Lost in translation: Problematizing the localization of transnational activism

Abstract

Existing studies on human rights change posit that activists use transnational networks to organize global and local movements against governments. However, this explanation assumes that international rights claims gain local support and underestimates how difficult it could be for activists to translate global movements into local movements. I address this issue by proposing three mechanisms through which activists face such difficulties and fail to pressure governments. First, misrepresentation occurs when international organizations accept and support activists who do not represent local voices and cannot get local support for their rights claims. Second, misperception happens when activists introduce global norms into local debates but local audiences, unfamiliar with these “foreign” concepts, misperceive them and thus do not support international rights claims. Third, mismatch occurs when pre-existing local movements mistakenly use international rights claims for their own goals, lead local discussions, and overshadow transnational activism. Due to these problems of misrepresentation, misperception, and mismatch, activists may fail to localize their transnational activism. This, in turn, makes it difficult to realize their claims at home. I demonstrate my argument by analyzing the indigenous peoples’ movements in Japan, tracing the success and failure of Ainu and Okinawan activists to domesticate the global indigenous peoples’ movement.

Remaking society from within: An investigation into contemporary Islamic activism in Nigeria

“…global Salafism) which also exists in African countries ( Meijer, 2009 ; Østebø, 2015 ; Saalfeld, 2019 ), including Nigeria. This is what Minami (2019) ; Tanaka (2019) ; Suerbaum (2020) calls transnational civil society. Consequently, the Muslim world today cannot be separated from the spread of transnational Islamic organizations.…”

For Example: How to Use Examples in Political Science

“…8 This example took on an extended life in the representation literature- Dryzek and Niemeyer (2008) begin their paper on discursive representation with Bono too, 9 interpreting him as a representative of a particular (problematic) discourse, one that treats Africans as poor recipients of charity with little agency of their own. The same quote becomes a key example for Montanaro's (2012Montanaro's ( , 1096 treatment of selfappointed representatives, and appears frequently in other treatments of problematic representation claims (Mulieri 2013, 519;Minami 2019). There was a panel at the 2008 annual conference of the American Political Science Association entitled "Bono and Beyond: The Democratic Functions of Non-Elected Representatives.…”

Norm contestation and the weakening of migrant fisher protection in Thailand

“…However, such reversal is only imagined to be caused by the government’s repression of domestic civil society. It treats backlash against norms as an outliner and as a direct result of state actors’ reaction (Risse-Kappen, Ropp and Sikkink 1999: 242; for the critique, see Minami 2019). In this circumstance, it expects repressive states to aggressively resist and water down normative standards.…”