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This thesis explores post-war photographic representations of Africans in the Polish People's Republic (1955 - 1989). It focuses on the statecontrolled press photography (although is not limited to it). It brings attention to a historical discourse, which is highly relevant in the light of current questions of integration and inclusion. It contributes to debates on the representation of Africans in Europe and is the first to exclusively raise issues of photographic representations of Africans (and People of African Descent - PAD) in communist Poland. The thesis is divided into four main chapters, in which I have discussed five principal discourse themes that emerged from the collated data. 'Delegates' concentrates on images taken during the 5th Festival of Students and Youth that took place in Warsaw in 1955 and was the first occasion for the Polish society to engage on a larger scale with Africans and People of African Descent. It explores the theme of 'exoticism' in 1950s Poland. 'Revolutionaries and Comrades' focuses mainly on photographs taken at two rallies of support of Patrice Lumumba that took place in Warsaw at the turn of 1960-1961 and photographs of African presidents visiting the PRL in the years following the year of Africa (1960). 'Students' focuses on images relating to 'educational migrants.' It opens the discussion to vernacular and semi vernacular photography. 'Citizens' concentrates of images published in 'The Polish Journal' a Polish produced propaganda magazine designated for distribution in various countries of the African continent. It discusses representations produced by the press and compares them with representations produced by foreign students in order to bring a better understanding of the social realities of the time.

In an age of globalised, highly competitive, volatile and financialised markets, the question of how to effectively organise workers to win concrete improvements in their working lives is increasingly difficult to answer. This thesis builds on four years of action-research, which supported eight unions in one company spread across five countries, to coordinate some of their actions and to push for a Global Framework Agreement to secure workers’ associational freedoms. It highlights the difficulties that workers face when trying to collaborate across borders and argues that any attempt to effectively study or empower trade unions at the scale of their multinational employer must pay attention to the specific factors which condition their agency as well as to the goals, tactics and enactments through which the ideal of international solidarity is embodied. The company studied produces silicon chips, employing approximately 28,000 workers across highly capital-intensive processes of research, development and chip production in the Global North, alongside 17,000 workers in the Global South to test and assemble the circuits. Between 2005 and 2016, the company underwent a process of financialisation, distributing ever larger dividends to its shareholders, whilst decreasing capital expenditure and implementing several restructuring and layoff plans. Faced with what they saw as an existential threat to their company’s future, seven unions from four different countries (France, Italy, Morocco and Malaysia) organised successful joint actions to secure greater capital investments and the replacement of the corporation’s senior management team. Following this campaign, these unions, joined by an eighth from Malta, created an international network to exchange information and campaigned without success for the company to sign a Global Framework Agreement. This attempt to organise across sites, languages, cultures, and institutional contexts, I argue, acts as a microcosm of the difficulties workers face in their efforts to exert power in a world characterised by globalising and centralising production and intensified financialisation. This thesis makes two contributions to labour geography and struggles for workers’ rights more broadly. First, it argues that any attempt to understand these struggles and their chances of success must be attuned to the actually-existing conditions of building solidarity and that these conditions cross a number of spatialities and temporalities. The unions’ international solidarity efforts were balanced on a series of contradictory and uneven relationships. Their members were tied to specific national interests, and their company confronted heightened pressures of scale which reverberated across the sites. Each union reflected their members’ experiences and socio-spatial positionalities, whose register crossed a number of scales and each union was threatened and/or co-opted by corporate tactics and stood by different ideological visions. Unless scholars and activists attend to these detailed variations and stories, practices and studies of international labour solidarity will remain an abstract ideal, rather than placed in the grounded and ‘messy’ attempt by workers’ organisations to deal with and work across multiple differences. Second, it argues that international efforts which focus on formal processes of rule-making at the expense of more grassroots and militant approaches stifle international collaboration. To sustain international collaboration, instead of an institutional and “dialogue”- based approach, which underplays the conflict opposing workers and their employers, trade unions should push for ambitious demands based on shared experiences and interests and engage in truly reciprocal forms of solidarity, rather than semi-patronising “help” models, whilst recognising that these discussions are traversed by each unions’ local realities and ideological stances. Ultimately, this thesis reminds us that building a sense of collective agency at the international scale is an iterative process, necessary but difficult, facing constant threats and changing circumstances. In the face of a global economy managed with increasing disregard for workers’ dignity and survival, let alone their power, it is vital that geographers pay increased attention to the strategies, challenges, and achievements of unions both on the ground, and, even if unsuccessful, over space.

This thesis tells the story of how German art was transformed into a tool of cultural propaganda and then 'mobilised' as a form of foreign cultural policy in Weimar Germany from 1917 until 1933. It questions how, why and with what intentions the German Federal Foreign Office pursued an official representation of the new Republic abroad through art, at a time when the visual arts were increasingly seen as important in Germany's foreign affairs. The thesis is divided into four chapters. It starts by looking at the first official German art propaganda exhibition mounted in Zurich by Paul Cassirer and Harry Count Kessler in 1917, which marked Germany's entry into modernist *Kunstpropaganda* in the neutral countries. It then outlines how the institutional organisation of foreign cultural propaganda and *Kunstdiplomatie* took form at the Wilhelmstrasse in the aftermath of the First World War. By 1920 the newly founded Cultural Department included a *Kunstreferat*, supervised by the art historian and civil servant Johannes Sievers, who together with the *Reichskunstwart* and the Prussian *Kultusministerium* aimed to take control of the newly emerging foreign art policy. In chapter 3 the thesis turns to the practice of Weimar Germany's foreign *Kunstpolitik*, especially the involvement of a set of Germany's most eminent museum directors with whom the Foreign Office sought to control and stage multiple official and semi-official German art exhibitions during the period 1919-1926. In its fourth and final chapter the thesis reviews how in the second half of the 1920s dozens of artists who felt excluded from Weimar Germany's official art exhibits, began to voice their dissent, before the *Kunstreferat* was taken out of the Foreign Office, and integrated in the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on 1 April 1933. The thesis concludes that Germany's foreign cultural policy towards the visual arts was modernist as well as traditional, internationalist yet patriotic, and firmly rooted in a Wilhelmine belief in the German *Kulturnation*.

In the wake of the First World War, reformers across the Western world questioned laissez-faire liberalism, the self-oriented and market-driven ruling doctrine of the nineteenth century. This philosophy was blamed, variously, for the war, for industrialisation and for urbanisation; for a way of life shorn of any meaning beyond getting and keeping; for the too great faith in materialism and in science; and for the loss of a higher, transcendent meaning that gave a unifying altruistic or spiritual purpose to individual existence and to society as a whole. For many, the cure to these ills lay in reforming the liberal social framework in ways that made it more fulfilling to the whole person and that strengthened ties between individuals. Dartington Hall was an outstanding practical example of this impulse to promote holistic, integrated living. It was a well-financed, internationally-minded social and cultural experiment set up on an estate in South Devon in 1925 by American heiress Dorothy Elmhirst (née Whitney) and her second husband, Leonard, son of a Yorkshire squire-parson. The Elmhirsts' project for redressing the effects of laissez-faire liberalism had two components. Instead of being treated as atomised individuals in the capitalist market, participants at Dartington were to achieve full self-realisation through a 'life in its completeness' that incorporated the arts, education and spirituality. In addition, through their active participation in running the community, they were to demonstrate how integrated democracy could bring about the perfection of individuals and the progress of society as a whole. The Elmhirsts hoped that Dartington would provide a globally applicable model for a better way of life. This thesis is a close study of Dartington's interlinked constellation of experiments in education, the arts, agriculture and social organisation - experiments that can only be understood by tracing them back to their shared roots in the idea of 'life in its completeness'. At the same time, it explores how Dartington's philosophy and trajectory illuminate the wider reform landscape. The Elmhirsts' community echoed and cross-pollinated with other schemes for social improvement in Britain, Europe, America and India, as well as feeding into the broad social democratic project in Britain. Dartington's evolution from an independent, elite-led reform project to one split between state-led and communitarian reform matched the trajectory of other such enterprises begun in interwar Britain, making it a bellwether of changes in reformist thinking across the century.

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among Esperanto speakers and Esperantists - mostly, but not only, in Paris - this thesis asks: how can the Esperanto community and movement come into being in practice if Esperanto speakers are scattered all over the world and may, at times, not share much beyond the language? Created in the late nineteenth century and alternatively supported by intellectuals and left-wing activists since its early days, Esperanto has currently also attracted the interest of young people through its online use. Coming to be more than a language, it has developed a widespread, geographically scattered speech community, a language-based social movement, and a set of cosmopolitan principles and sociabilities linked to it. I aim to contribute to debates about cosmopolitanism, globalisation, international communication, mobilities, and hopes for the future, as well as political, digital and language activism, by analysing perspectives of Esperanto speakers and Esperantists. Addressing the contrasting ideas that posit Esperanto as 'a thing of the past' and 'the language of the future', I look at the ways the language has been used in the present, through everyday practices, to mediate between people from different national backgrounds. France, particularly Paris, provides a setting in which my research questions resonate with national debates on politics and languages. This creates a fruitful environment to analyse how Esperanto is frequently seen through the lenses of either engagements with traditional social movements (such as communism, anarchism and pacifism) or as an intellectual game and tool to build sociability networks that extrapolate French territory. From these issues, my main argument is that the ephemeral nature of the enactments of the Esperanto community is what makes engagements with this language particularly appealing and productive for its speakers and supporters.

