Weaving political fields: non-violent INGOs and the global grass roots

ABSTRACT

Global–local studies elucidate how local actors engage in often unexpected ways with global models, remedying somewhat the binary assumption that homologous global change acts in conflict with local-level agency. Here, I extend the domestication framework by exploring the global–local interaction among transnational and local activists as a ‘weaving’ of global and local fields through (1) the constitution of how new relationships, institutions, and objectives define new fields; (2) the constitution of new forms of actorhood leading to new entitlements within those fields; and (3) the impartation of new rules for field engagement, in this case non-violence. I examine fifteen years of archival documentation from Peace Brigades International in Guatemala during the 1980s–1990s civil war. I explain how the global–local interaction involves the creation of unique fields for political change and new mobilisation opportunities and, in turn, alters the discourse and structure of local and global dimensions of conflict.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestication
• field theory
• global–local
• grass roots
• INGOs
• non-violent resistance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The growing literature on transnational policy diffusion encompasses four different theoretical approaches; constructivist, coercion, competition, and learning frameworks, each detailing different social origins and contextual factors shaping the transmission of a policy from an international into a local context (Dobbin et al., 2007).

2. While INGOs organised around the objective of globally spreading non-violence fall along a continuum of engagement with more philosophical or lifestyle forms versus strategic and tactical non-violent resistance support, the INGOs I have studied are firmly dedicated to non-violent forms of political change.

3. A parallel reform process followed parallel democratic mobilisation in El Salvador at this time.

4. ‘Comadre’ is a Spanish term literally meaning godmother, but in many Latin American communities this may also indicate a term of endearment acknowledging shared community among women.

5. The first project closed in 1999; then, after receiving overwhelming requests to return, PBI set up another permanent presence in 2002 and remains working in the country today.

6. In Guatemala, the association with vegetarianism did not evoke Gandhi; there were many sectors that had no knowledge of Gandhi or his legacy in global non-violence. More likely, the closest reference locals could conjure for inspiration for not being violent was the Seventh Day Adventist faith, which sometimes refused to eat meat as part of its lifestyle practice of avoiding violence.

7. This dependence on international humanitarian investment, however, cannot be critically assessed without taking into account the more foundational path dependence created through legacies of political and economic imperialism. The bigger question that may be addressed to the dynamics of global–local civil-society relations may be how best they work to undo those former dependencies.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by American Sociological Association (Minority Dissertation Fellowship); Emory University Laney Graduate School (Dissertation Research Travel Funds).