TY - UNPB
T1 - Of saints, sinners and compañeras
T2 - internationalist lives in the Americas today
AU - Waterman, Peter
PY - 1999/2
Y1 - 1999/2
N2 - A new internationalism is shaping up in the Americas today. In response to the destructive, divisive and exploitative globalisation now dominating the landscape, a variety of movements are contri' uting to the development of some kind of hemispheric civil society. Like earlier internationalisms, the new one, too, has its active agents. At present we know even less of this new generation than we know of their forebears. Stimulating or collecting interviews or testimonies from such activists, would not only provide lively human accounts accessible to ordinary people (to whom internationalism may still be foreign or exotic). It would also provide inputs into the work of movement strategists, media activists, committed researchers. To do this effectively requires some familiarity with the history of internationalism (and its limitations), language appropriate to internationalism under conditions of globalisation, some knowledge of past and contemporary internationalist activists in the Americas. Offered here in turn are 1) the salutary case of internationalist icon, Rigoberta Menchu, 2) argument on the value of (auto)biographies in advancing a contemporary internationalism in the Americas, 3) a `critical and committed' view of globalisation, and a complex view of solidarity, along with a heuristic model of internationalist types, 4) thumbnail sketches of six individual internationalists in the Americas (1830s-1990s) and, 5) some concluding reflections on the relation between the model and these sketches. An extended bibliography and resource listing complete the paper.
AB - A new internationalism is shaping up in the Americas today. In response to the destructive, divisive and exploitative globalisation now dominating the landscape, a variety of movements are contri' uting to the development of some kind of hemispheric civil society. Like earlier internationalisms, the new one, too, has its active agents. At present we know even less of this new generation than we know of their forebears. Stimulating or collecting interviews or testimonies from such activists, would not only provide lively human accounts accessible to ordinary people (to whom internationalism may still be foreign or exotic). It would also provide inputs into the work of movement strategists, media activists, committed researchers. To do this effectively requires some familiarity with the history of internationalism (and its limitations), language appropriate to internationalism under conditions of globalisation, some knowledge of past and contemporary internationalist activists in the Americas. Offered here in turn are 1) the salutary case of internationalist icon, Rigoberta Menchu, 2) argument on the value of (auto)biographies in advancing a contemporary internationalism in the Americas, 3) a `critical and committed' view of globalisation, and a complex view of solidarity, along with a heuristic model of internationalist types, 4) thumbnail sketches of six individual internationalists in the Americas (1830s-1990s) and, 5) some concluding reflections on the relation between the model and these sketches. An extended bibliography and resource listing complete the paper.
M3 - Working paper
T3 - ISS working papers. General series
BT - Of saints, sinners and compañeras
PB - International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)
CY - Den Haag
ER -