During its lifetime, the League of Nations aspired to gather reliable facts and produce accurate knowledge that could transform the conduct of international politics. Inquiry was one of many techniques the League actively deployed to find more rational means in which diplomacy was conducted and political decisions were made in Geneva. Truth Seekers or Power Brokers investigates the purpose and significance of international inquiry commissions in the inter-war years and asks to what extent they lived up to the high expectations of impartial knowledge created in a politicised environment. The thesis takes four thematically different case studies, concerning opium production in Persia, slavery and forced labour in Liberia, the Manchurian crisis that took East Asia by surprise, and the territorial dispute that emerged between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Chaco Boreal, to argue there is both coherence and reason behind the League's repeated reliance on the inquiry technique. The thesis situates international inquiry and the League 'experiment' in a wider frame of imperial internationalism, which aids to explore a scientific cosmology of developmentalism underscoring the various fact-finding methods, as well as a civilisational lens and imperial modes, idioms and repertoires that are prevalent in the case study material. The imperial internationalist framework is explored by means of three dimensions, namely the ad hoc institutional setting in which inquiry was embedded, the multi-level context of competing powers, contestation and rivalry in which investigations took place, and the myriad manifestations of personal and state agency, by way of truth seeking, technical innovation and the defence of national sovereignty, against attempts of foreign tutelage and territorial expansion. The thesis explains how inquiry, as a technique, brought about a softer face of empire in the inter-war years, through Western expertise and assistance, but equally was meant to preserve and reinvigorate the imperial hierarchies that underscored the post-war international system.

This doctoral dissertation traces how the Red Cross Movement was able to gain a foothold on the Indian subcontinent and came to play an important part in colonial civil society and in the nation-building process from the last third of the nineteenth century onwards up until the end of the interwar period. Far from being at the mere receiving end, it suggests that India played a crucial role in shaping and making the Red Cross Movement. It argues that India became an important hub of transnational and international Red Cross humanitarianism in Asia. The developments on the subcontinent had deep regional, international and global repercussions and were crucial in transforming the Red Cross into a global movement From the last third of the nineteenth century onwards, Indians started to organise humanitarian missions and institutions to help their co-religionists and co-citizens, but also as an act of claiming citizenship and of stressing their role in the ethical community of humanity. Like the Swiss Red Cross founders, Indian intellectuals too constructed a moral universe couched in universal terms, yet it was rooted in their own moral, geographical and imagined spaces of allegiance and affection. It was based on pan-Asian, pan-Islamic and anti-colonial conceptions of a supranational ethical community. By the end of the interwar period, the different humanitarian initiatives culminated in a distinctively Indian Red Cross and Red Crescent tradition. It recast the Christian mid-nineteenth programme of civilising war into a pan-Asian, anti-colonial, anti-communal and anti-racial internationalist movement that had deep reverberations beyond the Indian locality. It was upon such a humanitarian tradition that Nehru's non-alignment policy was built. By reconstructing a distinct Indian Red Cross and Red Crescent tradition this dissertation attempts to de-centre the rigorously Eurocentric and institutional focus of the current body of research on the Red Cross movement and humanitarianism more generally. It enhances our understanding of the relationship between British imperialism, decolonisation, nation-building in Asia and international and transnational humanitarianism.

This thesis examines the relationship between practices of internationalism, patterns of racialisation, and the politics of anti-racism and anti-imperialism in the revolutionary Marxist left in Britain between 1899 and 1933. I focus on two organisations, the Social Democratic Federation and the Communist Party of Great Britain, examining how different racialised subaltern populations were represented in their publications and how this affected the anti-imperial advocacy and activism of these political groups. I am interested in how the writings of colonial nationalists, as well as the intervention of transnational activists, helped to shape this political praxis. The thesis begins with a study of how positive racialisations, developed by colonial activists as a discursive means to argue for the inapplicability of the ‘civilising mission’ to their respective societies, were drawn on by SDF activists and figureheads such as HM Hyndman to bolster their increasingly oppositional stance towards the British Empire. Further chapters demonstrate how groups of border-crossing racialised outsiders, be they Russian-born Jews in the SDF or Indian activists in the CPGB, utilised a strategic universalism to overcome their marginalisation within the ranks of the revolutionary Marxist left, and to gain support for their respective communal concerns. During the course of the time period covered within the thesis, the October Revolution, the rise of the Bolsheviks, and the foundation of the Comintern helped to reshape analyses of imperialism as well as practices and theories of internationalism on the British far-left. Particular attention is given to how activists either attempted to utilise or bypass this ‘official internationalism’ to promote their own international anti-imperial networks and discourse, and the efficacy of their efforts. It is my hope that this study will be able to shed light on international influences on the British Marxist left beyond the Continental, provide a greater nuance to histories of Marxism and race in Britain, and demonstrate the variety of models and practices of internationalism available to these activists in the early years of the twentieth century.

Humanitarian interventions tend to be justified by claims to the existence of an obligation upon ‘us' (the benevolent saviours) to intervene militarily when a state is responsible for large-scale atrocity crimes against its own population. However, this justification is paradoxical, given that there is rarely held to exist a commensurate obligation to address structural violence (even when ‘we' may be partly responsible for, or complicit within, structures that are violent). The paradox arises because structural violence can be harmful – even evil – in its own right, and can also lead to – or exacerbate – direct violence. Hence, intervening militarily, and inevitably causing further harm in the act of intervening, results in a moral shortfall. This shortfall is indicative of a prevailing understanding of harm that is blind to the potential for structures to be violent. In responding to the paradox, I adopt a critical cosmopolitan perspective to argue that because structural violence can be harmful on a great scale, and because it is co-constitutive of direct violence, we ought not to countenance intervening with the use of military force (with what this brings in the form of inevitable intended and unintended harm) to stop direct violence without also considering and addressing violent structures, especially if they are violent structures that we are, ourselves, embedded within. Therefore, it is morally imperative to engage in an ongoing process of illumination and addressing of evil structures to rectify the harms they cause, alongside any efforts to stem direct violence, if any sort of intervention is to be legitimate and just. This requires us to a) expand our understanding of harm and evil at the global level, and b) engage in consistent and sustained deliberative processes that bring to the forefront structural violence and structural underpinnings of direct violence.

This thesis examines the ways in which the interwar global order came to be theorised by African writers, and those of African descent, in specific territories bordering the Atlantic. It asks how those views can inform a richer understanding of the construction of our contemporary world. In particular, it seeks to understand the centrality of race to the imperial order and to many of the oppositional projects that emerged in relation to the order. A global order perspective can, it is argued, help to explain the salience of race to the interwar world as well as its enduring power beyond that period. Using as its primary sources the vibrant black print cultures and circuits of the interwar period, the thesis examines the close concomitance of national and transnational thinking during the 'Belle Époque'; the global vision of Marcus Garvey's black nationalism in the United States; the emergence of critical theorisations of colonialism across British-controlled West Africa; the languages of race and whiteness in interwar France, from the black press of Paris to the early texts of Négritude; and the role played by Haiti, Liberia, and Ethiopia - the only independent states of the period governed by Africans or African-descended people - as instantiations of the racialised nature of interwar sovereignty, targets of both imperial designs and anticolonial activism. Interrogating the conceptual boundaries between race, nationalism, and pan-nationalism, the thesis suggests that such affinities are best understood not as abstractly-definable and opposing doctrines, but as political projects that have emerged historically in relation to global order as a whole and out of specifically enabling material conditions. As well as assessing diverse bodies of writing in terms of their contribution to international theory, the thesis explores how changes in material conditions and imperial infrastructures - particularly the spread of newspapers - facilitated a range of counter-readings of dominant discourses, imaginative acts of traversal, and other practices of oppositional power, whose consequences reach far beyond the interwar period.

