Geneva, 1919–1945: The Spatialities of Public Internationalism and Global Networks

Abstract

After World War I, the urban landscape of Geneva presented a unique laboratory of public internationalism. This article discusses the buildings of international organisations and the surrounding residences of those working in different functions for these organisations as a territorial expression of global networks in the 1930s. The urban imprints of global contacts help to understand how information transfer overstepped institutional limits and how and to what extent the city gained a “glocal” profile. In the specific urban environment of Geneva, meeting points such as the bar in the League of Nations’ main building shaped information flows in a way that brought an international civil society closer to the official representatives of states than the rules of institutional contacts would allow. Using the database LONSEA as well as Geneva’s official directories, this chapter challenges the presumption of global contacts as a Western, secular, and elitist phenomenon, elaborating on the considerable activities of Indian, Japanese, and Chinese communities at this time.