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    A new Internationalism: endeavouring to ‘build from this diversity, unity’, 1945-1990

    Mangion, Carmen M. (2019) A new Internationalism: endeavouring to ‘build from this diversity, unity’, 1945-1990. Journal of Contemporary History 55 (3), pp. 579-601. ISSN 0022-0094.

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    Abstract

    This article examines how one Catholic religious congregation, the Dutch Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of Mercy (Zusters van Liefde) transformed their understanding of what it meant to be an international religious congregation. It examines the changing understandings of being international through the shift from uniformity to pluriformity. This led to transnational exchanges via revised practices of governance that were both consultative and participatory and emphasised a culture of ‘communication and encounter’. This case study demonstrates the complexities of the processes by which Catholic international religious institutes around the world were rethinking their internationalism in response to the social consequences of post-war modernity and later, the spirit of aggiornamento of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It broadens our understanding of internationalist thoughts and actions, pointing to an emphasis on the national, which, rather than receding comes to the forefront particularly in the process of decentralisation. It also demonstrates that women without an explicitly feminist or political agenda also negotiated how internationalism was defined, lived and experienced. Internationalist activities did not occur in a vacuum, they were aligned to the larger social movements of the post-war Catholic and secular world.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): internationalism, women religious, governance, Netherlands, Second Vatican Council, Britain
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Depositing User: Carmen Mangion
    Date Deposited: 06 Mar 2019 14:31
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:49
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/26551

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