Over the past few years, web design has undergone significant advancements, resulting in user-friendly and visually appealing websites. However, this rapid growth has forced companies and countries to adapt quickly, leading to diverse design elements that may cause inconsistency and confusion. In particular, Foreign web users struggle to navigate Japanese websites due to dated web design and lack of coherency, leading to a loss of tourism, business, and expatriation. I experienced this firsthand when living abroad in Japan for two years. Many websites were difficult to navigate because of the differences in design and navigation, often leading me to give up on my objective. This research addresses this challenge by analyzing current websites, identifying design patterns, and proposing a navigational tool to enhance user experience. It focuses on developing a navigation tool to help users comfortably explore diverse websites worldwide. Users can easily understand and absorb information by identifying and highlighting similarities in design choices across various sites. This approach aims to foster a connection between users and websites, promoting user retention and enabling sites to thrive in a competitive digital landscape. This paper also discusses localization and internationalization’s impact on user feedback, compares Japanese and American web navigation, and explores different types of navigation design. It underscores the influence of cultural factors on website usability and user experience, emphasizing the need for user-centered design. This research emphasizes the challenges in international web design and navigation, as well as highlights the importance of inclusive design, considering language, symbols, formats, and functionality. Stakeholders, including individuals, institutions, and society, stand to benefit from improved website usability, fostering cross-cultural interactions and transactions. By promoting better practices and inclusivity, the research seeks to enhance website design decisions and create user-friendly experiences for diverse audiences. It uses questionnaires, ethnographic research, and visual research to gather insights into localized website challenges. These methods aim to understand user perspectives, cultural influences, and visual design elements, contributing to comprehensive recommendations.

This thesis examines the role of democracy in British, French and American visions of global order in the 1940s. It argues that 'democracy' in a global context did not reflect 'Wilsonian' or 'Cosmopolitan' dreams, nor did it refer to the questions of state representation and institutional accountability that dominate contemporary debates. Instead, it shows that building a 'democratic' global order in the 1940s meant, above all, an attempt to address the challenge of democratic modernity, summarised by Karl Polanyi in 1944 as the search for 'freedom in a complex society', in the new global environment of the mid-century. This challenge was composed of five core concerns, ranging from the protection of the individual from the modern state and the transformation of democratic participation, to the use of expert planning and modern technology to secure economic justice. Achieving a balance between these competing and at times contradictory imperatives was seen as the key to securing a new democratic order that could resist the temptations of nationalism and totalitarianism and secure peace. Crucially, it was only through the structures of a new global order that, internationalists argued, there could be any chance of success. The task was not an easy one, and the historical investigation shows how the choices and trade-offs internationalists made in relation to these imperatives entailed costs in terms of inclusivity, participation and even rights within visions of democratic global order. The thesis has both historical and conceptual goals. First, it recovers important ideas about global order that have been largely written out of the history of this period by taking the language of democracy in world order debates seriously and understanding these visions in context. Conceptually, its aim is to contest and transform how we think about global order and democracy in the history of international thought and in the present day. Instead of Cosmopolitan, Wilsonian, liberal or other normative blueprints for a democratic world order, the conclusion argues that we should, following the example of the 1940s, reconceptualise the relationship between global order and democracy today in relation to the persistent dilemmas of democratic modernity. In a global context, these continue to have interlocking domestic and international dimensions and, more importantly, continue to require choices that entail normatively contestable costs in the construction of a democratic global order. Only then, it argues, will it be possible to think about how these shortcomings can be mitigated and whether and what kind of democratic order we want to pursue at all.

This thesis investigates the relationship between Fascist Italy and the League of Nations (LoN) during the interwar period, with a particular focus on the years from 1922 to 1935. This relationship was contradictory, shifting from moments of active collaboration to moments of open disagreement. The existing historiography on the Italian membership of the League has not reflected this oscillation in policy, focusing disproportionally on the crises Italy caused at the League. However, Fascist Italy remained in the League for more than 15 years, ranking as the third-largest power, and was fully engaged in the institution's work. This dissertation investigates the dynamics that developed between Fascist Italy and the LoN through a systematic study of the Italians involved. In so doing, it contributes to the historiography of the LoN and of the Italian foreign policy in the interwar period. The thesis argues that there was more to the Italian membership of the LoN than the Ethiopian crisis. It reveals the extent of the Italian presence and activity in the institution from the beginning, and demonstrates that the organization was more important to the Italian government than previously recognized. Membership of the League was essential to guarantee Italy international legitimation and recognition. Through an active appropriation of internationalism, the Italian government hoped to obtain practical benefits in the colonial sphere. The thesis uncovers the depth and variety of interactions between nationalism and internationalism in the case of Italy and the League, establishing that they did not oppose each other but rather interacted. This dissertation illustrates the complexity of being an Italian working in the League, as well as the grey areas between nationalism and internationalism evident within individual experiences. Finally, it shows the continuity of actors and expertise in Italy's international cooperation between the interwar and the post-1945 period.

This critical exploratory study investigates the perceptions and practices of Norwegian lecturers on the implementation of a policy of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) at their Higher Education Institution (HEI). It focuses on their attitudes towards English usage, how they have been prepared and cope in the classroom, and looks at their language and pedagogic competences. The socio-cultural context of using English inside and outside the auditorium is explored and leads to questions of Anglo/American influence and Norwegian domain loss. The study is informed by critical Applied Linguistics (CALx), linguistic imperialism and Bourdieu’s theories on social capital and power. It examines teaching through critical pedagogy and Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory of learning to aid understanding of classroom engagement and communication, and successful learning. This study has been informed by the critical approach to challenge normative assumptions of the use of EMI. Qualitative methods were used to collect data; twenty Norwegian teaching academics were interviewed, of whom five were observed whilst teaching. Careful coding and analysis of the data revealed surprising attitudes and perceptions varying from enthusiasm to anxiety for EMI. The participants generally accepted the top-down decision making by the administration on the increase of EMI and English usage. The influences of globalisation and commodification at HEIs combined with the rapid increase in English usage seem to have led to increased power of the management and bureaucratization. Some participants, mostly from the humanities, felt they lacked voice and agency in the implementation and their preparation for EMI, whilst some from the sciences actively embraced English and some wanted English as the working language in HEIs. There was a general feeling that more time and language resources were needed for professional development to cope with the change to EMI. All the participants worked hard to succeed in EMI; they were aiming at NS language competencies and wanted to be better at grammar, pronunciation and terminology, but seemed unaware of the pragmatic level of communication required for teaching and did not recognise the necessity of pedagogic training for EMI. There was a lack of dialogic teaching making co-constructed learning challenging and transformative pedagogy more difficult to achieve. They adapted to the multi-cultural/lingual classroom in a pragmatic manner, but were not given spaces for counter-pedagogies, critical pedagogy and the ideals of the transformative intellectual. The research reveals five areas of concern: a) inadequate English language at the pragmatic level for the demands of EMI, b) inadequate pedagogic skills for the multi-lingual and cultural classroom, c) concern over local and international students’ level of English, d) standardized, Anglo/American teaching materials leading to a lack of diversity and critical approaches, and e) the threat to academic Norwegian from international academics not learning Norwegian, the publishing reward system at Norwegian HEIs and the perceived status of English, and the resultant decline in dissemination to the general public. However juxtaposed to the above points, most participants experienced the international classroom positively and were well-received by and pleased to be in their academic Community of Practice resulting generally in an ambivalent attitude to EMI.

The collapse of Nazi Germany was accompanied by a humanitarian disaster of staggering proportions. The newly-founded United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and its successor the International Refugee Organization (IRO) identified repairing the damage that the war had inflicted on Allied displaced populations as one of its foremost humanitarian obligations. These UN agencies cast themselves as pre-eminent agents of ‘rehabilitation’, facilitating a fast transition from war to peace through scientific methods of refugee management conducted along Rooseveltian lines. Departing from earlier relief efforts, their ambition was to provide more than a mere ‘soup kitchen’ charity, their aim being to ‘rehabilitate’ Displaced Persons (DPs). Their methods were, however, vigorously contested in the field by military and occupation authorities, by members of established voluntary societies, and by UNRRA/IRO’s own continental recruits. This thesis explores these confrontations through the lens of French DP administration. Although these UN agencies proclaimed a new era of internationalism, solutions to DP problems were often defined in nationalist terms. DPs were organised by ethnicity and strong ties attached relief workers to their own national groups. For French planners and humanitarian workers, the DP question was much more than a humanitarian problem, and was bound up with issues of domestic reconstruction, culture and identity as much as the provision of medical aid and relief. This thesis demonstrates that distinctive diplomatic constraints, economic requirements and cultural differences influenced the thought and practices of refugee humanitarianism, shaping alternate ways of arranging interim provision and ‘rehabilitating’ DPs in the French zone of occupation. Despite the fact that Allied responses to the DP problem mirrored divergent wartime experiences and differing national visions for the post-war future, this thesis argues that the history of UNRRA and the IRO in the French zone cannot be solely understood as a story of inter-Allied confrontation and clashes of political culture. Numerous transfers of expertise and the circulation of ideas and people between the zones belie such a view. New-Deal influenced methods penetrated the French zone and local UNRRA/IRO staff progressively embraced the organizations’ declared mission of ‘self-help’, albeit on terms that reflected their particular interpretation of DPs’ best interests. The real impact of UNRRA and the IRO lies in this grey area of subtle processes of imitation and re-interpretation.

