Abstract
In this introduction, the editors look at transnational actors from a historical perspective, in order to set an analytical framework for this collection. From the 1860s onwards, transnational actors like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as well as neutral nations gained increasing global importance in their role in caring for prisoners in war. This chapter illustrates how their transnational connections and practices evolved in the twentieth century, as the phenomenon of mass captivity was coupled with strong international organisations, networks and new means of communications. Wars were thereby catalysts for new transnational transfers, flows and exchanges, often in the context of an ever-growing humanitarianism.
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Notes
- 1.
Henry Dunant, A Memory of Solferino (Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, 1959 [1862]), trans. American Red Cross, 50–52.
- 2.
Karin M. Fierke, Diplomatic Interventions: Conflict and Change in a Globalizing World (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 49–50. Dunant himself did not witness the actual battle but was in Solferino during its aftermath.
- 3.
See François Bugnion, Le Comité International de la Croix-Rouge et la protection des victimes de la guerre (Geneva: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 1994), 7.
- 4.
Fierke, Diplomatic Interventions, 49–50.
- 5.
David P. Forsythe, The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 20–21.
- 6.
Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 16.
- 7.
Irène Hermann and Daniel Palmieri, “International Committee of the Red Cross,” 1914–1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, accessed July 27, 2020, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/international_committee_of_the_red_cross.
- 8.
Kevin O’Sullivan, Matthew Hilton, and Juliano Fiori, “Humanitarianisms in Context,” European Review of History 23, 1–2, 2016, 2.
- 9.
In this introduction, the terms “transnational actor” and “transnational intermediary” are used interchangeably.
- 10.
For more on this see for example Emily S. Rosenberg, ed. A World Connecting, 1870–1945, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).
- 11.
Matthew Hilton and Rana Mitter, “Introduction,” in Transnationalism and Contemporary Global History, eds. Matthew Hilton and Rana Mitter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 25.
- 12.
The literature on transnational actors in the social sciences is vast. As a starting point see Philip Alston, ed. Non-State Actors and Human Rights, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Anne Peters, Lucy Koechlin and Gretta Fenner Zinkernagel, eds. Non-State Actors as Standard Setters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Thomas Risse, “Transnational Actors and World Politics,” in Handbook of International Relations, eds. Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons (Sage: Thousand Oaks, 2013), 427–428; Andreas Kruck and Andrea Schneiker, “Introduction: Researching Non-State Actors in International Security—A Multitude of Challenges, a Plurality of Approaches,” in Researching Non-State Actors in International Security: Theory and Practice, eds. Andreas Kruck and Andrea Schneiker (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 4–5.
- 13.
Daphné Josselin and William Wallace, “Non-State Actors in World Politics: A Framework,” in Non-State Actors in World Politics, eds. Daphné Josselin and William Wallace (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 3.
- 14.
Of course, transnational actors did not have to be agents of, or endorsed by a state. They could also act on a purely private basis or even be employed by private companies, partly pursuing their own interest. However, since there are no such examples in this book, perhaps bar the oil companies mentioned in Chapter 7, this topic and all the unique problems that come with it are not pursued further in this introduction.
- 15.
Christoph Jahr and Jens Thiel, “Prolegomena zu einer Geschichte der Lager: Eine Einführung,” in Lager vor Auschwitz: Gewalt und Integration im 20. Jahrhundert, eds. Christoph Jahr and Jens Thiel (Berlin: Metropol, 2013), 7–19.
- 16.
Rüdiger Overmans, “‘In der Hand des Feindes:’ Geschichtsschreibung zur Kriegsgefangenschaft von der Antike bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in In der Hand des Feinds: Kriegsgefangenschaft von der Antike bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Rüdiger Overmans, (Köln: Böhlau, 1999), 20.
- 17.
