Transnational Identities and Agency: British and Dutch Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and their home states

本研究将对西班牙内战中英国和荷兰志愿者的国家和跨国身份的形成及其政府的反应进行比较研究。本研究的目的是探讨在国际主义意识形态和国家主权的背景下，个人自治和民族是如何协商的。近年来，特别是由于当前地缘政治的发展，人们对国外战争志愿服务的兴趣越来越大。在西班牙内战期间，大约有4万名外国男女前往西班牙加入共和政府一方的战斗。尽管几乎所有的欧洲民主政府都同意不干涉政策，但一些国家，如英国，在允许志愿者前往西班牙方面相当宽容，而另一些国家，如荷兰，则采取了严厉的措施，以阻止他们的公民作为志愿者参加战争。以荷兰为例，大多数志愿者回国后失去了荷兰国籍，成为无国籍公民。这项研究将包括两个要素。第一部分是两支队伍的概况，探讨志愿者如何经历他们的（跨）国家身份，以及他们在西班牙的志愿者经历如何塑造和改变这些身份。研究的核心部分将探索和比较在母国和被试国之间的互动中发生的谈判。

This research would be a comparative study of the formation of the British and Dutch volunteers' national andtransnational identities in the Spanish Civil War and their governments' responses. The aim of the research is to explorehow individual autonomy and nationality are negotiated in the context of internationalist ideologies and state sovereignty.In recent years, there is an increased interest in foreign war volunteering, especially because of current geopoliticaldevelopments. During the Spanish Civil War, about 40.000 foreign men and women travelled to Spain to join the combaton the side of the Republican government. Although almost all democratic European government agreed to a policy ofnon-intervention, some states, like Britain, were rather lenient in letting volunteers travel to Spain while others, like theNetherlands, applied harsh measures in order to prevent their citizens to join the war as volunteers. In the case of theNetherlands, most volunteers lost their Dutch nationality upon return and became stateless citizens. The research wouldconsist of two elements. The first one is a prosopography of both contingents, to explore how the volunteers experiencedtheir (trans-)national identities and how these were shaped and changed by their experiences as volunteers in Spain.The central part of the research would then explore and compare the negotiation that took place in the interactionsbetween the home states and their subjects.