Organized Labor and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Solidarity Center in Historical Context

During the Cold War the foreign policy of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), was heavily criticized by scholars and activists for following the lead of the U.S. state in its overseas operations. In a wide range of states, the AFL-CIO worked to destabilize governments selected by the U.S. state for regime change, while in others the Federation helped stabilize client regimes of the U.S. state. In 1997 the four regional organizations that previously carried out AFL-CIO foreign policy were consolidated into the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center). My dissertation is an attempt to analyze whether the foreign policy of the AFL-CIO in the Solidarity Center era is marked by continuity or change with past practices. At the same time, this study will attempt to add to the debate over the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the post-Cold War era, and its implications for future study. Using the qualitative “process-tracing” detailed by of Alexander George and Andrew Bennett (2005) my study examines a wide array of primary and secondary sources, including documents from the NED and AFL-CIO, in order to analyze the relationship between the Solidarity Center and the U.S. state from 2002-2009. Furthermore, after analyzing broad trends of NED grants to the Solidarity Center, this study examines three dissimilar case studies including Venezuela, Haiti, and Iraq and the Middle East and North African (MENA) region to further explore the connections between U.S. foreign policy goals and the Solidarity Center operations. The study concludes that the evidence indicates continuity with past AFL-CIO foreign policy practices whereby the Solidarity Center follows the lead of the U.S. state. It has been found that the patterns of NED funding indicate that the Solidarity Center closely tailors its operations abroad in areas of importance to the U.S. state, that it is heavily reliant on state funding via the NED for its operations, and that the Solidarity Center works closely with U.S. allies and coalitions in these regions. Finally, this study argues for the relevance of “top-down” NGO creation and direction in the post-Cold War era.

New Haitian social movements: Alternative modernities, (trans)local nationalisms, and solidarity economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development. ^

Resistance performances: (Re)constructing spaces of resistance and contention in the 2010-2011 University of Puerto Rico student movement

On the night of April 20, 2010, a group of students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Río Piedras campus, met to organize an indefinite strike that quickly broadened into a defense of accessible public higher education of excellence as a fundamental right and not a privilege. Although the history of student activism in the UPR can be traced back to the early 1900s, the 2010-2011 strike will be remembered for the student activists’ use of new media technologies as resources that rapidly prompted and aided the numerous protests. ^ This activist research entailed a critical ethnography and a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of traditional and alternative media coverage and treatment during the 2010 -2011 UPR student strike. I examined the use of the 2010-2011 UPR student activists’ resistance performances in constructing local, corporeal, and virtual spaces of resistance and contention during their movement. In particular, I analyzed the different tactics and strategies of resistance or repertoire of collective actions that student activists used (e.g. new media technologies) to frame their collective identities via alternative news media’s (re)presentation of the strike, while juxtaposing the university administration’s counter-resistance performances in counter-framing the student activists’ collective identity via traditional news media representations of the strike. I illustrated how both traditional and alternative media (re)presentations of student activism developed, maintained, and/or modified students activists’ collective identities. ^ As such, the UPR student activism’s success should not be measured by the sum of demands granted, but by the sense of community achieved and the establishment of networks that continue to create resistance and change. These networks add to the debate surrounding Internet activism and its impact on student activism. Ultimately, the results of this study highlight the important role student movements have had in challenging different types of government policies and raising awareness of the importance of an accessible public higher education of excellence.^

Saint-Domingue Refugees and their Enslaved Property : Abolition Societies and the Enforcement of Gradual Emancipation in Pennsylvania and New York

Ce mémoire porte sur le rôle des cercles abolitionnistes dans l’application des lois sur l’émancipation graduelle de l’esclavage dans le nord des États-Unis vers la fin du dix-huitième siècle, principalement à New York et en Pennsylvanie. Plus particulièrement, il met en lumière la façon dont ces cercles, dont les deux plus importants étaient la Pennsylvania Abolition So-ciety (PAS) et le New­York Manumission Society (NYMS), ont fait face aux centaines de réfugiés de Saint-Domingue qui sont arrivés avec leurs esclaves sur la côte est américaine pour fuir la révolution haïtienne dans les années 1790. Dans un premier temps, ce mémoire étudie l’abolition graduelle de l’esclavage dans le nord des États-Unis, débutant avec la Pennsylvanie en 1780, et la formation des cercles abolitionnistes dans les anciennes colonies anglaises. Il sera en outre question des stratégies des antiesclavagistes américains afin de promouvoir l’abolition graduelle de l’esclavage et d’empêcher le mouvement des esclaves et des noirs libres en dehors des frontières de leurs États respectifs. Il sera aussi question de leurs efforts pour resserrer davantage les clauses des lois existantes à ce sujet. Dans un second temps, dans le but de mettre en relief la contribution des cercles abolitionnistes, ce mémoire procède à une étude de cas sur la manière dont les réfugiés de Saint-Domingue ont interagi avec l’esclavage résiduel à New York et en Pennsylvanie et cherche à comprendre pourquoi leurs tentatives d’échapper aux lois sur l’émancipation graduelle se sont heurtées, à plusieurs reprises, aux stratégies des sociétés antiesclavagistes.