The planned language Esperanto achieved popularity in early twentieth century Japan, inspiring a national movement which was the largest outside Europe. Esperanto was designed to facilitate greater international and inter-cultural communication and understanding; the history of the language in Japan reveals a rich tradition of internationalism in Japan, stretching from the beginnings of the movement, in the wake of the Russo-Japanese war, through the end of the Pacific war, when, for a brief period, organised Esperanto in Japan ceased. Building upon existing studies of internationalism amongst elite opinion makers in Japan, this history of Esperanto reveals unexpected examples of internationalism amongst the broader Japanese public, a number of competing conceptions of the international world, and their realisation through a range of transnational activities. Esperanto was at once an intellectual phenomenon, and a language which could be put into immediate and concrete practice. The diversity of social groups and intellectual positions within the Japanese Esperanto community reveals internationalism and cosmopolitanism, not as well defined, static concepts, but as broad spaces in which different ideas of the world and the community of mankind could be debated. What linked the various different groups and individuals drawn into the Japanese Esperanto movement was a shared desire to make contact with, and help to reform, the world beyond Japan's borders, as well as a shared realisation of the vital role of language in making this contact possible. From radical socialists to conservative academics, and from Japanese diplomats at the League of Nations to members of rural communities in the deep north of Japan, although their politics often differed, Japanese Esperantists came together to participate in the re-imagining of the modern world; in doing so they became part of a transnational community, one which reveals insights into both modern Japanese history, and the nature of internationalism.

This thesis discusses the role of the gold standard in Japan’s shift to militarism in the 1930s. Since its adoption in Japan in 1897, the gold standard and the price stability inherent in it had advantaged Japanese creditors and helped them finance Japan’s empire in Asia. At home, however, the gold standard generated deflation and prevented the Bank of Japan from responding to economic turmoil with interest rate decreases. Japan’s ill-advised return to gold in January 1930—amidst a recession—caused the nationalist and fiscally expansionist Rikken Seiyūkai party to gain the upper hand in public opinion over the liberal internationalist and fiscally conservative Rikken Minseitō party. This economic miscalculation was a major—perhaps the major—reason for the overwhelming loss of the liberal internationalists in the 1932 elections, setting Japan on its path to militarism. The paper begins with an outline of the history of money in Japan prior to 1897, using Japanese-language materials from the Japanese Currency Museum in Tokyo. Next, it provides a theoretical description of the gold standard and its variants and follows the history of the gold standard in Japan from its adoption in 1897 through 1932. It ends with an analysis of the interaction between the economic situation in the late 1920s and early 1930s and the shift to militarism in Japanese politics at that time.

This thesis is an account of women's international work at the League of Nations. While feminists' shift from the national to the international arena has been noted in studies on the inter-war women's movement, most often it has been interpreted as a reflection of the heightened salience of peace work in the aftermath of the First World War. This is an important observation but it overlooks the fact that women's activities at the League embraced the full spectrum of feminist causes: social reform, women's rights and peace. This thesis gives prominence to inter-war feminist activity played against the backdrop of institutional developments at the League which encouraged women to believe their goals could be advanced under its auspices. One of the major goals of the Women's International Organizations was to establish a political role for women in international affairs. The first chapter describes the efforts of women's organizations to secure the representation of women in the League of Nations. Many recently enfranchised women in Europe and North America identified the League as an institution toward which they should direct their newly won political influence. This is assessed in the context of ideas that emerged in the aftermath of the First World War about the transformation of the international sphere through the infusion of female values. The second, third and fourth chapters present a profile of the women's networks operating in and around the League. The study reveals a high level of interaction between the Women's International Organizations and women in official positions at the League. Chapter 2 examines the aims of the Women's International Organizations and exposes tensions between social feminist and equal rights feminist organizations that led to a struggle for influence at the League. The third and fourth chapters assess the impact of gender-stereotyping on patterns of appointments to the League. However much appointments to Assembly delegations and League advisory committees should have carried with them national allegiances, women delegates were often seen to represent women and this both positively and negatively affected women's participation. The remaining chapters assess women's impact on the development of League activities with particular attention to the implications of the idea that women as women had a special contribution to make at the international level. Chapter 5 explores the extent to which the assertion of difference enhanced women's influence with regard to the League's social and humanitarian work in the 1920s and enabled them to have several gender-specific concerns placed on the agenda. The Depression and the rise of reactionary ideologies influenced feminists to call for more decisive League action on the status of women in the 1930s. Most member states of the League, however, did not view the status of women as a subject for international consideration. Chapter 6 looks at the conflict between social and equal rights feminists over what League initiatives would prove most effective for advancing the status of women and traces developments that ultimately led to the League sponsored Inquiry on the Legal Status of Women in 1937. The seventh chapter assesses the impact of traditional associations between women and peace on women's peace activities at the League. Cultural representations of women as peace-loving had political relevance in the context of League activities and the League attempted to bolster support in the 1930s by intensifying collaboration with women. Significantly, the Women's International Organizations responded by asserting that only with equality would women's influence for peace be fully available. The interplay between equality and difference permeated women's international work at every level and the conclusion evaluates the way in which this tension influenced women's participation in and contribution to the activities of the League of Nations.

This thesis analyzes the international eugenics movement and retains a particular focus on Harry Hamilton Laughlin, the prominent American eugenicist and superintendent of the Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Office (ERO) and his world government proposal. Despite previous historiographical trends which privilege nationalistic or mere comparative models of eugenics, this thesis follows a truly transnational model (reflecting the work of Daniel Rodgers on Progressivism), in order to demonstrate that both eugenic knowledge and legislation was shared internationally across both sides of the Atlantic. Moreover, this thesis argues that Harry Laughlin's world government proposal, in which he sought to apply international eugenics to world government, was not only a logical extension of his eugenic goals, but also his attempt to repair his perceived issues with the League of Nations. Overall, this thesis seeks to shed light on the international nature of the eugenics movement not only in the historical record, but in order to better combat eugenics' legacy through an international anti-eugenics movement.

Abstract: This dissertation offers a reconstruction of the concept of domestic colonialism as developed by revolutionary thinkers in the US 1960s. While rhetorics of occupation and colonial extraction are still prevalent in North American politics, the actual conceptual framework of domestic colonialism is routinely dismissed in the human sciences. I argue that this dismissal largely relies on two readings of the concept that, ultimately, are one-sided: as a social scientific theory of racism, on the one hand, and as a rhetorical strategy, on the other. I argue that ultimately it needs to be considered a concept aimed at dialectical critique, a form of political knowledge aimed at clarifying the stakes and impediments to emancipatory struggles for self-determination in North America. More specifically, it was a rubric of political judgment that pushed against domesticating readings of revolt as containable and answerable within the scope of `domestic' politics. It was a dialectical concept in that it worked at the edges of available languages of politics, stretching them to make sense of novel historical predicaments. In turn theorists of domestic colonialism read revolt as exposing the presence of the international `within' the domestic, the impossibility of enclosing `domestic' politics as such in North American political orders structured by racial subjugation and colonialism. I argue that theorists of domestic colonialism offered a signal contribution to the critique of domestic politics as such, re-reading it as in fact a violent but incomplete process of domestication. The domestic colonialism concept, considered as an intervention in the interpretation of insurgency in the 1960s, enacted a de-domestication of political analysis premised on an immanent contradiction between the assumption of `domestic' politics and the necessarily `international' and imperial forms of power required to maintain it. Therefore examining this concept in context offers an important contribution to critical international political thought through a sustained critique of the conceptual distinction that typically undergird the division of disciplines within political science: that between domestic and international politics.

