efforts to represent students with endeavours that were being waged within the national and international spheres. The formation of the NUS was part of a broader, international phenomenon – namely the creation of bodies that staked claims beyond individual college or university settings. From the very beginning, local and national student unions were subject to underlying tensions. On the one hand, some activists were keen to focus on matters that seemed to have a direct bearing on student concerns, from dealing with educational provision and student welfare to promoting sports or travel. On the other hand, a competing conception of student activism sought to link it to wider social and political visions. The latter variety manifested itself in different ways, for instance student involvement in anticolonial struggles, the rise of radical protest in 1968 and students’ involvement in international solidarity campaigns during the 1970s. In many ways, these dual foci, and the tensions that they often entail, have been consistent features of student politics.

 

We encourage papers that focus on different countries as well as contributions that explore international, transnational and methodological dimensions. Speakers may focus on different time periods. We are particularly interested in contributions that help to shed light on some of the following questions: 

 

·       In what ways and what contexts did student activists forge connections with other social and political actors, for instance trade unions, political parties and social movements?

·       How did participation in welfare provision and self-help relate to broader quests for social change?

·       How did students engage with industrial relations on campus (e. g. lecturers’ strikes)?

·       What roles did local or national student unions play in specific political campaigns? 

·       What were the manifestations and limitations of international solidarity (as articulated by student activists)?

·       How did officials and state agencies engage with student activists and their politics?

·       What are the sources and methods through which we can examine student activism, especially in terms of its relationship with social movements?

 

The event is hosted by the History of Activism research group at Northumbria University, with support from the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH). Thanks to funding from the SSLH, we can provide some partial travel subsidies to PhD students and early-career researchers who do not have access to institutional funds. If you would like to offer a paper for this event, please submit a brief abstract (150–200 words) and a biographical note to Daniel Laqua (daniel.laqua@northumbria.ac.uk) by 20 November 2022.

Online workshop on Transnational and Diaspora Politics and Activism

On 24-25 August, the Histories of Activism Research Group – in partnership with the Global and Transnational History Research Group - is hosting an online workshop that brings together 20 scholars conducting exciting new research on histories of transnational and diasporic political movements and activism. The topics explored at the workshop range from studies into pro- and anti-apartheid activism, to student and green politics, to black power and anti-colonial solidarities, to the politics of museum collecting, and much more. Please see below for the full programme.

Registration is free and open to all. It will take place on Microsoft Teams: links and further details will be shared with you once you register. To register, please visit the Eventbrite page here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transnational-and-diaspora-politics-and-activism-workshop-tickets-162542169003 

The research presented at the workshop forms part of a body of scholarship, much of which has emerged only recently, that considers global and transnational dimensions to political movements and activist networks. Some of this explores various forms of international advocacy, civil rights campaigning, ‘long-distance nationalism’, anti-colonial struggles, sites of interaction and cooperation, and the transnational layers of connection and influence played by migrant and diaspora communities. This has been manifested in the realm of formal political processes, such as election campaigning and voting, as well as in numerous forms and hues of activism. Understanding these histories may have repercussions for how we make sense of transnationalism, citizenship, diaspora, sovereignty, cosmopolitanism, political ideology and praxis, and democracy itself.

The workshop has a particular (but not exclusive) focus on the 1970s. This decade - following the upheavals of the late-1960s - seemed to witness a number of significant expressions of transnational mobilisation, many of which have received little or no academic attention. By reflecting on the 1970s - in the context of decolonisation, the Cold War, evolving diaspora communities, and new forms of globalisation and transnational connectivity - we hope to explore concrete or theoretical ties between different episodes and movements during this important historical period.

For further details please email Dr Edward Anderson (Edward.anderson@northumbria.ac.uk).

