Friday 31 August 2012

Malayan Independence and the Malayan constitution

Today, the 31st of August, marks the anniversary of the independence of the Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) in 1957.

Marking this anniversary today we focus on one of our archive collections, ICS125 the papers of Sir Ivor Jennings.

Sir Ivor Jennings was a constitutional lawyer and educationalist, who started his career teaching at Leeds University and the London School of Economics and Politiocal publishing on areas including the poor law code, housing law, public health law, town and country planning law and laws relating to local government and well as writing on constitutional matters. Appointed principal of University College, Ceylon in 1940, he was its first Vice-Chancellor (1942-1955) when it became the University of Ceylon. He described his life there in Road to Peradeniya, an unpublished autobiography. Jennings was frequently consulted on constitutional, educational and other matters within Ceylon, and elsewhere, including Malaya, India, Pakistan, and Malta. As the colonial period ended, he became particularly interested in the Commonwealth and the newly independent nations and was valued as a commentator on the subject. In 1954 he became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Downing Professor of the Laws of England in 1962, holding both posts until his death. In later life he returned to his study of the British constitution, with the publication of Party Politics (1960-62). He was knighted in 1948, made a QC in 1949, and awarded the KBE in 1955.

Sir Ivor Jennings was one of the members of the Reid Commission, headed by Lord William Reid, which was charged with devising a constitution for a fully self-governing and independent Federation of Malaya, following the Constitutional Conference held in London in 1956. The Jennings papers contain background publications, papers and reports; various versions of the draft constitution (some heavily annotated); minutes of the Federation of Malaya Constitutional Commission hearings; memorandum and submissions to the Commission; Jennings' correspondence, notes and diary for the period; and press cuttings.

The Constitution needed to accommodate concepts such as federalism and a constitutional monarchy, as well as provisions to protect special position for the Malay people, such as quotas in admission to higher education and the civil service, and making Islam the official religion of the federation. It also made Malay the official language of the nation, although the right to vernacular education in Chinese and Tamil would be protected. The papers provide intriguing background to the formation of a controversial constitution and the decision making processes.









Thursday 30 August 2012

Introducing ‘Everyware’

Introducing ‘Everyware’


Senate House Library’s computing facilities are moving to a mobile computing device service, increasing the number of computers available in the Library.

Readers will be able to borrow:

• iPads
• Apple MacBook Airs
• Apple MacBook Pros
• Windows laptops

A small number of the current desktop PCs will still be available for catalogue use and individual disability access.

The aim of our new service and enhanced wireless capacity is to allow more flexible computer usage throughout the Library via technologies that complement the very special atmosphere of our reading rooms.

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Fifth European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 5)

ECAS 2013 - Fifth European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 5)

African Dynamics in a Multipolar World

June 26 to 28, 2013

The fifth European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 5) will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, on June 26 to 28, 2013. It will be organized by the Centro de Estudos Africanos - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (African Studies Centre of the Lisbon University Institute) on behalf of AEGIS, the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies. Its general theme will be ‘African Dynamics in a Multipolar World’.

Call for panels

The Call for panels closes 19th October 2012

All proposals must be made via the online form. Proposals should consist of a panel title, a (very) short abstract of <300 250="250" abstract="abstract" an="an" and="and" characters="characters" of="of" words.="words.">
ECAS requires all accepted panels to be open to paper proposals through the website: panels should not be organised as 'closed' sessions. 
Delegates may only make one presentation, although they may also convene one plenary session, panel, or roundtable; or be discussant in one plenary session, panel, or roundtable.

http://cea.iscte.pt/ecas2013/

Centro de Estudos Africanos - ISCTE/IUL
Av. das Forças Armadas
Edifício ISCTE, Sala 2N17
1649-026 Lisboa – Portugal
Tel: +351 217 903 067
Fax: +351 217 955 361
http://cea.iscte.pt

facebook.com/CentroEstudosAfricanos
Para deixar de receber informações no seu e-mail: divulgacao.cea@iscte.pt



