Black Internationalism, Subaltern Cosmopolitanism, and the Spatial Politics of Antifascism

Abstract

This article explores black internationalist articulations of antifascism in the 1930s through a discussion of the “maps of grievance” mobilized by African American volunteers in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. It interrogates how African American volunteers linked the conflict in Spain to Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and to struggles against white supremacy in the United States. Through making such linkages, black internationalist intellectuals and political activists have made significant, if frequently neglected, theoretical and political engagements with fascism and antifascism. By decentering the national in internationalism and situating forms of subaltern cosmopolitanism as constitutive of internationalist political activity, it reconfigures aspects of the spatial constitution of internationalism.

本文透过讨论西班牙内战时, 在亚伯罕林肯旅退伍军人协会担任义工的美国黑人所动员的”怨愤地图”, 探讨1930年代黑人国际主义与反法西斯主义的接合。我将探究美国的黑人义工如何将西班牙的冲突连结至墨索里尼侵略伊索比亚, 以及美国内部反抗白人至上主义的斗争。透过创造这些连结, 黑人国际主义知识份子与社会运动参与者, 显着地在理论及政治层面涉入法西斯主义与反法西斯主义, 即便这些连结经常被忽略。透过对国际主义中的”国家”进行去中心化, 并将从属寰宇主义的形式置放做为国际主义政治运动的组成, 本文重构了国际主义空间构成的面向。

Este artículo explora las articulaciones internacionalistas negras del antifascismo en los años 1930, por medio de la discusión de los “mapas de quejas” exhibidos por voluntarios afroamericanos de la Brigada Abrahán Lincoln durante la Guerra Civil Española. En el artículo se pregunta cómo ligaron los voluntarios afroamericanos el conflicto de España con la invasión a Etiopía por Mussolini y con la lucha contra la supremacía blanca en los Estados Unidos. Al hacer tales enlaces, los intelectuales internacionalistas negros y activistas políticos hacen compromisos significativos con el fascismo y el antifascismo teóricos y políticos, si bien con frecuencia se les deja de lado. Al descentrar lo nacional dentro del internacionalismo y al situar formas de cosmopolitanismo subalterno, como un constitutivo de actividad política internacional, el artículo reconfigura aspectos de la constitución espacial del internacionalismo.

Key Words:

• articulation
• maritime labor
• solidarities
• Spanish Civil War
• translocal politics

关键词:

• 接合
• 海事劳动力
• 团结
• 西班牙内战
• 跨地方政治。

Palabras clave:

• articulación
• trabajo marítimo
• solidaridades
• Guerra Civil Española
• política translocal

Acknowledgements

This article has benefited from the many helpful criticisms and engagements of audiences in a number of conference sessions and seminars. I would also like to thank Sharad Chari, Andy Davies, Mustafa Dikeç, Mo Hume, Tariq Jazeel, Stefan Kipfer, Uma Kothari, Colin McFarlane, Hard Phillips, Chris Philo, Dan Whittall, and two anonymous referees for insightful discussions and comments on earlier drafts of this article. The editorial support and guidance of Audrey Kobayashi and Richard A. Wright has been invaluable. The responsibility for the arguments and any substantive errors is, of course, my own. The research was funded by a British Academy small grant and I would like to thank the archivists in the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, for their assiduous help and guidance.

Notes

1. The left forces that rallied to the defense of the Republic, however, were divided and factionalized (Paniagua 2007). There were at least four major strands of the left in Spain in the 1930s. The Socialists were linked to the major trade union confederation, the UGT, and had an important presence in the Republican government. The weak Spanish Communist Party was massively bolstered by the international support of the Brigades and the Comintern. A significant anarcho-syndicalist movement, the CNT, was particularly strong in Catalonia, and the POUM, which articulated a militant, independent, and anti-Stalinist left politics, was associated with Trotskyism.

2. This article positions racial categories as historically and geographically contingent and socially produced.