This dissertation charts an intellectual genealogy of internationalist visions of the reorganization of the imperial Russian space that were frustrated and foreclosed by the emergence of the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1922, surviving and continuing to develop in exile communities around the world as well as at the margins of the ethnofederal system assembled by the Bolsheviks. One thread of the dissertation follows the ethnically and ideologically sundry cast of internationally minded national activists from the late imperial Russian borderlands who collaboratively attempted to create a reformed, decentralized multinational state incorporating structures of autonomy and federation following the February Revolution of 1917, turning to secession and fleeing into exile during the civil war years. The dissertation argues that these borderland activists became disillusioned with the failure of their ambitious reformist visions to cohere yet did not abandon their internationalist pursuits, which endured in emigration through the Eurasian network of the Promethean movement, an anti-Soviet organization assembled and sponsored by the Polish military intelligence staff between the mid-1920s and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The dissertation demonstrates that the failure of constitutional, decentralized alternatives to the Soviet Union to emerge from the generalized imperial crisis of 1917 furnished the impetus for a previously unthinkable alliance between the Promethean exiles, who had favored Russia’s renovation up through the October Revolution, and their Polish patrons, who had advocated the dismemberment of the Romanov realm along national lines since the 1890s. Within the Promethean movement, the exiles, based primarily in Paris, strove to devise frameworks for a future post-Soviet order among borderland nation-states, emphasizing the compatibility of their projects, which included federations and confederations, with the liberal internationalism of the League of Nations. Prometheism’s leading Poles, meanwhile, viewed the movement primarily as a means by which to gather friendly elites from the borderlands in the event of a Soviet collapse, which they, from their flagship institutions in Warsaw, sought to accelerate by weaponizing nationalism against the Bolsheviks. The second major thread of this dissertation covers prominent Tatar and Ukrainian national communists from the borderlands who challenged the limits of national autonomy within the Soviet Union during the 1920s. These challenges, the dissertation argues, arose not merely in response to the constraints of the federal system formalized in 1922 but, more profoundly, stemmed from the deeper disillusionment of these national communists with the failure of their expectations of a decentralized, global community of socialist nations to materialize following the October Revolution and the subsequent unrest that shook Eurasia. These dissenting national communists, moreover, creatively appropriated the Leninist principle of the “right of nations to self-determination, up to and including secession,” imagining an order among liberated nations that would individually enjoy far greater independence in their economic, political, and military affairs than what Lenin had intended and the Soviet Union ultimately allowed. The dissertation contends in a broader and more comparative sense that the cases of the Prometheans and the national communists, two cohorts of internationally minded national activists from the borderlands, demonstrate the intellectually generative function of periods of imperial crisis and failures of imperial reform in providing the momentum for searches for alternative internationalisms in different places, within different institutional structures, and with different partners. The dissertation thus illustrates that the collapse of ambitions hopes for the radical reorganization of empire, in the Russian and Soviet situations, did not lead to an insular embrace of the nation-state but instead reinvigorated, and reconfigured, the transnational pursuit of alternatives to the allegedly neo-imperial Bolshevik model of ethnic federalism in which nationalism and internationalism were imagined as mutually constitutive.

Our world continues to change rapidly because of globalization and internationalism thus has become more multicultural and diverse that strong and effective leadership was needed in the workforce. The real estate industry has changed as well and continues to change because of multiculturalism. The effects of COVID-19 placed burdensome restrictions and regulations both from the state and city levels that firms must follow in order to function internally and externally to market properties. The effects of COVID-19 will forever change the way business is done as usual, where the general business practice must include a constant of new critical change initiatives to dissolve the status quo. The underpinnings of this qualitative flexible single case study addressed one pertinent specific problem: the failure of leaders within the real estate industry in the northeastern United States to engage employee support regarding new critical change initiatives resulting in poor organizational performance.

Beginning with David Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles, Together With a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, and Henry Highland Garnet’s 1843 call for a general strike to end slavery, this dissertation traces a genealogy of early Black socialist thought beginning with the abolitionist movement through the ideas and efforts of Peter H. Clark and George Washington Woodbey, two of the most significant Black Socialists prior to World War I. While Clark was the first Black Socialist in terms of being the first to openly identify as a member of a Socialist party in the United States, this study argues Woodbey engaged in the first sustained effort, as a Black Baptist preacher, orator, and organizer for the Socialist Party of America, to make socialism relevant to the Black working class and extended a distinct tradition of Black radicalism within Black political thought.

This dissertation is a Chicana feminist analysis of the work and visual tactics of contemporary Chicana/o digital artivists—artist/activist, according to the work of Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre—in California from 2000 until circa 2016. Given the growing body of artivist work being produced today and its distribution via digital means, my research theorizes the Chicana Radical Digital Aesthetic (CRDA) as a praxis and theoretical lens to analyze how new digital artivists are changing contemporary social justice efforts. I focus on six artivists: Elizabeth Blancas, Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes, Jessica Sabogal, Julio Salgado, and Favianna Rodriguez. I center their work and knowledge as key actors in a current Chicanx twenty-first-century digital arts movement exploring the digital realm as a space of production, distribution, and reception of a new generation of Chicanx artivism spanning national and transnational social justice movements. I continue the growing scholarship on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color-made graphic arts that connects the rich tradition of graphic art from the 1960s–1970s civil rights era to contemporary digital art practice. Drawing on my experiences as both an artivist and an active participant in contemporary Chicanx art communities, my methodology combines oral history interviews, visual analysis, and collaborative artmaking. I theorize the Chicana Radical Digital Aesthetic (CRDA) in order to trace the political poster from the printed material object to digital graphic artivist tool. In Chapter Two, I focus on the practice of self-portraits, and portraiture more broadly, through analysis of Julio Salgado and Jessica Sabogal’s work. Chapter Three links the internationalist roots of Chicanx art between 1965 and 1995, as well as the contributions of Chicana feminist printmakers from the post-Vietnam period to contemporary internationalist themes in digital work. Chapter Four examines how Melanie Cervantes and Favianna Rodriguez employ a strategy of embodiment on multiple scales—their own physical bodies as well as their larger environment and the “digital” spaces they inhabit. Chapter Five details what I term “Networks of Care” among Chicanx/Latinx artivists online and the myriad resources they share in a digital community. I conclude by discussing the ways Latinx/Chicanx artivists have engaged with the growing concerns of a racially biased algorithm and new directions that result from this work.

This dissertation argues that the just transition policy framework may not vivify labor internationalism or erode support for right-wing populists if just transitions are not part of left-wing populist projects. Labor internationalism, which involves labor unions cooperating across borders to pursue common goals, is increasingly important as unions strive to work with their foreign counterparts to influence the international community's urgent efforts to address climate change. Right-wing populism is a growing threat to organized labor and climate protection efforts. Some labor activists hope that advocacy for the just transition policy framework, a set of guidelines for compensating workers in polluting industries who are laid-off as a result of environmental protections, will unite labor organizations from around the world and improve their approaches to international solidarity. Progressives hope that just transition policies will discourage voters from supporting right-wing populist candidates, who are often climate skeptics, out of fear of the job losses that accompany environmentalist reforms. However, I question the assumption that just transition policies, in and of themselves, can serve as solutions to the challenges posed by right-wing populism or overcome divisions within the global labor movement. It is possible for economic nationalism at the expense of global solidarity to continue and for right-wing populists to maintain support in decarbonizing areas where policy makers have indemnified laid-off fossil fuel workers. Integrating just transition policies into left-wing populist politics could potentially make just transitions more useful for countering the far-right and promoting labor internationalism. This dissertation looks to the political theorist Antonio Gramsci's thoughts regarding the "national popular," which Gramsci's readers often associate with left-wing populism. The national popular entails intellectuals from different fields (such as the academy, journalism, and manufacturing) coming together to modernize patriotism and strip it of chauvinistic nationalism. I point out that the original proposals for just transitions prioritized providing free higher education for the workers laid-off from polluting industries. The just transition framework's stress on higher education has populistic implications. Educators, particularly members of teachers' unions, may practice populism throughout the implementation of a just transition for laid-off coal workers by encouraging the displaced workers to cooperate with knowledge workers to rethink nationalism. If workers displaced from polluting industries rethink nationalism in university settings while maintaining their connections to the labor movement, then these workers may in turn reject far-right politicians and discourage organized labor from supporting trade nationalism.

Sentimental Sailors recovers a largely neglected genealogy of sentimental fiction that promotes non-national forms of personal and collective identity in the early U.S. The “sentimental sailor”— a term that I take from Thomas Mercer’s 1772 poem of the same name — is an antebellum ocean character who works to preserve Christian morals by saving those in physical peril, including individuals who are often considered marginalized or foreign. Appearing in texts across a broad range of genres, this figure develops a humanist, religious identity shaped by ocean adventures. Through acts of rescue, the sentimental sailor encourages citizens on the landed frontier to avoid fixed identities, and to instead develop a mobile fluid mind that could see beyond nationalism and the cultural prejudices of their own communities.While the sentimental sailor is unique to the antebellum era, this figure has gone virtually unnoticed by literary scholars. This oversight, I argue, results from the continued focus of much nineteenth-century American literary scholarship on the relation between literature and conceptions of U.S. national or imperial identity. In particular, scholars have shown that sentimental fiction promotes the idea that a productive and healthy home life will lead to a strong community and nation. For example, Amy Kaplan argues that domestic ideologies unite men and women under a central idea of nationalism, allowing them to stand against outsiders that they considered a threat to the country. Relatedly, Margaret Cohen notes that sea narratives emphasize the ideal of imperialism by showing how labor at sea contributes to the nation’s pursuit of a global saltwater empire. However, the figure of the sentimental sailor does not fit into the imperialist agendas and cultural modes of most domestic and ocean fiction, but rather uses the experience-based education of the sea to advocate a form of cultural internationalism that requires scholars to reconsider the history of nationalism during the antebellum period. Using a range of texts—from canonical works of fiction such as Hope Leslie (1827) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), to popular pirate tales such as Fanny Campbell, The Female Pirate Captain (1844)—my project shows how writers used the figure of the sentimental sailor to promote human rights, particularly for women, enslaved persons, and mariners themselves.