Tuesday 28 August 2012

Slavery and Revolution - new resource partly based on our archives

We're pleased to promote a new resource, developed by Dr Christer Petley, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Southampton

Slavery and Revolution, is an internet resource for research about Jamaica and Atlantic slavery in the Age of Revolution, which uses a blogging format to showcase excerpts from letters written by Simon Taylor (1738-1813), a slaveholder and plantation owner who lived in Jamaica during a period characterised by revolution, war, and imperial reform.   Taylor wrote from Jamaica to friends, family members, business associates, and political allies in Britain. The letters showcased were written between the 1770s and Taylor’s death. These were years of uncertainty and change for all the inhabitants of the British Caribbean, enslaved and free. They included rebellions and resistance by enslaved people, hurricanes, drought, disruption to trade, the rise of the British abolition movement, the French and Haitian Revolutions, war between Britain and France, the Second Maroon War, civil rights campaigning by free people of colour, and the abolition of the slave trade.
Taylor’s worldview was that of a slaveholder. He perceived Africans as inferior to Europeans and believed that it was his right to treat Africans and their descendants as property, as slaves who he could buy, sell, and put to work as he pleased. He generally saw enslaved people not as human beings but as a source of labour. His comments can make for uncomfortable reading. Nevertheless, his letters are important sources for historical research because of the new light that they can shed on a number of themes, including transformations to empire and slavery during the Age of Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.

The original copies of these letters are held in the UK at Cambridge University Library and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library. The transcriptions appear here with the kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library. Each excerpt is accompanied by the full reference to the item from which it has been drawn in the Vanneck-Arcedeckne collection in Cambridge University Library or the Taylor Family Papers in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library

The website is a free resource, open to anyone. Its contents are intended for use by academics, students, and others to use in their research, teaching, and learning.
Web address: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/slaveryandrevolution/

Follow Slavery and Revolution on Twitter: Slavery & Revolution @SlandRev

Email: c.petley@soton.ac.uk

Friday 24 August 2012

Colonialism and the African diaspora on postcards

Recently pointed out to us is a newish German picture database called "Colonialism and the African diaspora on postcards" (Kolonialismus und afrikanische Diaspora auf Bildpostkarten).

The database was created between 2009 and 2010, at the University of Colonge by PD Dr. J.  Jaeger, Prof. N. Finzsch and Prof. M. Szöllösi-Janze in collaboration with Cologne University Library.

It currently has 3027 digital objects, including many individual and group portraits. Some pictures reflect cultural ideas of the time, that may be seen more critically today, including pictures of minstrels and of erotic poses.
http://www.ub.uni-koeln.de/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Fkolonial

Thursday 23 August 2012

NZ Studies Network Symposium ‘Making a Literary Tradition: E. G. Wakefield, Katherine Mansfield and Vital Narratives’

THE NEW ZEALAND STUDIES NETWORK (UK &IRELAND)


Saturday 29th September, Birkbeck, University of London (room tba)

presents the symposium

‘Making a Literary Tradition: E. G. Wakefield, Katherine Mansfield and Vital Narratives’

Programme

Session 1 10.00 to 12.00 : Philip Temple: ‘Fact or Fiction: The Wakefield Literary Tradition’

                                         Diane Brown: ‘Hooked: Addicted to Narrative’

Session 2 12.30 to 2.00 :  Moira Taylor: ‘Revisiting Katharine Mansfield’

Philip Temple: Philip Temple will discuss the influential colonists, the Wakefield family, the subject of his prize winning study A Sort of Conscience: The Wakefields. He will examine the remarkable sequence of books published over four generations of Wakefields from the late-18th to the mid-19th century, from Priscilla Wakefield's pioneering children's books to Jerningham Wakefield's Adventure in New Zealand and referring to Dickens's debt to Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

Diane Brown, poet, novelist, memoirist and creative writing tutor, will read some new poems, extracts from her novel, Hooked and her prose/ poetic memoir Here Comes Another Vital Moment.

