Transnational Grassroots Research Articles

Transnationalising Farming Protest to Avoid Marginalisation? COPA and the Mansholt Plan

Drawing on extensive multi-archival and multi-institutional research, the article explores how the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations (COPA) responded to the multiple challenges presented by the Memorandum ‘Agriculture’ between 1968 and 1972. At this critical juncture, COPA had to show its ability to unite and mobilise Community farmers against the Commission’s first major reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The article demonstrates that the transnationalisation of farm protests, which culminated in the March 1971 demonstration, was the result of COPA’s attempt to avert marginalisation and address internal contestation by its member organisations. The article also sheds light on the internal, structural, and ideological factors behind the gradual deterioration of the close COPA-Commission alliance, which forced COPA to supplement its traditional insider lobbying strategy with transnational grassroots mobilisation leading up to the March 1971 protests.

David vs. Goliath: transnational grassroots outreach and empirical evidence from the #HongKongProtests Twitter network

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the digital transnational advocacy network of the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement on Twitter. We present how grassroots users strategically utilize social media for achieving diplomatic engagement with foreign actors. The Twitter network analysis and natural language processing of tweets (N = 88,800) identify the key opinion leaders and their three core grassroots frames: universal values, humanitarian concerns, and geopolitics. We find that the low threshold of Twitter participation provides additional direct channels for ordinary users to engage with foreign politicians and create their own public opinion wave. The Anti-ELAB digital transnational grassroots advocacy network was found to have more high-profile actors, such as corporations and celebrities, due to pressure from grassroots users to stand with them. Though the two traditional frames, universal values and humanitarian concerns, adopted from the organizational-centered outreach remain prevalent, grassroots users extend geopolitical frames to incorporate their cultural capital and economic power.

Reversing climatisation: transnational grassroots networks and territorial security discourse in a fragmented global climate governance

Created in 2010 during the international climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, the Mesoamerican alliance of peoples and forests (AMPB) lobbies for the recognition of territorial rights, which it frames as a fundamental safeguard in the global fight against climate change. On the one hand, it seeks to participate in global climate arenas, so as to capture the wide political and financial opportunities this context offers. On the other hand, it contests the “over-climatisation” of international debates, fearing that this would side-line the active historical role of local and indigenous communities in forest conservation and carbon storage. The paper examines the strategies mobilised by transnational grassroots networks ahead, during and beyond COP21 considered as a critical moment in global climate governance. One of the main results relates to the existence of a reversed climatisation process after the failed attempts to position territorial security issues in climate arenas.

A Transnational Grassroots Movement: Jinja Shintō and Japanese Religions in the Pre-Colonial Joseon Society

A Transnational Grassroots Movement: Jinja Shintō and Japanese Religions in the Pre-Colonial Joseon Society

Scaling up but losing out? Water commons' dilemmas between transnational movements and grassroots struggles in Latin America

In the context of globalizing transboundary environmental challenges, strategies to protect and secure the local commons such as water resources have been increasingly scaled up. Consequently, local communities have started to engage in transnational mobilisations to defend their rights and express their concerns. This often implies the adoption and institutionalisation of emerging global norms, principles and modes of framing and claiming – such as the Human Right to Water or the Rights of Nature – which will interfere with and may even go against local understandings, meaning, and rooted struggles or initial claims made by grassroots movements. On the one hand, the appropriation of expert knowledge and technical idiom may improve their recognition and access to political and financial support. On the other hand, transnational involvement may (re)produce misrecognition or exclusion on the ground for community-based organisations. Studying cases from Latin American countries, and combining commons and social movements theories, this paper examines in what ways professionalisation and commensuration strategies as deployed and implemented by transnational grassroots movements impact the local commons.

What does autonomy mean for forest communities? The politics of transnational community forestry networks in Mesoamerica and the Congo Basin

Since the 1990s, forest-dependent communities in tropical regions have created national and transnational grassroots networks. While in Latin America, their main goal is to promote community forestry and claim territorial rights, forest-dependent communities in the Congo Basin are more focused on improving participatory inclusion in forest policies. These diverging trends are rooted in the historical social movements’ struggles in Latin America and in the international actors’ push for more inclusion of local communities by governments in Central Africa. Given that the emergence of transnational community forestry networks is linked to different claims of autonomy based on regional context, how do the politics of autonomy driven by transnational grassroots networks influence community forest governance? This paper aims to examine how the different types of autonomy claimed by transnational grassroots networks, – vis-à-vis state bureaucracies, international partners and community organisations, – affect the multi-scale governance of community forestry in tropical regions. Our analysis draws on a political sociology and comparative politics approaches, through the case studies of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB) and the Network of Indigenous and Local Communities for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC).