Nationalism prevails both inside and outside of what is known to be the geographic boundaries of the nation, as seen by immigrants in the United States, for instance, who recreate sociocultural environments that remind them of home. This study focuses on one such case: Cuban nationalism. How is it that nationalism is found among Cubans born and raised in the island and those born and raised outside? What is at the core of this nationalism that connects persons of different national upbringings? It has something to do with a love for the people, but such a hypothesis needed further explanation. Thus, I collected surveys from 46 Cuban Americans and 48 Cubans in the island who answered basic national history and cultural questions, and engaged in thought experiments. Each respondent was assigned a nationalist score (1 to 4) based on their responses, and the mean score values of both samples were calculated. The responses confirmed that Cuban nationalism is indeed an admiration not only for the people, but more for their sociocultural way of being. Moreover, nationalism is thought to be influenced by domestic factors, but it is equally impacted by international ones. Cuba’s involvement in Angola from 1975 to 1989, where more than 500,000 Cubans served, demonstrates this. As it impacted so many Cubans, it is important to ask: to what extent did this foreign affair affect national identities? To address this question, I interviewed 27 internationalists and examined how this event informed national identities among those involved. Overall, the following study provides an in-depth account of Cuban nationalism as a case study to better understand nationalism as a concept.

This dissertation examines contemporary transnational organization and strategy among dockworkers unions through a global organizational ethnography of the International Dockworkers Council (IDC), an independent global union organization. The research draws on 80 in-depth interviews and participant observation at a dozen international meetings of union activists, while the analysis relies on nested comparisons. In Part I, Chapter 2 examines the IDC’s regional-level organization in Europe, while chapter 3 examines three European country case studies (Portugal, Greece and England). In Part II, Chapter 4 examines the IDC’s regional-level organization in Latin America, while chapter 5 examines two Latin American country case studies (Chile and Colombia). Olin Wright (2000) and Silver’s (2003) theory of worker power would suggest that dockworkers in general have a high degree of ‘structural power’ – the power accruing to workers as a result of their position in the economic system -- because of their central role in the global circulation of commodities and capital. Nevertheless, I find that dockworkers’ ‘structural power’ is heavily conditioned by the state, suggesting that frameworks that partition the economic basis of worker power off from its political and social basis may be insufficient. Instead, comparative research at the national and regional levels demonstrates that dockworkers’ structural power varies considerably in different parts of the world as a result of differing political and social conditions, with significant consequences for sectoral labor internationalism. Within Europe, dockworkers’ power at the point of production is supported by strong industrial relations frameworks protecting the right to organize and take industrial action free from the threat of state-sanctioned or state-sponsored violence. Consequently, dockworkers have developed a strong regional-level network that provides effective mutual aid during disputes through industrial solidarity at the point of production. In contrast, within Latin America, dockworkers’ structural power in many countries, particularly outside of the Southern Cone, is effectively quite weak, despite their central position in the economic system, as a result of unfavorable industrial relations frameworks and pervasive violence at the national level. As a result, dockworkers have struggled to develop a cohesive regional-level network capable of delivering solidarity actions that are effective in the wide variety of national contexts for trade unionism found within the region. These national and regional-level observations are used to examine the challenges workers face in developing strong, cohesive and effective organizations that are truly global.

In 1949, artist Mathias Goeritz (1915-1990) relocated to México from Germany, by way of Spain, with new aesthetic ideas, intellectual capital, and an extraordinary outgoing personality. Four years later Goeritz inaugurated his Museo Experimental: El eco, a space which presented “…an art form unknown in México: a modern architecture that motivates feelings or emotions.” Goeritz created a hybrid work, an architecture/sculptural space, as a counterpoint to the pragmatism of functionalist architecture, prevailing at the time. The inauguration in México City of the Museo Experimental: El Eco, in 1953, revived old controversies between doctrinaire and liberal artists. A block of party-line artists, led by David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974), attacked the German émigré artist Mathias Goeritz as a hedonist and called El eco a sinful place. Siqueiros was the most active spokesperson against art that was outside the parameters of the Mexican school of painting, known as Muralism. Why was Mathias Goeritz’s practice so criticized and opposed by the Mexican art establishment? Was it Abstract art that muralists deemed a superficial practice against the national problems? Was it his spiritual and emotional claims about art and architecture? Was it his role as a visual arts teacher? In this dissertation, I seek to answer these questions through an analysis of spirituality in his art and architectural practice, as well as his writings. I also argue that it is through the monumentality of Goeritz’s sculptural work that his abstract aesthetic confronts, front and center, the artistic Social Realism dialogue of the era. This study concentrates on the period from Goeritz arrival in Mexico in 1949 and concludes in 1968, coinciding with the Mexico City Summer Olympic games. For this dissertation, spirituality is the exploratory thread. Goeritz’s aesthetic principle is based on the conviction that art, beyond what it represents, fulfills a spiritual function. Goeritz’s writing about the importance of believing in a higher calling through art creation is unique because it articulates what’s behind his art practice. An approximation of what spirituality meant to Goeritz is done by reading and reflecting on his artistic creations, writings in magazines, and manifestos.

This dissertation analyzes the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), a postwar humanitarian organization. UNRRA represented a new internationalist spirit in humanitarian cooperation, but its demise after only three years of operation reflects the emerging divisions between the Western democracies and the Soviet Union. UNRRA leadership and personnel faced daunting challenges in confronting the refugee crisis and rebuilding devastated nations. Because UNRRA was an innovation in international humanitarian cooperation, no precedent existed for those on the ground. Relief became politicized, as UNRRA staff sought to remain neutral in an increasingly bipolar context. In Greece and Italy, UNRRA implemented vital public health programs that eased the suffering of the populations in those nations. In Poland and Yugoslavia, UNRRA was caught between its neutral mission to provide relief to anyone in need, and the increasing pressure from the United States not to feed Communists. In Germany, leadership undermined the mission to provide help for displaced persons. In Ukraine and Byelorussia, American leadership overcame significant negative public opinion to deliver relief. Ultimately, UNRRA and the internationalism that created it fell victim to the breakdown of the postwar alliance.

Mario Lavista (b.1943) is widely acknowledged as one of Mexico's foremost living composers. Having acquired his music education in his native Mexico and in Europe alike, he is similar to numerous other Latin composers who were building a career in the latter half of the twentieth century. During this time, composers were relying on international aspects of avant-garde techniques, and using nationalistic Latin rhythms and melodies less. Lavista embraced internationalism, and aimed to compose works devoid of identifiable elements of nationalism. This document argues that the absence of nationalistic elements in Lavista's music has affected his notoriety outside of Mexico. The role of nationalism is assessed through a brief examination of influential Mexican composers and educators prior to 1950, followed by a discussion of education and composition in the latter half of the twentieth century. These aspects are investigated with regard to Lavista's education and resulting compositional style. A theoretical analysis of Cinco Danzas Breves para quinteto de alientos (1994) serves as a representative example of Lavista's compositional style and influence. This document aims to highlight and increase exposure of Mexican composers outside of Latin America who do not compose nationalistic music.

The focus of this case study was a study abroad program for student-athletes at a high academically achieving, small liberal arts college in the mid-west region of the United States. The program is designed to maintain a culture of internationalism and multiculturalism by exposing as many student-athletes as possible to study abroad. I reviewed literature to extract an appropriate theoretical framework along with variables that aligned with the purpose of the study; structural and organizational characteristics of the institution, student's background and pre-college traits, interaction with agents of socialization and institutional environment, and quality of effort. I used the semi-structured interview process to interview 9 senior student-athletes (3 female, 6 male; 7 White, 1 African American/White, 1 Chilean/White) who participated in study abroad during the 2015-2016 academic school year at the researched institution and to interview 5 administrators who facilitate the athletic department at the institution. I found that certain critical elements emerged as necessary to create and maintain a study abroad program geared specifically to the needs of the student-athlete population. I also found strong implications for adaptable elements that could generate opportunities for student-athletes to study abroad at a higher rate. These elements serve as a recommended framework and set of initial guidelines for student-athletes and athletic departments nationwide.