Moira Taylor will recall the winter of 1973-74, the fiftieth anniversary of Katherine Mansfield’s death, and the making of a radio documentary, Her Bright Image, in which three people close to Mansfield search their memories of nearly half a century before to recall the Katherine each knew. The anniversary events include the BBC series which dramatised Mansfield's life and short stories, her hitherto unpublished letters to Bertrand Russell, a celebratory edition of the literary quarterly Adam, and an interview with Vanessa Redgrave, who portrayed Katherine in the BBC series.

to book and avoid disappointment please email info.nzsn@gmail.com

Visit NZSN on http://www.nzstudies.com/

See us on Birkbeck website http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/our-research/centres/new-zealand-studies-at-birkbeck/

Wednesday 22 August 2012

NZ Studies Network - Three poets

THE NEW ZEALAND STUDIES NETWORK (UK &IRELAND)


presents an evening with three poets

Fleur Adcock, Anna Rickerby and Anna Jackson

6.00 to 7.30 Friday September 7th at Birkbeck (room tba)

To book please email info.nzsn@gmail.com; see www.nzstudies.com

Anna Jackson is a poet, fiction writer and academic. She was one of three poetry finalists for the New Zealand Post Book Awards 2012 with her book Thicket. Her poetry was first published in book form in AUP New Poets 1 (AUP, 1999). Since, then Anna has published five collections of poetry as well as authoring and co-editing works of literary criticism and publishing reviews, short fiction and essays on topics ranging from children’s literature to poetics, in journals and anthologies in New Zealand and overseas. She teaches in the English Department at Victoria University of Wellington.

Helen Rickerby’s most recent collection is Heading North (2010).She has also published My Iron Spine (2008) and Abstract Internal Furniture (2001). She was a co founder of the literary journal JAAM in 1995 and since 2005 has been its managing director. In 2004 she started the boutique publishing company Seraph Press. She currently works as a web editor for Te Ara, the online encyclopedia of New Zealand for the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. Helen was born and still lives in Wellington and has an MA in English and a Diploma in Publishing.

Fleur Adcock’s latest book of poetry Dragon Talk (2010) is her 15th since the publication of her first volume in New Zealand in 1964. She has received numerous awards for poetry, including the New Zealand National Book Award (1984), an OBE (1996), the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry (2006) and the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (2008). Fleur was born in Papakura, near Drury, but spent eight years of her childhood, including the war years, in England. Although she returned with her family to New Zealand in 1947, where she married, had children and began publishing her poetry, she came back to the UK in 1963 to settle permanently.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Theses in Progress in Commonwealth Studies



The Institute of Commonwealth Studies’ Register of Commonwealth research is a list of higher degree theses conducted at UK Universities and relating to the Commonwealth of Nations, its member countries, and the former British Empire. The Register has been maintained since 1949 and covers research both in progress and completed; its retrospective coverage extends back to the 1920s.

From the data held in the Register, the Institute compiles and publishes the annual Theses in Progress in Commonwealth Studies as a snapshot of current research on the Commonwealth and Empire in Britain.

The Register, and Theses in Progress, are compiled and maintained as a source of current and past research on the Commonwealth, and also as a point of contact between candidates for higher degrees in British universities.

We are pleased to announce the publication of the 2012 edition which is available on the Institute of Commonwealth Studies website and (direct link) at http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/4515/

Thanks go to Pat Larby, the compiler and editor of the register, for her dedication to and effort on this project.