“The River Told Me”: Rethinking Intersectionality from the World of Berta Cáceres

ABSTRACTInspired by the spiritual and political journey of Berta Cáceres (1973-2016), a fierce Lenca woman leader from Honduras who died in defense of sacred indigenous rivers, the essay aims to rethink the frame of intersectionality that is axiomatic in feminist theorizing and activism. Against the backdrop of the January 2017 Women’s March in the USA, I interrogate inclusionary accounts that equate intersectionality with a pre-existing unity among women that leaves power differentials intact. I recover the intersection as an index of invisibility and violence by drawing on the intimate connections that Berta foregrounded between multiple structures of domination. However, I argue that attending to the relational histories and geographies of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism, is insufficient for imagining more just futures that are hospitable to subaltern horizons. Feminist praxis must also interrogate the Western liberal conceptions of agency and human-nature relations that undergird its intersectional analysis. Through an exploration of the indigenous cosmovisions and transnational grassroots solidarity that coalesce under Berta’s name, I point to the importance of cultivating a disposition to listening to incommensurable worlds where rivers tell stories and call upon us. This is an ecofeminist vision capable of rooting intersectional analysis within decolonizing relations and alternatives.

How do transnational grassroots networks reframe the global norms of water and forests governance?

The current era of globalization and commodification has had a substantial impact on common-pool resources governance. In direct response to this, community-based organizations managing water and forests at the local level began to create their own transnational networks. Primarily, these organizations aim to achieve direct representation in international decision-making arenas in order to promote their model of collective governance. By reframing the representations of common-pool resources (from commodities to human rights or collective goods), they seek to influence norm-building processes and establish specific scales of community-based governance (local, regional or global).To what extent does the reframing of common-pool resources impact the scales of water and forests governance? This paper addresses the question by adopting a geographical approach of transnational social movements and undertaking a discourse analysis. The study focuses on two case studies: the Latin-American Confederation of Community Organizations for Water Services and Sanitation (CLOCSAS), and the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB). On one hand, CLOCSAS frames water as a global common good and a universal human right compatible with an economic value. It aims to become an alternative expert on water issues. On the other hand, AMPB frames forests as a local common good and a territorial right. It aims to be differentiated from technical experts and works to consolidate territorial authority.

Small world, big world: the cultural possibility of a Chinese transnational grassroots society

The radical modernist ideology (both Socialism and GDP-ism) that has overwhelmed China for the past sixty years has produced profound and distinctive problems. This article explores cultural resources at the grassroots level that are able to balance the influence of radical modernist ideology. Chinese new migrants (primarily ex-peasants from rural areas of South China who migrated to Western countries, particularly to the US in the past three decades) have revived local cultural and societal mechanisms in the construction of transnational self-rule communities. By applying an anthropological approach, this research shows that the new migrants’ practices express their understanding of modernity and what “a better life” is. Their rich experiences may inspire us to look into the local tradition of South China, which represents a possible resource that could evolve in the direction of helping to form a modern civil society in China.

Transition in place: Dynamics, possibilities, and constraints

The Transition Movement is a translocal phenomenon circulated through transnational grassroots networks. This study explores the geographies of the Transition Movement with a theoretical framework that perceives it as both a social movement and a grassroots innovation. Participant-observation of Transition Salt Lake (TSL), located in the suburban metropolis of Salt Lake City, Utah, was conducted, as the United States remains a largely understudied country in regards to this particular movement. In this pursuit, we asked: (i) how and what this transition initiative draws from geographically extensive and intensive relations, (ii) how it combines place-specific elements and generalized models (embeddedness), and (iii) how this impacts the success of the transition initiative and how these impacts (positive or negative) are generated. Place, space, and scale played a large role in defining the nature, dynamics, possibilities, and constraints of this transition initiative. Specifically, geographically intensive and extensive relations were critical for the mobilization of complementary resources. The Transition model was found to be flexible, allowing for the initiative to adopt those elements that worked in place and to focus on locally relevant topics. TSL faced many challenges identified by previous researchers regarding finances, participation, diversity, and intragroup competition. While networking with other similar groups, TSL demonstrated that fertile environments of activism are incubatory pools for grassroots innovations and social movements, and a trade-off was found with competition for resources between local groups.

The Search for a European Identity in the Long 1970s: External Relations and Institutional Evolution in the European Community

The past decade has seen an explosion of scholarly work on the European Community (EC)’s attempts to develop an international role during the ‘long 1970s’. This is hardly surprising: historians tend to follow the opening of the archives, and now is the best moment to examine primary sources from the period. There are, however, two further reasons for this growing interest in European integration during the 1970s. Firstly, writing in the aftermath of the crisis in relations between the United States and Europe provoked by the US's global war on terrorism and at the height of the European financial crisis, many scholars – historians and political scientists alike – have looked back at the crisis of the 1970s, searching for precedents, similarities and differences. Secondly, thanks to the number of studies now available, the decade is widely recognised as a pivotal period of global transformation – a period in which new global dynamics produced radical change for Europe and for the international system as a whole. In many ways, this decade represented a crisis of modernity that saw the emergence of new actors and processes. Cold War categories became too rigid to usefully define – or even explain – an increasingly pluralistic world, in which new international actors, ranging from transnational grassroots movements to international institutions and regular international summits, began to play major roles. The oppressive but unambiguous Cold War order started to crumble, and a new one, characterised by ‘interdependence’ and ‘globalisation’, began to emerge. The effects of this transformation were particularly dramatic for Europe: it was in the seventies that Europe ‘entered a different world’.