Geschlechtersonderwissen von Expert_innen für Inter*- und Trans*themen

Anhand von Expert_inneninterviews mit Aktivist_innen und Therapeut_innen aus dem Inter*- und Trans*bereich wird herausgestellt, wie Expert_innen Geschlecht thematisieren und auf welche Wissensformen sie hierfür Bezug nehmen. Professionssoziologische und gender- und queertheoretische Überlegungen werden in dieser wissenssoziologischen Untersuchung miteinander verknüpft, um Expert_innen des Geschlechts zu definieren und die im Rahmen der teilnehmenden Beobachtung erfassten Veränderungen im Diskurs um Inter*- und Trans*personen zu kontextualisieren. Dabei wird herausgestellt, dass zwar alternatives Wissen von Professionsangehörigen nicht mehr ausgeschlossen wird eine Deprofessionalisierung im Inter*- und Trans*bereich allerdings unwahrscheinlich erscheint. Vielmehr wird eine binäre Konstruktion von Expert_innen insbesondere von Professionsangehörigen reproduziert. Hierbei wird differenziert in professionsangehörige Expert_innen und Aktivist_innen, wobei erstere sich für gesellschaftliche Werte einsetzten würden und Aktivist_innen sich lediglich im Eigeninteresse handeln würden. Zur Einbettung und Erklärung der empirischen Erkenntnisse wird sich auf gender- und queertheoretische, psychoanalytische, diskurstheoretische, phänomenologische und emotionssoziologische Ansätze bezogen. Darüber wird die Fragilität der Kategorien Expert_in und Geschlecht und die Notwendigkeit der Anerkennung dieser für die eigene Handlungsfähigkeit verdeutlicht, ebenso wie die (Gefühls)Arbeit, die Expert_innen des Geschlechts alltäglich leisten müssen, um als Expert_in oder/und Inter*- oder Trans*person anerkannt zu werden. Grundsätzlich wird von Expert_innen des Geschlechts dem inkorporierten Wissen ein stärkeres Gewicht beigemessen als noch vor zehn Jahren, so das Fazit der Studie. Die Fokussierung auf inkorporiertes Wissen wird, anders als im bisherigen (Forschungs)Diskurs um Inter*- und Trans*personen allerdings in seiner Ambivalenz gesehen, da sie neben der Anerkennung alternativer Wissensformen auch zu einer Unmöglichkeit der Infragestellung dieses Wissens führen könne.

The Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association

Annually, the association publishes a journal, The Proceedings, which consists of papers presented at the annual meeting. The Unionist Party and the Third Home Rule Crisis, 1912-1914” by W. S. Brockington, Jr. To Herald the Revolution: The Public Activists of G. V. Chicherin and Maksim Litvinov in Wartime Britain by William J. Lavery William W. Boyce: A Leader of the Southern Peace Movement by Roger P. Leemhuis South Carolina Leadership in the Southern Unification Movement, 1849-1850 by Thelma Jennings Soul of the South: James F. Byrnes and the Racial Issue in American Politics, 1911-1941 by Winfred B. Moore, Jr. Cole L. Blease and the Senatorial Campaign of 1924 by Daniel W. Hollis The Cuban Revolution in Historical Perspective

Espiritualidad y política: una propuesta tibetana para la transformación del orden mundial

La Revolución Espiritual promovida por el Dalai Lama plantea una unión entre espiritualidad y política. El proyecto de una ética universal, que se inscribe dentro de dicha Revolución, busca impactar la manera en que las relaciones internacionales se desarrollan, dándole prevalencia a los valores humanos. Sin embargo, esa proposición se encuentra ligada al contexto de exilio en el marco del conflicto sino-tibetano que afecta al continente asiático. Por esto, en la presente monografía, haciendo uso de los conceptos de marco de acción colectiva e identidad inscritos en la corriente de los movimientos sociales en la disciplina de las Relaciones Internacionales, se pretende determinar la relación entre identidad tibetana, marco de acción colectiva y la propuesta de una ética universal. Para ello se recurre, metodológicamente, a textos y a trabajo de campo en Bogotá. Así, se pretende establecer la relación entre espiritualidad y política como propuesta tibetana atravesada por el conflicto sino-tibetano.

El rol de las redes de apoyo transnacional en la evolución del régimen de trata de personas en la región del mekong, 2004-2015

Con el fin de la unipolaridad no sólo se fortalecieron mecanismos de gobernanza global como los Regímenes Internacionales, sino también se fortalecieron actores no estatales. A pesar de la importancia que tomaron estos dos elementos aún no existe una teoría que explique exhaustivamente la relación que existe entre ellos. Es por lo anterior que, la investigación busca responder de qué manera el rol de las Redes de Apoyo Transnacional ha incidido en la evolución del régimen de tráfico de personas en la Región del Mekong. Asimismo tiene como objetivo comprender las relación entre el Régimen y las Redes de Apoyo Transnacional a través de la formulación de un caso de estudio basado en metodologías cualitativas, específicamente, en el análisis teórico-constructivista y el análisis de contenido de documentos producidos por actores estatales y no estatales.

Educación legal clínica y defensa de los derechos humanos : casos paradigmáticos del Grupo de Acciones Públicas –GAP–

...este libro es el resultado de la implementación de la educación legal clínica, evidenciando, de un lado, la importancia de involucrar en la formación de los estudiantes de Jurisprudencia el componente práctico, al llevar a escenarios reales la aplicación de los conocimientos adquiridos en su carrera, incluso en asuntos de orden transnacional, y de otro lado, la imperiosa necesidad de poner en marcha el ejercicio responsable de su profesión, comprometiéndose con la realidad social de nuestro país. Adicionalmente, este libro es una herramienta de aprendizaje para clínicas de interés público en formación, para universidades y organizaciones que buscan implementar la enseñanza clínica en sus programas, para las comunidades y sus líderes, y en general para quienes buscan la forma responsable de ayudar a la comunidad a partir de la aplicación de sus conocimientos jurídicos..."--presentación.