Monday 20 August 2012

London Metropolitan Archives Film Club - Caribbean Liberation

Caribbean Liberation


Wednesday 22 August,  6pm-7.30pm

FREE DROP-IN EVENT FEATURING FILMS FROM THE ARCHIVES
London Metropolitan Archives, 40, Northampton Road, London, EC1R 0HB www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma
August’s Film Club focuses on Caribbean Liberation, drawing upon the LMA’s records of the Huntley’s, revolutionary black publishers. The LMA will be showing two short documentaries:
  • ‘In the Sky’s Wild Noise’ (1983) focuses on Walter Rodney, the Guyanese historian and political activist; made 3 years after his murder, the film features Rodney speaking on the workers struggle in Guyana, inter-cut with footage of Guyana and Rodney’s funeral.
  • ‘Grenada - Is Freedom We Making’ (1983) focuses on the island and what has happened to it since its 1979 revolution. The documentary examines the economic developments of the nation, the growth of women’s rights and discusses President Reagan’s antipathy toward the nation. The film features interviews with members of farming cooperatives and Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, broadcast just months before he was deposed and executed.

Saturday 18 August 2012

Institute of Commonwealth Studies - Decolonisation Workshops

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies will be running the first of the decolonization workshops for 2012-13 at Senate House on Friday 16 November. The day will run from 10.30am to 7.30pm and will culminate with the launch of Dr Harshan Kumarasingham’s new book, A Political Legacy of the British Empire: Power and the Parliamentary System in Post-Colonial India and Sri Lanka (I.B. Tauris).
As on previous occasions, there will be three panel discussions over the course of the day, followed by the launch. Each panel will consist of three papers lasting for 15-20 minutes.


The Institute welcomes offers of papers on some aspect of twentieth century decolonization, ideally by Friday 24 August and eould also be grateful for any suggestions of established scholars or research students who might be prepared to give papers.

For further information, please contact ics@sas.ac.uk


Thursday 9 August 2012

New books - July 2012 (Part 2)


Following from yesterday's post, a further selection of new books added to the collection in July, including new titles on Pakistan, Barbados and South Africa, and on the "responsibility to protect"    :

Carter, Henderson. Labour pains : resistance and protest in Barbados, 1838-1904. Kingston : Miami : Ian Randle Publishers, 2012


Tremblay, Manon, David Paternotte, and Carol Johnson (eds). The lesbian and gay movement and the state : comparative insights into a transformed relationship. Farnham, Surrey ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, c2011.

Jedwab, Jack and Rodrigue Landry (eds). Life after forty : official languages policy in Canada / Après quarante ans : les politiques de langue officielle au Canada. Kingston, Ont. : School of Policy Studies, Queen's University ; Montreal, Que. ; Kingston, Ont. : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2011.

Gewald, Jan-Bart, Marja Hinfelaar and Giacomo Macola. Living the end of empire : politics and society in late colonial Zambia. Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2011.

De Feyter , Koen et al (eds). The local relevance of human rights. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Lee, Hock Guan and Leo Suryadinata (eds). Malaysian Chinese : recent developments and prospects. Singapore : Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012.

Caccia, Ivana. Managing the Canadian mosaic in wartime : shaping citizenship policy, 1939-1945. Montréal : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2010.

Hansen, Thomas Blom. Melancholia of freedom : social life in an Indian township in South Africa. Princeton, N.J. ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2012.

Puniyani, Ram and Shabnam Hashmi (eds). Mumbai post 26/11 : an alternate perspective. New Delhi, India ; Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage, 2010.

Gayer, Laurent and Christophe Jaffrelot (eds). Muslims in Indian cities : trajectories of marginalisation. New York (N.Y.) : Columbia University Press, 2012.

Ní Aoláin, Fionnuala, Dina Francesca Haynes, and Naomi Cahn. On the frontlines : gender, war, and the post-conflict process. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2011.

Masters, Lesley and Lydsey Duff. Overcoming barriers to climate change adaptation implementation in Southern Africa. Pretoria : Africa Institute of South Africa, 2011.

Kalia, Ravi (ed). Pakistan, from the rhetoric of democracy to the rise of militancy. New Delhi : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011.

Sattar, Abdul. Pakistan's foreign policy, 1947-2009 : a concise history. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2010.

Ernst, Gerhard and Jan-Christoph Heilinger. The philosophy of human rights : contemporary controversies. Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter, c2012.