 

 

Tuesday, 24 August 2021 

 

Panel One (10:00 - 12.30)

 

Transnational Solidarities and Racism in the Long 1970s

 

Chair: Liam Liburd (Durham University)  

 

JoAnn McGregor	University of Sussex	Southern African Liberation Movements and Networks of Military Support: ZAPU’s Diplomatic Offensive in the Early 1970s
Benjamin Bland	University of York	‘Against All Reason’: British Anti-Racism and Transnational Opposition to Apartheid in the Long 1970s
Evan Smith	Flinders University	From Wellington and Sydney to Salisbury and Johannesburg: Anti-Communist and White Supremacist Solidarity between Australasia and Southern Africa, 1950s-1980s
Emily Sharp	Northumbria University	British Students and Transnational Solidarity Networks in the Long 1970s

 

Break (12:30-13:30)

 

Panel Two (13:30-15:30)

 

Long-distance Nationalisms and Diaspora Activism 

 

Chair: Virinder S. Kalra (University of Warwick)

 

Edward Anderson    Patrick Clibbens	Northumbria University   University of Cambridge	The Indian Emergency (1975-77) and Transnational Networks of Solidarity
Pamela Pennock	University of Michigan-Dearborn	Free Palestine, Free Ourselves: Arab Americans and Transnational Activism in the 1970s
Sharon M. Quinsaat	Grinnell College	The Long Arm of the Dictator: Ferdinand Marcos and the Transnational Repression of Overseas Filipinos

 

Wednesday, 25 August 2021 

 

Panel Three (10:00 - 12:00)

 

Transnationalism, the State and Non-State Actors

 

Chair: Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University)

 

Priya Swamy   Sarah Johnson	Stichting Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen	The (a)politics of Representation: The Dutch Ethnographic Museum and Afghan Collections 1970-1990
Ian Sanjay Patel	London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)	'A Diplomatic Offensive': State Mobilisation During the 1972 Uganda Expulsion
Kevin O’Sullivan	National University of Ireland, Galway	Environmental Futures: Green Activism in Britain and Ireland in the 1970s and early 1980s

 

Break (12:00-13:00)

 

Panel Four (13:00-15:00)

 

Transnational and Diaspora Identities: Class, Race and Ethnicity

 

Chair: Kennetta Hammond Perry (De Montfort University)

 

Simone Battiston	Swinburne University	Transnational Experiences of Diasporic Political Activism in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s: Exploring the Case Study of Pierina Pirisi
David Featherstone	University of Glasgow	Seafarers’ Struggles for Equality and Transnational Class Formation in the Conjuncture of Decolonization
Robin Bunce	University of Cambridge	The Black Eagles: The Changing Face of Black Power in Britain
Fatima Rajina   Victoria Redclift	De Montfort University   University College London	Remembering the Liberation War of 1971: Transnationalism and Racism

 

Concluding thoughts and comments (15:00 - 15:30)

Online Symposia on 6 and 20 November: Non-Conformity, Critiques and Contention under Communist Rule in the 1970s and 1980s

With support from the Society for the Study of Labor History, Northumbria University's History of Activism research group is hosting two online symposia on different ways in which communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe was being critiqued and contested during the 1970s and 1970s. To register for these online symposia, please contact Daniel Laqua. 

Friday, 6 November 2020, 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm

• Charlotte Alston and Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Welcome

Challenging ‘Actually Existing Socialism'

• André Keil (Liverpool John Moores University) – ‘Instandbesetzen’? Squatting in the Late GDR between Social Protest, Youth Culture, and Conservation
• Richard Millington (University of Chester) – Challenging the State? Petty Thieves in the GDR, 1971–1989

Cultural Change and New Social Movements

• Aleksandra Gajowy (Newcastle University) – Polish Queer Homecomings: Filo, DIK Fagazine, and Unearthing Ryszard Kisiel’s Archive
• Alexandra Wedl (University of Basel) – Green Volunteers in Czechoslovakia: The Youth Newspaper Mladý svět and Its Environmental Campaign, 1970s –1980s

