Most research on peace movements has been dedicated to the study of activism in Europe and North America. This emphasis has led to an impression that such engagement was largely absent from Latin America and Africa, in part due to their geographic distance from east–west conflicts and an overriding preoccupation with more immediate political and economic concerns. Nevertheless, during the early Cold War period the United States government invested a significant amount of time and resources into surveillance of peace committees in Latin America. Their goal was to discredit the movement as serving Soviet imperial interests, but in the process they inadvertently documented the presence of vibrant and dynamic mobilizations that reflected the legitimate concerns of local activists fighting for a better world.
This was originally published on Wiley: Peace & Change: Table of Contents.