Siddiqi, Farhan Hanif. The politics of ethnicity in Pakistan : the Baloch, Sindhi and Mohajir ethnic movements. London ; New York : Routledge, 2012.

Mushi, Richard and Maurice Y Mongkuo. Privatization, sustainable economic growth, and human development in developing countries : a case study from Tanzania. Lanham, Md : Lexington Books, 2011.

Onsongo, Jane Kerubo. Promoting gender equity in selected public universities of Kenya. Addis Adaba, Ethiopia : Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, c2011.

Jones, Tiffany Fawn. Psychiatry, mental institutions, and the mad in apartheid South Africa. New York : Routledge, 2012.

Peters, Wolff-Christian. The quest for an African economic community : regional integration and its role in achieving African unity : the case of SADC. Frankfurt am Main : Peter Lang, 2010.

Browne, David V. C. Race, class, politics and the struggle for empowerment in Barbados, 1914-1937. Kingston, Jamaica ; Miami : Ian Randle Publishers, 2012

Lal, Padma Narsey, Reshika Singh, and Paula Holland. Relationship between natural disasters and poverty : a Fiji case study. [Suva, Fiji] : SOPAC, 2009.

Mani, Rama and Thomas G. Weiss. Responsibility to protect : cultural perspectives in the global South. Abingdon, Oxon, England ; New York : Routledge, c2011.
Hoffmann, Julia and André Nollkaemper (eds). Responsibility to protect : from principle to practice. Amsterdam : Pallas Publications, 2012.

Thakur, Ramesh. The responsibility to protect : norms, laws, and the use of force in international politics. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, [England] ; New York : Routledge, c2010.
Kepe, Thembela and Lungisile Ntsebeza (eds). Rural resistance in South Africa : the Mpondo revolts after fifty years. Cape Town : UCT Press, 2012.

Fassbender, Bardo (ed). Securing human rights : achievements and challenges of the UN Security Council. New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.
Hussin Mutalib. Singapore Malays : being ethnic minority and Muslim in a global city-state. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2012.

Watson, R. L. Slave emancipation and racial attitudes in nineteenth-century South Africa. New York ; Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Jones, Stuart and Robert W. Vivian. South African economy and policy, 1990-2000 : an economy in transition. Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press, c2010.

Adejumobi, Said (ed). State, economy, and society in post-military Nigeria. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Datta, Sankar , Orlanda Ruthven and Vipin Sharma (eds). State of India's livelihoods report 2011. Los Angeles : SAGE Publications, 2012.

Skanthakumar , B. (ed). Status of economic, social and cultural rights in Sri Lanka. Colombo : Law & Society Trust : Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reforms, 2011.

Parker, Matthew. The sugar barons. London : Windmill, 2012.

Tonga national population and housing census : preliminary result. Nuku’alofa (Tonga) : Statistics Department Tonga, 2011.

Ogachi, Ibrahim Oanda. Transforming education and development policies for pastoralist communities in Kenya. Addis Ababa : OSSREA, c2011.

Sangster, Joan. Transforming labour : women and work in post-war Canada. Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, c2010.
Yalden, Maxwell. Transforming rights : reflections from the front lines. Toronto : University of Toronto Press, c2009.
Lincoln, Jessica. Transitional justice, peace and accountability : outreach and the role of international courts after conflict. London : New York : Routledge, 2011.

Chowdhury, Elora Halim. Transnationalism reversed : women organizing against gendered violence in Bangladesh. Albany : State University of New York Press, c2011.

Freeman, Marsha A., Christine Chinkin and Beate Rudolf (eds). The UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women : a commentary. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012.
Pilossof, Rory. The unbearable whiteness of being : farmers' voices from Zimbabwe. Harare : Weaver Press ; Cape Town : UCT Press, 2012.

