Appropriation, Representation and Cooperation as Transnational Practices: The Example of Ferdinand Buisson

This contribution focuses on the transnational activities of the French intellectual and education expert Ferdinand Buisson (1841–1932). The liberal Protestant Buisson played a crucial role in implementing republican educational reforms during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Investigating his motivations for crossing borders and contacting his peers in foreign countries, this contribution distinguishes three transnational practices. Firstly, Buisson “went transnational” in order to learn from abroad. Secondly, once his institutionalisation efforts showed a certain maturity, he proudly presented his achievements neatly packaged in a nationalist discourse. Thirdly, Buisson called for common international effort projects. It is suggested that these practices of appropriation, representation, and cooperation provide a general tool for analysing the activities of expert actors on the international scene in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.