Critiques and Future Visions in the Late 1980s

• Dirk Dalberg (Slovak Academy of Sciences) – Self-Government as an Alternative Socialism: Czechoslovakia in the Late 1980s
• Anna Calori (University of Leipzig) – Between Reformism and Neoliberalism: Envisaging Alternative Socialisms in the Debates of Yugoslav Economists (1987–1991)

Friday 20 November, 1:30 to 5:00 pm

Opposition Movements

• Anselma Gallinat (Newcastle University) – Challenging the State on Pastoral and Theological Grounds: Church–State Engagements in East Germany
• James Koranyi (Durham University) – Romanian Skirmishes: Aktionsgruppe Banat, Trade Union Nostalgia, and Opposition to Ceaușescu
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Solidarity and Protest: East–West Responses to the Biermann Expatriation of 1976

Dissent in Transnational Perspective

• Irina Gordeeva (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam / St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute, Moscow) – Edward Palmer Thompson and the Soviet Independent Peace Movement
• Mark Hurst (Lancaster University) – ‘Conversations with Cannibals’: Misunderstood Activism across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War
• Kim Christiaens and Jos Claeys (KU Leuven) – Failures, Limits and Competition: Campaigns on behalf of Eastern European Dissidents in Cold War Belgium, 1960s–1980s

Concluding Discussion

• Charlotte Alston (Northumbria University) – Discussant Comments
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) – Next Steps

Postgraduate Training Workshop 'Tracing Lives Beyond Borders', 13 May 2016

On Friday 13 May, postgraduates from the 'Histories of Activism' research group are organising ‘Tracing Lives Beyond Borders’, a half-day workshop designed to encourage discussion on the ways in which the movement of people facilitates the cross-border exchange of ideas. We will hear from postgraduate students and academics studying individuals whose lives and activism speak to this theme and there will be opportunities for participants to reflect on the methodological and epistemological aspects of their research.  Registration is open to postgraduate students as well as other researchers who may be interested in the theme. The workshop is free to all participants. Participation is free, but please register by 6 May via this link.

The event is kindly supported by the Northumbria University Graduate School and hosted in association with the Labour and Society Research Group. For further information about the event, feel free to contact the organisers via tracinglives@gmail.com. 

The workshop is taking place in Boardroom 1 of the Sutherland Building (building no. 31 on the campus map; use the entrance on Northumberland Road).

PROGRAMME

13h15 – 13h30	Registration and opening
13h30 – 14h15	Northumbria PhD students on activists who crossed borders Lara Green on Sergei Stepniak (1851–1895) Jasmine Calver on Gabrielle Duchêne (1870–1954) Sophie Roberts on Peggy Duff (1910–1981)
14h15 – 15h00	Historians in conversation: the challenges of biography Dr Charlotte Alston (Northumbria University) on her book Russia’s Greatest Enemy? Harold Williams and the Russian Revolutions (London, 2007) Dr Matt Perry (Newcastle University) on his book ‘Red Ellen’ Wilkinson: Her Ideas, Movement and World (Manchester, 2013)
15h00 – 15h30	Coffee break
15h30 – 16h30	Case studies and contexts Dr Niall Whelehan (Edinburgh University): ‘Colonialism, Anarchism and the Transnational Life of an Irish Doctor’ Prof. Brian Ward (Northumbria University): ‘White Man in the Black Atlantic: The Transnational Odysseys of Frederick Delius’
16h30 – 16h40	Coffee break
16h40 – 17h15	Small group discussions and networking opportunities, facilitated by Dr André Keil (Durham University), Dr James Koranyi (Durham University) and Dr Tom Stammers (Durham University)
17h15 – 18h15	Keynote lecture Prof. Christophe Verbruggen (University of Ghent): ‘Digital Humanities and the Effort to Capture Transnational Lives, Causes and Commitments’

18h15

Concluding remarks by Dr Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University)