Research towards Local-Transnational Encounters and Connections (LOTEC)

In his book “The new transnational activism”[i] Sidney Tarrow calls for the extension of existing transnational research orientations. Such research, he argues, analyzes formal organizational patterns from within the state and macro- society perspectives[ii]. Tarrow, therefore, advocates for the inclusion of transnational processes sustained by ordinary migrants and refugees. For the illustration of his point, Tarrow shares the story of his father that from 1920s, then a young man, boarded a steamer from Hamburg to New York. The young man fled from recurring “poverty” and “disorders” that often particularly targeted transnational Jewish communities in Europe. In the US, Tarrow’s father obtained American citizenship, remitted monetary sources and social capital in supporting his remaining relatives back in Europe. After some years he temporarily returned to his ancestral land for marriage during which he, together with other transnational community members in New York, stablished schools and health clinics. From his base at the US, he co-created vibrant transnational community associations rescuing Jewish victims from Nazi persecution in Europe. Later, Tarrow’s father contributed to the establishment of the state of Israel in facilitating among other aspects the resettlement of transnational community members to the new state.

Tarrow, apart from sharing his father’s “transformation from a remittance provider to a committed diaspora nationalist” also details two more stories from other globally re-known trans-nationalists. These include idealists who- in their life time and beyond, generated significant global transnational encounters and connections. The first is Marx during his “exile in Paris” and his subsequent studies on labour exploitation in the UK. In exploring these countries, the communist ideologue developed transnational socialist ideas for transnational social mobilization. The second is the humanist Norwegian diplomat- which Tarrow refers to as the “Nordic cosmopolitan” Fridjof Nansen, who in 1920s headed the International Red Cross, negotiated multiple transnational prison releases as well as the empowerment of the displaced suffering people to- among others- accessing better human rights conditions. The Norwegian diplomat thereby helped creating the so-called “Nansen Passport” for the displaced. Such transnational humanitarian innovation and efforts secured him for the Nobel prize for peace.