ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to recent debates on the distinctive articulations of maritime spaces and organising and uses it to probe the relation between anti-fascist internationalisms and subaltern politics. It does this through engaging with the political trajectories of Black seafarers from the Caribbean and West Africa who were in contact with anti-colonial agitators such as George Padmore and were integral to organisations such as the London-based Negro Welfare Association (NWA). The chapter engages in particular with activities connected to the ports of Cardiff, London and North Shields which were significant in relation to various transnational political networks around anti-fascism and anti-colonialism. It argues that some of the forms of organising shaped in relation to these ports offers potential for thinking about the global connections and trajectories that shaped anti-fascisms and some of the ‘subaltern lives’ that were articulated through such political activity. Through so doing the chapter makes a broader contribution to thinking about the contested dynamics between anti-colonialism, anti-fascism and left internationalisms.
