Reflecting on global solidarity has recently taken an innovative turn in a series of case
studies on Chile and Nicaragua. Solidarity is now seen as ‘orchestrated’ by oppositional
movements of the Third World. My research investigates the linkages between Belgian grassroots solidarity
committees and Guatemalan oppositional movements, from the 1970s
until the 1990s. Archives remain pivotal in researching the emergence of this transnational
network and are subjugated to discursive as well as material analysis that examines the
concrete and tangible infrastructure of the network. Oral history will prove to be
indispensable in filling archival gaps.
This case study will serve to question the current research, which has focused on
opposition movements that propagated solidarity backed by contemporary or recently lost
state power and to nuance the observed patterns of active
involvement before they come to define the prism through which we analyze international
solidarity. After all, the Guatemalan opposition held a distinctively less beneficial position
than those in Nicaragua and Chile, a situation that inevitably determined the spectrum of
initiatives they were able to deploy in their quest for global solidarity. Through my research I
argue that observed patterns should be supported by a more diverse sample of case studies.
Hence future comparative research should allow differences and similarities to co-exist in an
interpretive meta-narrative of global solidarity.
This study of global solidarity steps away from unilateral relations into a world of
transnational interactions, entanglement and reciprocity. It remains firmly embedded in the
socio-political dynamics of Guatemala, but emphasizes the role of individuals and the
influence of local conditions on the global solidarity effort. As such we examine how the local
coalesces with the global, while at the same time touching central debates on the agency we
wish to attribute to Third World actors in global history.