City learning from below: urban poor federations and knowledge generation through transnational, horizontal exchange

This article examines ways in which transnational grassroots networks produce knowledge and learning that crosses borders to help cities explore solutions to dilemmas of urban development. International development programmes often legitimise a narrow class of professionals, advising donor agencies and foundations, private investment institutions, governments and other providers of capital for developmental intervention through a predominantly vertical hierarchy. Shack/Slum Dwellers International, a network of urban poor federations across Africa, Asia and Latin America, has over two decades of experience sharing knowledge through a methodology that has promised to upend these relatively vertical relationships. This network represents a growing critical mass of local national and transnational organisations of the poor learning from each other. This article argues that Shack/Slum Dwellers International’s exchange methodology, built on collective learning and discovery between communities and formal govern...

Technical vs. Grassroots Experts in Global Water and Forests Governance

Since the 2000s, facing the increasing globalization and commodification of common-pool resources, community-based organizations managing water and forests at the local level started to create transnational networks. Their main goal is to get direct representation in global governance arenas and to transform languages of expertise around governance norms and the scales at which they operate. The international involvement of grassroots organizations raises several interrogations: who are grassroots experts and to what extent are they different from technical experts dominating international arenas? At what scale and in what field is grassroots expertise constructed as legitimate? Finally, is transnational grassroots expertise based on a harmonization or a diversification of knowledge and practices?

Code, Collaboration, And The Future Of Journalism

Amid the rise of computational and data-driven forms of journalism, it is important to consider the institutions, interactions, and processes that aim to help the social worlds of journalism and technology come together and collaborate around a common cause of news innovation. This paper examines one of the most prominent such efforts: the transnational grassroots organization called Hacks/Hackers. Through a two-year qualitative case study, we sought to understand just how journalists and technologists would engage through this organization: what kinds of interactions would occur, and what factors might facilitate collaboration? Drawing upon the science and technology studies concept of “trading zones,” we examine how Hacks/Hackers functions as an informal and transitory trading zone through which journalists and technologists can casually meet and coordinate. The level of engagement between the two groups, we found, depends on a set of social and structural factors, including institutional support and the leadership of key volunteers, and the depth of that engagement depends on sufficient mutual understanding among journalists and hackers. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the challenges and opportunities presented through the intersection of journalism and technology.

Success and failure of grassroots innovations for addressing climate change: The case of the Transition Movement

Grassroots innovations emerge as networks generating innovative solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, it is unclear if grassroots innovations can be successful in responding to climate change. Little evidence exists on replication, international comparisons are rare, and research tends to overlook discontinued responses in favour of successful ones. We take the Transition Movement as a case study of a rapidly spreading transnational grassroots network, and include both active and non-active local transition initiatives. We investigate the replication of grassroots innovations in different contexts with the aim to uncover general patterns of success and failure, and identify questions for future research. An online survey was carried out in 23 countries (N=276). The data analysis entailed testing the effect of internal and contextual factors of success as drawn from the existing literature, and the identification of clusters of transition initiatives with similar internal and contextual factor configurations. Most transition initiatives consider themselves successful. Success is defined along the lines of social connectivity and empowerment, and external environmental impact. We find that less successful transition initiatives might underestimate the importance of contextual factors and material resources in influencing success. We also find that their diffusion is linked to the combination of local–global learning processes, and that there is an incubation period during which a transition initiative is consolidated. Transition initiatives seem capable of generalising organisational principles derived from unique local experiences that seem to be effective in other local contexts. However, the geographical locations matter with regard to where transition initiatives take root and the extent of their success, and ‘place attachment’ may have a role in the diffusion of successful initiatives. We suggest that longitudinal comparative studies can advance our understanding in this regard, as well as inform the changing nature of the definition of success at different stages of grassroots innovation development, and the dynamic nature of local and global linkages.