Mahon Murphy, Colonial Captivity During the First World War Internment and the Fall of the German Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Karl Hack and Kevin Blackburn, eds., Forgotten Captives in Japanese-Occupied Asia (London: Routledge, 2011); Reinhard Nachtigal, Rußland und seine österreichisch-ungarischen Kriegsgefangenen 1914 bis 1918 (Remshalden: B.A. Greiner, 2003); Oliver Wilkinson, British Prisoners of War in First World War Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Brian K. Feltman, The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in the Great War and Beyond (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015); Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich, The British Empire and its Italian Prisoners of War 1940–1947 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002); Marianne Neerland Soleim, ed., Prisoners of War and Forced Labour: Histories of War and Occupation (Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010); Panayi Panikos, Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees During the First World War (Oxford: Manchester University Press, 2018); Rafael Scheck, French Colonial Soldiers in German Captivity during World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Heather Jones, Violence Against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
- 18.
William C. Latham, Jr., Cold Days in Hell: American POWs in Korea (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2012); Charles Young, Name, Rank, and Serial Number: Exploiting Korean War POWs at Home and Abroad (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick T. Kiley, Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999); Michael J. Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); Marcel Berni, Außer Gefecht: Leben, Leiden und Sterben “kommunistischer” Gefangener in Vietnams amerikanischem Krieg (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2020).
- 19.
Matthew Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany: The Ruhleben Camp, 1914–1918 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008); Jeffrey L. Littlejohn and Charles Howard Ford, eds., “The Enemy Within Never Did Without:” German and Japanese Prisoners of War at Camp Huntsville, 1942–1945 (Huntsville: Texas Review Press, 2015).
- 20.
Anne-Marie Pathé and Fabien Théofilakis, eds., Wartime Captivity in the 20th Century: Archives, Stories, Memories (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016); H. C. Mytum and Gillian Carr, eds., Prisoners of War: Archaeology, Memory, and Heritage of 19th- and 20th-Century Mass Internment (New York: Springer 2013); Bob Moore and Barbara Hately-Broad, Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace: Captivity, Homecoming and Memory in World War II (Oxford: Berg, 2005); Frank Biess, Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Christiane Wienand, Returning Memories: Former Prisoners of War in Divided and Reunited Germany (Rochester: Camden House, 2015).
- 21.
Jones, Violence Against Prisoners of War; Geoffrey P. R. Wallace, Life and Death in Captivity: The Abuse of Prisoners during War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015); Berni, Außer Gefecht.
- 22.
Joan Beaumont, Protecting Prisoners of War: 1939–1995, in Prisoners of War and Their Captors in World War II, eds. Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich (Oxford: Bloomsbury 1996), 277–297; Jean Pictet, Humanitarian Law and the Protection of War Victims (Leyden, Geneva: A.W. Sijthoff/Henry-Dunant-Institute, 1975); Allan Rosas, The Legal Status of Prisoners of War: A Study in International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts (Helsinki: Suomalainen tiedeakatemia, 1976); Howard S. Levie, Prisoners of War in International Armed Conflict (Newport: Naval War College Press, 1978); Emily Crawford, The Treatment of Combatants and Insurgents under the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Nigel S. Rodley, The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
- 23.
See David Mallet and Miriam J. Anderson, “Introduction: The Transnational Century,” in Transnational Actors in War and Peace: Militants, Activists and Corporations in World Politics, eds. David Mallet and Miriam J. Anderson (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017), 17.
- 24.
The term “prisoners in war” was coined by Sibylle Scheipers to signify that during wars, those taken prisoner could have many faces—that is, by no means were they only members of the military, for they could also be civilians or fall into grey areas in between. See Sibylle Scheipers, ed. Prisoners in War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
- 25.
See for example Stephanie Carvin, Prisoners of America’s Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo (New York: Columbia University Press 2011); Lorien Foote and Daniel Krebs, eds., Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2021).
- 26.
On the connection between moving actors and ideas, see Margrit Pernau, Transnationale Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 72.
- 27.
On the significance of similar moving actors, see Nayan Chanda, Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).
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Berni, M., Cubito, T. (2021). The Diplomatic Role of Transnational Actors in Wartime Captivity. In: Berni, M., Cubito, T. (eds) Captivity in War during the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65095-7_1
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