4 - Towards a Global History of Long-Distance Peace Activism

The 1950s and 1960s saw a proliferation of  long-distance, physically demanding protest voyages in the cause of peace. As a genre of activism, these projects appear at first glance counter-intuitive: they required inordinate amounts of time, energy and money from the participating individuals, involved considerable risk, had low odds of completion and even lower odds of achieving their aims. Ostensibly, these were very much “high risk, low reward” projects. Such difficulties were further compounded if undertaken during decolonization wars, imminent nuclear tests, or more generally against the wishes of colonial authorities. But whether conducted in Africa, Asia or elsewhere, and whether by boat, on foot, by bike or other modes of non-motorized transport, these voyages had a number of things in common – not least that they were voyages into the self as much as into the world. This paper examines these voyages as a specific mode of civil disobedience, taking into account the multiple intellectual origins of the concept, and the different visions of world order underpinning them.