Transnational Forces and Their Impact on Territorial Sovereignty

Altered States: The Globalization of Accountability. By Valerie Sperling. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 389 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 979-0-521-54181-7). This book investigates five kinds of transnational force and the effects they have on “people's lives through how they encourage or discourage more accountable governments” (p. 4). The conception of political accountability is liberal democratic. The method is an investigation of the existing empirically-oriented literature for how it bears on this question. The relevant theoretical literature is generally neglected. Yet in good hands this book would make a fine textbook. The five kinds of transnational force are: global neo-liberal institutions with particular reference to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and NAFTA; transnational interventions on behalf of democracy as in Cambodia and Bosnia; transnational military forces with a focus on private military contractors and international peacekeepers on United Nations missions; transnational judicial institutions with particular reference to the European Court of Human Rights in its jurisdictional impact on Russia, a member of the Council of Europe which ratified the European Convention of Human Rights in 1998, thus giving it the status of Russian domestic law; and finally, transnational civil society organizations which embrace democratic and social justice causes. I briefly discuss these five topics. In the chapter on economic globalization, interpreted exclusively in terms of “the Washington consensus,” the argument turns on two propositions. The first concerns pressure on the World Bank, WTO and IMF to become more transparent and accountable. Allowing that the World Bank has been more responsive to such pressures than the other institutions, the author concludes that “[d]ecision-making processes at all three… institutions are still relatively closed-door affairs” (p. 80). The second suggests that the neo-liberal agenda of free trade has incited transnational grassroots activism to make free trade agreements more accountable to labor standards, workers’ rights, and trade unions, all of which are dependent on the territorial jurisdictional sovereignty …

Small-Town Sustainability: Prospects in the Second Modernity

Small towns account for a significant fraction of the total population in many regions, but there has been a relative lack of research into small towns, with researchers' attention being drawn more to the effects of globalization and technological change on large cities and city regions. Yet, as the effects of globalization have become increasingly imprinted on small towns, transnational grassroots movements have emerged to address the needs, challenges and opportunities of small-town communities. Many of these movements involve partnerships and networks linking the local and international levels. They are often framed in terms of sustainability of their community, with an emphasis on liveability and quality of life. This article places the emergence of cross-border collaborations between small towns in the broader context of shifts from the “first” to the “second modernity”. Through in-depth case studies of movements such as Italy's Slow Food and Slow City movement, Sweden's eco-cities, economic gardening in the US and the creative cities project in Albania, we highlight four sensibilities that have emerged: local, organic and slow food; environmentalism; entrepreneurship and creativity.

Culture di democrazia partecipativa ed europeizzazione dal basso nei social forum italiani, britannici e tedeschi

Cultures of participatory democracy and from in the Italian, British and German Social Forums - To what extent can grassroots activists in different sectors of the global justice movements participate in transnational, Europe-wide social forum meetings held between larger protest events, transnational summits and everyday activism - not only dependent on structural, but also cultural patterns of communication and cooperation in movement groups? This question concerns students of European integration as well as thinkers of democracy beyond the nation state, and activists that seek to mobilize a critical discussion on the future of global and European politics. Social movement researchers and cultural sociologists have pointed to the practical challenges of participatory democracy in asymmetric networks composed of groups with pluralist cultural and material resources. Building on ethnographic data and interviews, this article looks at experiments in -deliberative talk-, or discursive democracy in national level social forum preparatory meetings in three different countries. The aim is to compare the challenges and opportunities of coalition building looking at organizational crisis and conflict in domestic social forum processes in Italy, Germany and the UK. This article shows that place-specific cultures of communication and cooperation in the national level social forum processes conditioned and restricted the quality of grassroots participation in the European assemblies and encounters of the ESF. Finally, the article shows that institutional brokerage helps facilitate transnational grassroots mobilization and a Europeanization from below in the case of the ESF process.

Narrating Trauma and Reconstruction in Post-conflict Karachi: Feminist Liberation Psychology and the Contours of Agency in the Margins

The article examines poor women's responses to direct and structural violence in Karachi, Pakistan, by combining goals and themes from liberation psychology with transnational feminism. We draw on interviews with Mohajir women survivors to analyse constructions of psychosocial trauma and attempts to rebuild post-conflict life-worlds, in a bid to understand the scope and contours of their agency within their `limit situations'. Although agency, resistance, and critical consciousness remain constrained by multi-layered power relations, women's narratives reflect crucial insights about social structures impacting their lives, and point to the need for interventions that integrate trauma alleviation and opportunities for local, national, and transnational grassroots activism, advocacy and policy initiatives.

Global Discourses and Local Mobilisations: The Case of ‘Barh Mukti Abhiyan’

This paper examines the nature of claim-making and the mobilisation politics of 'Barh Mukti Abhiyan' (BMA) in the state of Bihar in the context of its interactions with globally circulating discourses on big dams, river-valley projects, and embankments. It presents a differentiated and contingent understanding of BMA without prejudging it as a heroic environmental movement with a sense of common purpose and identity. While appreciating the significance of the increasingly thickening nexus between transnational networks and grassroots organising, it foregrounds issues concerning social justice, equitable access to information, the expert and bureaucratic dominance, livelihood struggles, and traditional knowledge systems.