This workshop and special journal issue is concerned with political mobilization among minorities, diaspora and exile groups in Europe and the Americas during the tumultuous period between 1848 and 1939. For minorities confronted with the demands of increasingly centralizing states, as well as for communities existing across the borders of such states, collective mobilization was key to defending ethnic, religious or linguistic identities, to offset socio-economic marginalization, and to have political and cultural rights recognized at institutional levels.

We welcome papers that explore diverse and interdisciplinary approaches to this theme. Collective action can have different aims, from preserving the status quo to activism for radical change or goals perceived to be ‘modern’. It can adopt different forms, from the use of force, to boycotts, to legal and constitutional tactics, to symbolic actions. And it can have different results, from the incorporation of community demands into official policy, to the creation of special allowances, or to the suppression of community positions altogether.

The space or geography of political mobilization is of particular interest. We want to explore new approaches to collective mobilization and political action through comparing community action at home, abroad, and in the transnational space in-between. On the basis of case studies rooted in empirical research, we aim to explore the interactions and movements of agitators and ideologues within the homeland or hostland as well as between them, and comparatively investigate what impact factors such as socio-economic belonging, citizenship, religious or linguistic adherence had on the aims, forms and results of political mobilization.

We aim to bring together papers that develop our understandings of the social relations that develop and organize political activism; the involvement of generational, cultural, class, gender or ethnic identities; the interaction between secular and religious factors; the impact of experiences of historical trauma or large-scale upheaval, as well as the memory thereof, on shaping and sustaining group identities; the interplay of mechanisms of mobilization such as ritual, legitimation and ideology; the role that public spaces play in mobilization; and urban/rural dichotomies. The comparative framework will enable us to not only inquire into different approaches to groups faced with essentially similar circumstances, but also to probe what difference being a home- or hostland community made on the forms and processes of activism. Finally, it will contribute to sketching the transnational dimension of pressure politics undertaken by cultural and ethnic communities.

The workshop will be held at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz (Germany) in December 2015. Professor Alan Knight (University of Oxford) and Professor Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (Bielefeld University) will provide expert commentary on participants’ papers and the workshop will function as a space in which to develop similarities and overlaps between the papers, and ultimately contribute to the overall coherency of the special journal issue. The German Research Foundation will provide limited travel funding for participants.

Please send a CV and 500 word summary of the paper to Dr. Eveline G. Bouwers (bouwers@ieg-mainz.de) and Dr. Niall Whelehan (niall.whelehan@ed.ac.uk). Proposals are due 1 December 2014. Those who wish to benefit from travel funding should indicate so in their proposal.