Tijani, Hakeem Ibikunle. Union education in Nigeria : labor, empire, and decolonization since 1945. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Sarfaty, Galit A. Values in translation : human rights and the culture of the World Bank. Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2012.
Meren, David. With friends like these : entangled nationalisms and the Canada-Quebec-France triangle, 1944-1970. Vancouver : UBC Press, c2012.
Sachikonye, Lloyd. Zimbabwe's lost decade : politics, development & society. Harare, Zimbabwe : Weaver Press, c2011.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

New books - July 2012 (Part 1)

A selection of new books added to the catalogue and collection in July. These books include a number of new books on human rights issues, official publications form the Pacific, and an order of Canadian books, including on Canadian indigenous peoples:

Cavell, Janice and Jeff Noakes. Acts of occupation : Canada and Arctic sovereignty, 1918-25. Vancouver : UBC Press, c2010.


Spronk, Rachel. Ambiguous pleasures : sexuality and middle class self-perceptions in Nairobi. New York : Berghahn Books, 2012.
Adhikari, Mohamed. The anatomy of a South African genocide : the extermination of the Cape San peoples. Athens : Ohio University Press, 2011.

Cross, William (ed). Auditing Canadian democracy. Vancouver: UBC Press, c2010.

Austin, Ian Patrick. Australia-Singapore relations : successful bilateral relations in a historical and contemporary context. Singapore : Select Pub. ; Joondalup, Western Australia : Edith Cowan University, c2011.

Gmelch, George. Behind the smile : the working lives of Caribbean tourism. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2012.

Sunseri, Lina. Being again of one mind : Oneida women and the struggle for decolonization. Vancouver : UBC Press, c2011.

Steinberg, Gerald , Anne Herzberg, and Jordan Berman. Best practices for human rights and humanitarian NGO. Leiden ; Boston : Martinus Nijhoff Pub., 2012.

Froese, Marc D. Canada at the WTO : trade litigation and the future of public policy. Toronto : University of Toronto Press, c2010.

Granatstein, J. L. Canada's army : waging war and keeping the peace. Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 2011.

Akuffo, Edward Ansah. Canadian foreign policy in Africa : regional approaches to peace, security, and development. Farnham ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, c2012.

McDonald, Ted et al (eds). Canadian immigration : economic evidence for a dynamic policy environment. Kingston, ON ; Ithaca, N.Y. : School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, c2010.
Sheller, Mimi. Citizenship from below : erotic agency and Caribbean freedom. Durham : Duke University Press, 2012.
Winkler, Harald. Cleaner energy, cooler climate : developing sustainable energy solutions for South Africa. Cape Town : HSRC Press, c2009.
Solomon Islands. National Parliament. Special Select Committee on Privileges, Powers, and Immunities of Parliament. Committee report : inquiry into the preparation of appropriate rules and regulations for prescription by Parliament according to section 69 of the Constitution. [Honiara, Solomon Islands] : National Parliament of Solomon Islands, [2009]

Anand, Sudhir et al. The cost of inaction : case studies from Rwanda and Angola. Boston, Mass. : François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights ; Cambridge, Mass., c2012.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing methodologies : research and indigenous peoples. London : New York, 2012.

Torrent, Mélanie. Diplomacy and nation-building in Africa : Franco-British relations and Cameroon at the end of empire. London : I.B. Tauris, 2012.

Bornstein, Erica. Disquieting gifts : humanitarianism in New Delhi. Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2012.

Early recovery framework : submitted to the Prime Minister of Samoa : 29 September 2009 earthquake and tsunami. [Samoa : Govt. Printer ; Geneva, Switzerland : IASC, 2009]

Lal, Padma Narsey, Rashmi Rita and Neehal Khatri. Economic costs of the 2009 floods in the Fiji sugar belt and policy implications. Gland, Switzerland : IUCN, c2009.

Holst, Frederik. Ethnicization and identity construction in Malaysia. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2012.

Diptee, Audra. From Africa to Jamaica : the making of an Atlantic slave society, 1775-1807. Gainesville : University Press of Florida, c2010.