Based on a neglected archive of Polish cultural encounters with the Third World, this comparative study examines the ways formal techniques of narrative non-fiction developed in conjunction with political upheaval in the socialist and decolonizing worlds in the second-half of the twentieth century. By putting the work of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński in conversation with that of an international milieu of anti-colonial writers and filmmakers of the period, I develop a new genealogy of the reportage genre to show how it was mobilized to create a political culture of “friendship” between the Second and Third Worlds, in accordance with the Soviet Union’s foreign policy. But it is not simply that this body of work reflects Soviet Cold War strategy that interests me. The heavy-handed influence of the Soviet Union restricted the satellite states’ right to national self-determination in a manner that seemed to be in contradiction with the Socialist Bloc’s official support for anti-imperialism in the Third World. This contradiction found form, I argue, in works of anti-colonial reportage that, through the use of intertextuality, intermediality, allegory, and allusion express a content in excess of what they report. They express, I contend, the desire, held by many Third World and satellite state subjects alike, to develop democratic alternatives to the political systems of both the West and the Soviet Union.

In this thesis I explore the global circulation and cross-cultural encounters of women advocacy travelers in the early twentieth century. I focus on Carrie Chapman Catt, Margaret Hodge, Mildred McFaden, and Madeleine Z. Doty, who journeyed around the world in order to advocate for women’s rights and peace. Catt traveled on behalf of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) to South Africa, the Middle East, and Asia in 1911-12, Hodge promoted women’s suffrage around the British dominions, and McFaden and other members of the American Woman’s Republic brought a resolution linking peace and women’s suffrage to the IWSA congress in Budapest in 1913. Doty made several journeys from the U.S. to Germany and Russia, as a dissident antiwar journalist during the First World War. Using their travel writings, I explore these women travelers, their encounters with women from other countries and cultures, and their ideas about internationalism and inclusion in the worldwide movement for women’s rights.

This thesis aims to analyze the methods utilized by the leadership of the People’s Republic of China to foster relations with and spread Maoist ideology to Third World nations, which lasted throughout the Mao Era, from 1949-1976. While nations of Latin America and Asia were part of this initiative, of particular interest to this study is the development of relations between the PRC and various nations within the African continent. A number of studies on this subject, within the broader context of Chinese foreign relations, have attempted to ascribe meaning to these internationalist pursuits in a variety of ways. One of the defining questions which differentiates these studies hinges on to what degree the impact and importance of ideology, as opposed to more pragmatic and strategic goals, played in the adoption of these internationalist policies. However, this binary conceptualization of Chinese foreign policy not only ignores a significant number of influential factors, but is also at its core unanswerable. Whether Mao or other leaders undertook efforts to spread influence abroad cannot be determined simply as a pragmatic or ideologically motivated policy, for ideology shapes one’s notion of what is practical. While many historians have attempted to solidify their own personal arguments on the subject, the complexities of the time period, and porosity between the concepts of ideology and practicality has hampered any attempts to definitively answer this question. Breaking from these trends, this thesis intends to analyze not why, but how PRC leadership took on the enormous task of promoting relations with African nations to both the Chinese people and to the various peoples of Africa. Newspaper articles from People’s Daily, propaganda posters, official speeches and diplomatic communications, amongst other sources and studies have been utilized to analyze the strategy behind this initiative. To promote Sino-African relations to their own people, the PRC relied upon using familiar elements of nationalism to promote the unfamiliar concept Maoist internationalism. Yet at the same time, key tenets of China-centered internationalism also called back upon China’s long history as a regional superpower. Within Africa, China’s understanding of many African nations positions as newly liberated states helped them formulate programs for aid with no strings attached and assurances of diplomatic friendship, which still propel Sino-African relations today. African leaders, who picked and chose elements of Maoism to adjunct with their own native ideologies and goals, accepted these ties to create a relationship defined by mutualism. While an essential aspect of the original Maoist interpretation of ‘internationalism’ required violent world revolution led by the Chinese nation, historical developments and pressing foreign policy matters reshaped this Chinese-led internationalism into a sustained policy of non-intervention and peaceful coexistence based upon the tenets of defensive anti-imperialism rather than aggressive revolution. While the revolutionary ideologies of African liberation movements and that of Maoist Internationalism shared many similarities, it was this adherence to the simple respect for national sovereignty that has sustained Sino-African relations for the past half-century.

This project investigates historical relationships between Black Radicalism and Marxist internationalism from the mid-nineteenth through the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that contrary to scholarly accounts that emphasize Marxist Euro-centrism, or that theorize the incompatibility of “Black” and “Western” radical projects, Black Radicals helped shape and produce Marxist theory and political movements, developing theoretical and organizational innovations that drew on both Black Radical and Marxist traditions of internationalism. These innovations were produced through experiences of struggle within international political movements ranging from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century to the early Pan-African movements and struggles against racism and colonialism in the early twentieth century. Taking into account recent contributions to the historiography of Black Radicalism and international Marxism in the twentieth century, this thesis fills an important gap by examining how the “Black International” influenced Karl Marx himself during the American Civil War. It also addresses the contentious and problematic relationships between Black socialists and white Marxists in the American Socialist Party, within the context of emerging Pan African movements and the broader debates surrounding Marxism in the lead up to World War I. Additionally, this thesis reexamines the relationships between Marxism and Black radicals following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, incorporating into its discussion the largely neglected theoretical and organizational activities of the Marxist left that gravitated around Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition following 1928, rather than focusing strictly on figures who remained organizationally and theoretically tied to the Communist International during the 1930s and 1940s. Advisor: Jeannette Eileen Jones

This dissertation seeks to contribute to the history of internationalism through an examination of the early nineteenth century French peace movement. It argues that the French movement contributed to the international peace movement both in theory and practice, by drawing on the intellectual heritage of the Enlightenment to make peace the subject of organized activism. The early nineteenth century international peace movement is seen as the work of Dissenting sects in Britain and America, with the assistance of Free Traders like Richard Cobden. The French peace advocates' ideological roots, in contrast, can be found in the Enlightenment - in the peace thinking of the philosophes, but also in debates on economy, culture, religion, politics, etc. They drew upon the work of particular authors like Jean-Baptiste Say, Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant, but above all continued general Enlightenment notions like historical progress and human perfectability. This intellectual heritage helped French peace advocates to imagine a distinct model of international cooperation, one in which political, cultural and economic borders remained in flux. It also gave them the tools to denounce colonialism - all while attempting to maintain forms of soft power for French `civilization'.French peace advocates were more restricted than American and British pacifists in their forms of activism, but they also published a wide range of materials on peace, developed arguments for peace within associations, and participated in and promoted the international congresses. Through these practices, French peace advocates contributed to the development of civil society, nationally and internationally. A study of their movement shows how and why this transition from philosophy to organized action became possible.Often dismissed as utopian, the history of the early peace movement can help us to better understand the development of French, European and international history. Like many groups in the early nineteenth century, French peace advocates were deeply optimistic about their program and their potential agency. However, this seemingly utopian program continues to have considerable resonance today, in contemporary international institutions as well as in ongoing debates about democracy and political change.

The dissertation places the British Commonwealth of Nations in the context of international organizations in the 1920s and 1930s. British officials and policymakers developed a Commonwealth ideology that recast the Commonwealth as an international organization with close, informal relations. I argue that this ideology remained at the heart of British approaches to foreign relations. British writers and politicians used Commonwealth ideology as a model for international organizations such as the League of Nations. The dissertation also examines the development of the Commonwealth as an international organization. It shows how the Commonwealth became an organization of sovereign nations, but rarely lived up to the close cooperation described by the ideology. The Commonwealth became controversial as British and Dominion governments differed about its nature. The British government argued that the main link was the Crown, while some Dominion governments viewed it as an international organization held together by economic links and the will to cooperate. The dissertation differs from previous historical accounts by putting the Commonwealth in the context of internationalism. Many scholars have studied the interwar Commonwealth in terms of decolonization. They have measured the amount of independence the Dominions gained from Britain. Scholars of international organizations and globalization have tended to ignore the Commonwealth as an influential international organization. I argue that Commonwealth ideology served as an important British contribution to the development of internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s.

