Gavin Brown, a University of Leicester geography lecturer who, as a teenager, took part in the anti-apartheid Non-Stop Picket outside the South African Embassy in London between 1986-1990 and announced to the crowd that Nelson Mandela had been released from gaol, has been awarded a Research Project Grant from the Leverhulme Trust for a project called "Non-Stop Against Apartheid: the spaces of transnational solidarity activism".
Dr Gavin Brown's research, which launches on 1 July, is an original study of transnational solidarity activism based on a unique and previously unresearched anti-apartheid protest, where activists from many nationalities and social backgrounds converged.
His aim is to provoke debate about the value of this type of activism in a way that will be relevant to understanding and informing the tactics of current and future transnational solidarity movements.
The project will study a protest movement that was one of the most significant examples of transnational solidarity in recent British history and was almost entirely sustained and organised by teenagers and people in their early twenties.
Dr Gavin Brown, Lecturer in the University's Department of Geography, commented: "As a teenager, I was involved in the Non-Stop Picket from the summer of 1986 until it finished in March 1990, after Nelson Mandela's release. Indeed, I had the honour of announcing to the crowd that had spontaneously converged outside the South African Embassy when he had finally walked free from gaol.
"Until recently, it was not practical to undertake this research, but over the last two years, social networking sites have helped me to re-establish contact with a wide range of former activists who were involved in the protest.
"Although few current social movements have the broad international appeal that the anti-apartheid movement had in the 1980s, transnational solidarity activism still exists (in relation to Palestine, Burma, Cuba and elsewhere). I suggest that solidarity activism has benefits for the activists as well as the people they extend solidarity and material support to."
Dr Brown's project is the first sustained academic analysis of the Non-Stop Picket and is innovative in combining an analysis of the political and material cultures of this protest with attention to the long-term impact of participation on the lives of individual activists.
Notes to Editors: Further details are available from:
Dr Gavin Brown, Lecturer in Human Geography, tel: 0116 252 3858, email gpb10@le.ac.uk
The Leverhulme Trust was established in 1925 under the Will of the first Viscount Leverhulme. It is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing funds of some £50 million every year. For further information about the schemes that the Leverhulme Trust fund visit their website at www.leverhulme.ac.uk