Pigott, Peter. From far and wide : a complete history of Canada's Arctic sovereignty. Toronto : Dundurn, c2011.

Hofmeyr, Jan (ed). From inequality to inclusive growth : South Africa's pursuit of shared prosperity in extraordinary times. Cape Town, South Africa : Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, [2011?]

Panter-Brick, Simone. Gandhi and nationalism : the path to Indian independence. London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 2012.

Sinclair, James. Gavamani : the Magisterial Service of British New Guinea. Belair, S. Aust. : Crawford House Publishing, 2009.

Bellamy, Alex J. Global politics and the responsibility to protect : from words to deeds. London ; New York : Routledge, c2011.

Nault , Derrick M. and Shawn L. England (eds). Globalization and human rights in the developing world. Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Cushman, Thomas (ed). Handbook of human rights. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2012.

Chazan, May et al. (eds). Home and native land : unsettling multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto : Between the Lines, 2011.

Nystuen, Gro, Andreas Follesda and Ola Mestad (eds). Human rights, corporate complicity and disinvestment. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Davis , Thomas W. D. and Brian Galligan (eds). Human Rights in Asia. Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA : Edward Elgar, c2011.

Forsythe, David P. Human rights in international relations. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Tambakaki, Paulina. Human rights, or citizenship? Abingdon ; New York : Birkbeck Law Press, 2010.

Westra, Laura. Human rights : the commons and the collective. Vancouver : UBC Press, c2011.

Weiss, Thomas George. Humanitarian intervention : ideas in action. Cambridge, U.K. ; Malden, Mass. : Polity Press, c2012

Magone, Claire, Michael Neuman and Fabrice Weissman (eds). Humanitarian negotiations revealed : the MSF experience. London : Hurst & Co., 2011.

Thompson, Andrew S. In defence of principles : NGOs and human rights in Canada. Vancouver : UBC Press, c2010.

India Infrastructure Report 2011 Water: Policy and Performance for Sustainable Development. New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2012.

Majumdar, Sumit K. India's late, late industrial revolution : democratizing entrepreneurship. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, c2012.

Bhagwati, Jagdish and Arvind Panagariya (eds). India's reforms : how they produced inclusive growth. New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, c2012.

Pulitano , Elvira (ed). Indigenous rights in the age of the UN declaration. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Viljoen, Frans. International human rights law in Africa. Oxford, U.K. : Oxford University Press, 2012.

Neier, Aryeh. The international human rights movement : a history. Princeton, N.J. ; Woodstock : Princeton University Press, c2012.

Edmundson, William A. An introduction to rights. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Carmody, Chios (ed). Is our house in order? : Canada's implementation of international law. Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2010.

Laremont, Ricardo René. Islamic law and politics in Northern Nigeria. Trenton NJ : Africa World Press, 2011.

Lynch, Hollis Ralph. K.O. Mbadiwe : a Nigerian political biography, 1915-1990. New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Tuesday 7 August 2012

National Archives celebrates 50 years of Caribbean independence

To commemorate 50 years of Jamaican and Trinidadian independence, The National Archives is publishing images from the Colonial Office photographic collection on Flickr, the photo sharing website.


The National Archives will be uploading images from nearly 20 countries from Monday, the anniversary of Jamaica's independence, to 31 August, the anniversary of the independence of Trinidad and Tobago.

Visit the Caribbean collection on Flickr to view the images. New countries will be added each week day, beginning with Antigua (8 August) and the Bahamas (9 August).

The hugely diverse collection spans the colonial period and the National Archives will continue to augment it over the course of this year with images from the Central Office of Information collection (catalogue reference: INF 10) to produce a unique resource for Caribbean history.

Some of images remain unidentified, so if you recognise people, places or incidents not in the descriptions, please let them knows in the comments section below the images

Monday 6 August 2012

South African Theses and Dissertations

The National ETD Portal South Africa: South African Theses and Dissertations

http://www.netd.ac.za/

is run by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) in collaboration with the Committee of Higher Education Librarians of South Africa (CHELSA).

