Rev. Earl M. Smith: the ‘grandfather’ of contemporary, organized Latin American nonviolence

This article identifies the Methodist missionary, Rev. Earl M. Smith, as a crucial figure in the history of organized Latin American nonviolence. Adopting a peace history framework, alongside specific observations by Lederach and primary source material from five archives, it constructs a history of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (F.O.R.) in that region, and discloses and analyses Pastor Smith’s functions as a bridge, hub and connector in the continental expansion of nonviolence between 1941 and 1974. Shifting the framework from webs to networks, the intersection of peace history and historical network analysis generates a new analytical subcategory: ‘historical peace network research’. The threefold – micro (Smith), meso (F.O.R.) and macro (theoretical) – significance of the article’s findings is thus complete.