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of eight high school principals regarding world-mindedness. Classrooms filled with students of various heritages present a three-fold challenge to principals: a) to welcome and educate students of all heritages; b) to teach students to respect and accept people who are different from themselves; and c) to graduate students prepared to live and work in a global economy. The study involved interviewing principals from eight high schools in central and northern Virginia: a) three public high schools with relatively high percentages of LEP students; b) three public schools with much lower percentages of LEP students; and c) two private international schools. The interview questions probed not only how the principals felt about world-mindedness but also about their roles in building world-minded schools and how they would recognize world-mindedness. The findings were as follows: a) all participants agreed on the importance of world-mindedness in education; b) world-minded practices were absent from some schools; c) offering the International Baccalaureate Program did not necessarily make a school highly world-minded; d) participants did not need extensive experiences outside the United States to be highly world-minded; e) demands from outside forces encouraged participants to be world-minded; f) community demographics affected participants' perceptions of schools' levels of world-mindedness; g) participants in schools with diverse student bodies seemed to be more world-minded; h) highly world-minded participants used conversations to raise and maintain world-mindedness; i) highly world-minded participants used websites to promote world-mindedness; j) highly world-minded schools possessed tangible and intangible elements of world-mindedness; and k) some participants confused world-mindedness with anti-racism. Implications were that principals should a) seek professional development opportunities; b) include world-mindedness in communications; c) start with tangible elements to build intangible elements of world-mindedness; and d) have frequent conversations about world-mindedness with stakeholders. The recommendations for further research included a) creating world-mindedness continuums; b) building world-mindedness in homogeneous student bodies; c) using international schools as world-mindedness models; and d) distinguishing world-mindedness from anti-racism efforts. In conclusion, the growing diversity in U.S. classrooms presents principals with a mandate to work toward high levels of world-mindedness and, thus, become diversity change agents.

In this historical study, I examine the ballet pedagogy in New York City from the opening of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in 1909 to the founding of George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in 1934. Challenging the widely propagated view that Balanchine is the sole founder of American ballet, I argue that the first generation of American ballet dancers emerged during the research period under the tutelage of numerous Italian and Russian immigrant ballet teachers. I illuminate the individual histories and contributions of these noteworthy yet largely overlooked instructors, whose contributions set the development of American ballet in motion. In addition, I tease apart the context for ballet during this period. I look at the impact of capitalism, commercialism, democracy, and immigration on ballet teachers, their students, and their approaches, and I survey the effects of vaudeville and revue, the burgeoning film industry, and Progressive Era movement trends like aesthetic barefoot dance and the Delsarte System of Expression on ballet, its people, and its pedagogy. Broad theories of nationalism, internationalism, and Americanism undergird my study of this rich and underexamined period in ballet history.

What drew southern college students into the struggle for civil rights? To help answer that question, this project examines student challenges to existing social practices in the South, and traces changes in their attitudes toward race and social justice from World War II through the early 1960s. Over that time, thousands of college students committed themselves to the idea that “keeping the peace” was intertwined with individual human rights at home and abroad. An internationalist outlook shaped interest in race relations, citizenship, and gender roles. Southern youth were central to this development, pushing for social change at home in accordance with their concerns about national security and world peace. This history traces networks of southern college students, focusing on the cities of Austin, TX and Chapel Hill, NC, both of which produced vibrant progressive student organizations and national student leaders during the early postwar period. It uncovers an important yet understudied tributary of the larger Civil Rights Movement, and helps contextualize the interracial, “Beloved Community” activism of the early 1960s. As black students linked internationalism with civil rights as part of the “Double V Campaign” following World War II, many white students also began advocating for domestic desegregation, inspired by their experiences of traveling abroad and interactions with visiting international students. Integrated conferences sponsored by University YMCA/YWCAs and the National Student Association created a progressive, interracial student network. Through these organizations, many postwar students began redefining their own societal roles, and to explore their potential as political actors. Interracial encounters empowered southern students to envision new social relations between blacks and whites, women and men, and American and international citizens. Under the banner of “human relations,” they began to break down personal barriers and to consciously relate to one another on the basis of shared humanity. This dissertation is the first historical work to closely examine organized efforts to change individual attitudes toward race among both white and black southern students during the 1940s and 1950s. It recaptures the early postwar dynamism of southern campuses, where students took action, in both their schools and their hometowns, to better their world.

The League of Nations Health Organisation, a technical body created in 1920 to address international health issues, was an unlikely setting for a revolutionary experiment in international relations. Yet the leaders of the organization created an international epidemic control system that not only brought together collaborators across enemy lines, but also garnered political support for a vision of international public health that posited that the well-being of the world’s citizens deserved at least as much attention as the state’s security or economic interests. The leadership of the Health Organisation leveraged the success of the older international epidemic control system, which they expanded with new technologies and information gathering practices, to attempt to manage endemic and non-infectious diseases at a distance. The experts at the organization went beyond older bacteriological models to posit a social-environmental understanding of health that maintained that social and physical surroundings were more determinative of health and illness than race or heredity alone. Although bacteriological understandings of health dictated certain international epidemic control techniques – most notably quarantine and disinfection – the increasing emphasis on environmental understandings illustrates the dramatic changes underway in international public health work between the world wars.The previous system, overseen by the Office International d’Hygiène Publique, relied on epidemic notifications sent over diplomatic channels. International public health came into its own at the League, granted its own section and charged to medical professionals rather than diplomats. Although few would argue that health cooperation had no political consequences, governments were more willing to cooperate on “technical matters” and the staff of the League of Nations Health Organisation were happy to feed into this perception and used it to justify their activities. During World War II this pretense became impossible to uphold. Nations withdrew from the League and its technical bodies, epidemic intelligence was declared as a military secret, and the Office International d’Hygiène Publique was burdened with a Nazi observer. Frustrated by this interference, international public health workers advocated for the separation of their work from the politics, leading in part to the separation of the World Health Organization from the United Nations, and greatly changing the course of post-war international health work. Decolonization and the epidemiological transition sharpened the divide between the West and non-West.Through an examination of the various strategies employed by the League of Nations Health Organisation – direct attack against epidemics in afflicted states, sanitary conventions, epidemic notifications, statistics, investigative commissions, and the advocacy of social reform – my dissertation charts the negotiation of the new definitions of health and the creation of a sanitary system that was founded on the internationalist and progressive optimism of the interwar period.

This dissertation places Cuban internationalism, specifically its military mission in Angola, as an entry point to explore Cuban culture, the larger context of transnational memories, historicity, and racial politics. Taking a phenomenological approach, this study uses the memories of those involved in the intervention as a departure point to examine the meanings people ascribe to their sense of national identity and historical placement. This extraordinary exchange between two emerging nation-states created a transnational space where national identity was contested, reevaluated, and transformed. The personal memories of the Cuban veterans are inextricably tied to the social and historical disjunctures in contemporary Cuban society, including colonialism, apartheid, the end of the Cold War, the ongoing economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Bloc, and other social themes on the island. The significance and ramifications of their experiences abroad is still being debated, and in some cases, erased by opposing global ideologies. My research documents the individual memories of rank and file soldiers whose experiences have largely been ignored. The memories of these men are nuanced, contradictory, and do not always correspond with the national narrative, particularly concerning race. I argue that their stories about national and racial difference regarding the Angolan “other” are an extension of cuentos de negros, a long-held derogatory manner of referencing blackness in general, but applied to an international context. I further demonstrate how their recollections as internationalists are mediated and challenged by larger ideological forces, a generational divide, and a changing Cuban self-image crisis brought upon by the Special Period. I suggest that the memories of ordinary soldiers and of Angolans who grew up in Cuba are particularly vulnerable to global trends that do not historically legitimize their experiences. Vital to the methodology used to gather the information for the dissertation is a discussion of the particular Cuban milieu during the time I conducted research, as well as the inclusion of my own struggles with the limits of ethnography, the transformative nature of field work, and with how to best present another person’s life on paper.

Tolkien may not have intentionally created his fictive nations to mirror real nations, but his world certainly bears the scars of his experiences of war. The World Wars heightened his fear of losing everything that he loved about his local culture through literal obliteration or assimilation into another culture in the event of England’s losing. Tolkien saw the nation as a social construct that potentially could minimize losses, if not wholly protect local culture from the forces that threatened to destroy it. Yet he also perceived the nation’s limitations in its ability to protect culture. A nation could grow too large for itself, becoming obsessed with consuming other nations. For Tolkien, national property-amassing leads to a loss of the cultural identity that nationhood aims to preserve. When the forces threatening individual nations become overwhelming, those nations often need to join forces to prevent being taken over by other, more powerful countries. An examination of Tolkien’s fiction and numerous other sources, including essays and personal letters, suggests that he felt that separate nations should co-exist without imposing on one another, and that the nation taking over others would lose its own identity, whether gradually or suddenly. Despite Tolkien’s efforts to distance himself from what he felt modernity represented, his fiction (whether consciously or not) grapples with the mid-twentieth century ideological conflicts surrounding the nation. The resulting sense of loss and powerlessness underlies much of Tolkien’s fiction and leads him to a concept of the nation as an imperfect protector of culture, tempered by its need to rely on other nations.

Martha Root (1872-1939) was an exceptional religious and spiritual activist, a leading figure in the international women's peace movement, and a new organism of a new world in the early twentieth century. This thesis represents Martha Root from three aspects: the early life of Martha Root, her four world teaching trips from 1919 to 1939, with a focus on her peace advocacy, and an investigation into her gender awareness and identity construction by reflecting on Tahirih the Pure, Iran's Greatest Woman, Martha Root's only book.