The database provides access to abstracts of and the full text of many thousands of doctoral PhD and some other (e.g. MA) dissertations produced in South African universities. These cover the full range of science, social science and humanities topics. There is some coverage from as early as the 1970s although there are larger numbers of post 2009 records. Search  is by keyword or browsing title, institution or year.
Access to the full text is through clicking on the Identifier in the Abstract record

Friday 3 August 2012

CFP: 45th Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians - Belize, May 2013

The 45th Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians will be held in Ambergris Caye, Belize, from Sunday, May 12, to Friday, May 17, 2013.


Information about how to propose either an individual paper or a panel, along with the forms for each, is posted online at the ACH website http://www.associationofcaribbeanhistorians.org (look under "Annual Meeting"). There were a record number of new presenters at the 2012 Curaçao conference.

More information about proposed conference topics and information about the ACH prizes (including the Elsa Goveia Book Prize and the Gould-Saunders Memorial Endowment Travel Fund Award) appear online as well under Prizes and Fellowships.

All proposals are due to the ACH Secretary-Treasurer by October 1, 2012.

United Kingdom - Belize Association (UKBA) 15th Annual Conference


United Kingdom - Belize Association (UKBA)
Presents the 15th Annual Conference

Research in Belize
Friday 28th September 2012, 12.00 -17.00 hrs
at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

The annual meeting of the UK Belize Association will be held in Edinburgh on Friday 28th September, 2012, from noon to 5pm. There will be an informal gathering following the seminar presentations on the Friday evening, and accommodation can be arranged for those who wish to stay overnight. The venue will be at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh - a buffet lunch, refreshments and afternoon coffee/tea will be offered, with a small charge of c. £20 to cover all costs.

Full details of the programme will be made available shortly, including registration and optional accommodation details.

** If you would like to present your research on Belize at this meeting, please contact Chris Minty (email: cminty@rbge.org.uk) by 31 August 2012 at the latest, with your name, affiliation and a provisional title for your presentation **

Thursday 2 August 2012

Institute of Commonwealth Studies/OSPA Witness Seminars

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies is delighted to announce that the fourth Occasional Paper of the OSPA Research Project at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies has been published.
This Occasional Paper is a written transcript of the proceedings of the ICwS-OSPA Witness Seminar ‘The Westminster Model and Representative Government in the Era of Decolonisation’, which took place on the 25th May 2011. The transcript puts on permanent public record the primary evidence of OSPA members along with other views and experiences of British decolonisation in the 20th century. This publication is available from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies for £5.00.


To order this publication or for further information, please email Robert Kenyon: Robert.kenyon@sas.ac.uk or post a cheque (including your return address and a note on how many copies you are ordering) to:

Robert Kenyon
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

Further published transcripts of later Witness Seminars will be made available in due course.


The next ICwS-OSPA Witness seminar is on Localisation of the Civil Service in Colonial Territories Before and Immediately After Independence and will take place on Thursday 25th October 2012.

Event Programme

To register and pay online for this event, please click here.

Registration form

Venue: The Senate Room (Senate House, First Floor)
Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

For further information, please contact ics@sas.ac.uk

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Americas through a lens - National Archives photographs

You can now view hundreds of Americas photos from the National Archives CO 1069 collection online. They capture scenes from Canada to Belize, Trinidad to the South Shetland Isles, and span more than 100 years.




The images are from the Colonial Office's Photographic Collection and include some of the earliest known photographic depictions of Canada dating back to the 1850s. Some of the images have accompanying background information to give them context, but many do not.

The photographs have been uploaded to the photo-sharing website Flickr so that you can tag and contribute comments and suggestions to help improve the descriptions.

The latest online release of pictures from the Colonial Office collection follows the successful launch last year of Africa through a lens - an online showcase for the African images in the collection. The project was inspired by Project Naming, a Library and Archives Canada (LAC) initiative to help identify Inuit portrayed in its own photographic collection.