Afro-Asian Networks in the Early Cold War, 1945-1960

This project relates to the AHRC research theme 'Care for the future: thinking forward through the past'. It contributes to our understanding of the social history of globalisation, decolonization, and civil society. It examines the experiences of the early Cold War from the point of view of the Global South. By focusing on the transnational activities of non-state actors rather than heads of state, the project leaders seek to highlight global networks and communities that have so far remained unexamined.

The 1950s constituted an era of transformation, where decolonization and patronage from competing Cold War powers created opportunities for new alliances among people across the colonial and post-colonial world. Recently, scholars have given renewed attention to major diplomatic initiatives - namely the 1955 Bandung conference of Afro-Asian nations - in the political imagining of a new world order. But this was also a decade of intensive social and cultural exchange among nonstate actors. Across Asia and Africa, intellectuals, activists, and revolutionaries explored new vectors of solidarity across national, linguistic and ideological borders. Artists, poets, and performers experimented with new ideas and techniques for intellectual and cultural expression to create new visions of the nation. They engaged critically with communist, socialist and democratic ideas in circulation, constantly reformulated their political loyalties, and built up networks of intellectual and radical sociability. This project explores conversations and alliances that helped shape a generation of Asian and Africans seeking to transform their societies within a new world order.

The project seeks to break out of national and regional boundaries between South, Southeast, and East Asia, and between Asia and Africa, to look at transnational and trans-regional exchanges across these areas. By understanding the way in which non-state actors used these networks, we hope to illuminate our understanding of the effects of soft power initiatives and mentalities of internationalism on the formation of civil society in the Global South.

The main component of the project is a Collaborative Research Week in Amsterdam in January 2016, where fourteen participants, mostly early-career researchers, will work together in the archives of the International Institute of Social History, which holds one of the most important collections of social and emancipatory movements from around the world.

The project leaders believe that the best results are to be gained when specialists on different regions are given the opportunity to connect their findings in 'real-time' with specialists on other regions than their own. The week will consist of an introductory seminar, informal meetings, and seminars with senior Netherlands-based scholars of colonialism and decolonization familiar with the archives.

This research week will be followed by an international conference in Bristol in September 2016, during which researchers will present their written findings to a larger audience made up of scholars from a range of academic institutions and disciplinary perspectives, as well as non-academic stakeholders. We will also invite participants of the "Socialism goes global network", to examine connections between the Second and Third World within the context of decolonization.

The outputs of this grant include a special journal issue, a public website, as well as a public engagement event as part of the University of Bristol History Department's 'Past Matters' Festival. The event, 'Third World Networks Past and Present', will allow us to profile our research in dialogue with Asian and African activists who make use of transnational networks in the contemporary world. This debate about the strengths, limitations, and periods of success for Afro-Asian networks will feed into a History and Policy Working Paper on the international origins of civil society in the Global South.

1. We will host a public engagement event in Bristol which will be held as part of the Past Matters Festival of History in spring 2017. This will constitute a round-table discussion, held at Hamilton House in East Bristol to the public on 'Third World Networks Past and Present'. The purpose of the event is to engage contemporary activists and the broader public in discussion on the history of transnational activism in the Global South, investigating continuities and comparisons with transnational activism in the contemporary world. The event will particularly target Bristol's vibrant activist community and wider activist networks around the UK, as well as aid workers and policy-makers engaged in working with civil society groups in Asia and Africa. The P-I and Co-I will present findings of the research network in an accessible manner, and in discussion with two participants involved in transnational NGO networks in Asia and Africa since the 1980s (one of these is likely to be the international NGO Third World Network, with whom the PI is in close contact with). We will engage in a debate about the strengths, limitations, and periods of success for transnational civil society networks in the Global South. A podcast of this event will be made available through the public website and publicised via social media. The activists we work with will be encouraged to contribute to the project website and research blog.

2. In order to publicise the event and reach a broader audience, we will build on the University of Bristol's existing relationship with the Bristol Festival of Ideas (an Arts Council England national portfolio organisation) to publicise the public engagement event on 'Third World Networks' as part of the Festival's programme of events for Spring 2017.

3. The event, as well as the research findings themselves, will help feed into the production of a History and Policy working paper on transnational civil society networks in Asia and Africa. We seek to publish this paper on the History and Policy website and disseminate among policy-makers and development practitioners working with civil society stakeholders in the developing world. The PI will make use of her existing networks in international development circles - including Dfid, the World Bank, the Overseas Development Institute, Save the Children, Oxfam, and smaller NGOs like Partners Asia - to publicise the document.

4. Members of the research network will publish articles for non-academic audiences in the regions of study to publicise the rich history of international cooperation and exchange between civil society groups across Asia and Africa. These will be featured in weeklies such as India Today and Outlook India in India; the Irrawaddy magazine in Burma and Awaaz in Africa.

5. The events and research network will provide benefits for undergraduate and post-graduate students at Bristol University and Leiden University. The PI and Co-I will be hosting an online joint classroom session where undergraduate and postgraduate students can discuss findings of the research network and present their own ideas and research. Postgraduate students from Leiden will be invited to meet researchers during the collaborative research week in Amsterdam, and postgraduate students at Bristol will be invited to participate in the international conference at Bristol.

6. A public website and research blog will serve to communicate the events and report on the outcomes of these research and exchange activities in an accessible language to a broader public. This site will be designed to go beyond academic boundaries, and will be targeted to include and invite contributors working on a range of different geographical areas who are able to contribute to a conversation about decolonisation "from below"; that is, from the perspective of the Global South. The research blog will be transferred to a wordpress.com site and maintained by the P-I beyond the project cycle.