Toward a Geography of Black Internationalism: Bayard Rustin, Nonviolence, and the Promise of Africa

Hodder, Jake

doi:10.1080/24694452.2016.1203284

Cited by 21 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Recent scholarship has rescued the neglected role of early anarchist geographers as European authors performing radical anti‐colonialist and anti‐racist agendas in imperial ages (Ferretti, , ), extending interdisciplinary work on the “transnational turn” in anarchist studies (Bantman & Altena, ). Similar topics have been addressed by historical geographers working on geographies of radical histories from perspectives not strictly identifiable with the anarchist ones (Davies, ; Featherstone, ; Griffin, ) and by a burgeoning literature on de‐colonisation, Black internationalism, and solidarity networks (Craggs & Wintle, ; Hodder, ; McGregor, ). Therefore, OGTs are far from being limited to anarchism: first, because anarchism is a complex field which would hardly fit a unique scholarly “paradigm,” as exemplified by the discussions mentioned above about the definition of “anarchist geographies” and, second, because other critical approaches (sometimes intersecting with anarchism) can contribute to the rediscovery of OGTs, such as Marxism and other socialistic tendencies, feminism, critical race studies, postcolonialism, and decoloniality among the others.…”

Section: Early Critical Geographies Feminist Historical Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 86%

Rediscovering other geographical traditions

Ferretti

2019

Geography Compass

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In the last few years, a vibrant interdisciplinary and international literature is rediscovering those sectors of the geographical tradition whose exponents did not match the classical stereotype of the Western academic geographer directly or indirectly contributing to colonialism, warfare, and social conservatism. Ongoing research on primary sources has shown that early progressive, dissident, and unorthodox tendencies in the history of the discipline were more pervasive and influential than what has been believed. In this paper, I define this movement as the rediscovery of “Other Geographical Traditions” (OGTs) arguing that this notion can enlarge our understanding of geography as a plural and contested field. While a great deal of this literature is constituted by studies on early anarchist and critical geographies, I argue that this concept should be extended to scholarly production from the Global South in languages other than English, which is likewise providing important contributions to the discovery of different geographical traditions, politically and culturally. For that, I address the case of recent Latin American scholarship, in Spanish and Portuguese, on the history and philosophy of critical geographies. Moreover, the fact that these “Southern” scholars are rereading and translating classical figures of “Northern” geographers constitutes a reversal of the former colonial gaze from the North–South to the South–North direction. This suggests that the study of OGTs should also consider different cultural and linguistic traditions, challenging monolingualism in both literature reviews and sources' selection.

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Section: Early Critical Geographies Feminist Historical Geographiesmentioning

confidence: 86%

Rediscovering other geographical traditions

Ferretti

2019

Geography Compass

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Section: Race and Colonialismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a recognition then, as Hodder () has argued, that international connections should not be fetishised. What is required is “closer attention to the geographies of black internationalist encounters themselves—their specificities and particularities—to fashion a fuller understanding of the spatial practices and solidarities forged through them” (Hodder, , p. 1374). By focusing on Bayard Rustin—whose activism spanned the civil rights movement, pacifism, the labour movement and gay rights—Hodder demonstrates the variety of black internationalisms that coexisted in the second half of the twentieth century.…”

Section: Race and Colonialismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By focusing on Bayard Rustin—whose activism spanned the civil rights movement, pacifism, the labour movement and gay rights—Hodder demonstrates the variety of black internationalisms that coexisted in the second half of the twentieth century. In contrast to a black internationalism centred exclusively on Africa, Rustin found inspiration in Gandhi, Nehru, Nkrumah, and Mandela for “a racial solidarity that drew on the shared experience of colonialism and nonviolence among the wider Afro‐Asiatic world” (Hodder, , p. 1368). Shared experiences matter in the construction of solidarity, then, yet such relationships must be actively produced, and can be developed in a multiplicity of ways.…”

Section: Race and Colonialismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Historicising geographies of solidarity

Kelliher

2018

Geography Compass

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This article evaluates two of the most productive recent areas of research in the historical geographies of solidarity: first, work relating to class and the labour movement; and second, debates clustered around race and colonialism. The two are, of course, not entirely distinct, and there has been much useful thinking at their intersections. I suggest that questions of mobility have been crucial in thinking about the formation of diverse solidarities across geographical and social boundaries. The article looks at how relationships can both be developed across differences of gender, race, and sexuality and how solidarities can be used to entrench forms of oppression and inequities of power. Thinking about this issue through the concept of intersectionality, I argue, would be a useful way of engaging with such questions. I suggest three areas which could be developed further. First, there is potential for a greater engagement with theoretical debates around the nature of solidarity itself. Second, historical geographers could pay more attention to the role of memory and “usable pasts.” Finally, I argue that more ambitious historical narratives, framed within wider social processes, would allow us to make broader arguments about how solidarity develops over time.

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“…In the final part of this paper, I show how the method of biography allowed the issue of abundance to be managed in my own work tracing the transnational histories of radical pacifism. I drew on the life of the civil rights and peace activist Bayard Rustin (Hodder ; Hodder ). Rustin was the race relations secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation from 1941 to 1953, after which he took leadership of the War Resisters’ League.…”

Section: ‘A Little Mixing and Matching’mentioning

confidence: 99%

On absence and abundance: biography as method in archival research

Hodder

2017

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Geographical scholarship has rightly problematised the act of archival research, showing how the practice of archiving is not only concerned with how a society collectively remembers, but also forgets. As such, the dominant motif for discussing historical methods in geography has been through the lens of absence: the archive is a space of ‘traces’, ‘fragments’ and ‘ghosts’. In this paper I suggest that the focus on incompleteness and partiality, while true, may also belie what many geographers working in archives find their greatest difficulty: an overwhelming volume of source materials. I reflect on my own research experiences in the pacifist archive to suggest that the growing scale and scope of many collections, along with the taxing research demands of transnational perspectives, pose immediate practical challenges for geographers characterised as much by abundance as by absence. In the second half of the paper, drawing on recent scholarship in history and geography, I argue that the method of biography offers one possible strategy for navigating archival abundance, allowing geographers to tell stories that are wider, deeper and more revealingly complex within the existing time and financial constraints of humanities research.

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Toward a Geography of Black Internationalism: Bayard Rustin, Nonviolence, and the Promise of Africa

Cited by 21 publications

References 51 publications

Rediscovering other geographical traditions

Rediscovering other geographical traditions

Historicising geographies of solidarity

On absence and abundance: biography as method in archival research

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