Daniel Laqua: "On the Road to a Nuclear-Free Future? A Microhistory of Transnational Activism in mid-1990s Europe"

Forskningspresentation av Daniel Laqua, Northumbria University.

Obs! Notera tiden!

Abstract 

In 1995, Voor Moeder Aarde (‘For Mother Earth’) – a campaigning group that had originated in the Flemish city of Ghent – staged a ‘Walk across Europe for a Nuclear-Free World’, involving over 150 participants from fourteen countries. Having started off in Brussels in January that year, the activists ultimately reached Moscow in October. The initiative was a transnational undertaking, as the itinerary and the different protest activities along the way depended on partnerships with various local groups or national associations. This paper approaches the venture from three major angles. At one level, it examines activist practices, from attempts to forge a community among campaigners to particular forms of protest. At a second level, it considers how activists constructed the cause – in this instance visions of a ‘nuclear-free’ future that fused environmentalist and pacifist ideas. And, thirdly, the paper explores what this object of study can tell us about wider developments in Europe during the years that followed the end of the Cold War.

The seminar will be followed by a social drink (outside campus).

Photo credit: AMSAB Institute of Social History, Ghent.