Showing posts with label Cyprus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cyprus. Show all posts

Thursday, 25 October 2012

Commonwealth Research Seminar Series

Commonwealth Research Seminar Series


All seminars are on Wednesdays and begin at 1730

TERM 1

14 November 2012
Ben Muda, Commonwealth Business Council, London: Malaysia at Fifty: The Commonwealth in Malaysia's Foreign Policy
Filippo Menozzi, University of Canterbury, Kent, The Boundaries of Politics: Arundhati Roy's Transversal Activism

12 December 2012
Lanver Mak, Visiting Fellow ICwS, Unveiling the Veiled Protectorate: The Untold Stories of British Labourers and Criminals in Egypt, 1882-1922
Maria Mut Bosque, Visiting Fellow and PhD student, ICwS, Gibraltar: National Identity and Language Issues

TERM 2

16 January 2013
Peter Fraser, Visiting Fellow ICwS: An exemplary life: Arnold Hamilton Maloney and Trinidadian intellectual history
Giorgios Charalambous, Visiting Fellow ICwS: The Cypriot Left in Government: A Preliminary Assessment

13 February 2013

Bill Clarance, Visitng Fellow ICwS: Understanding Leonard Woolf : his role in decolonization
Paulo Rigueira, Doctoral Student ICwS: Globalisation & Human Rights: A Conceptual Approach


13 March 2013

Mandy Banton. Senior Fellow ICwS: Title TBA
Yiannos Katsourides, Visiting Fellow ICwS: Political conflicts in Cyprus in the 1940s and 1950s


TERM 3

17 April 2013
Abess Taqi, Doctoral student, ICwS: Arab perspectives on Western efforts to promote democratic reform in the Arab world
Sue Onslow, Senior Fellow ICwS, The Commonwealth & election monitoring: the Zimbabwe success story?

15 May 2013
Shihan de Silva, Senior Fellow ICwS: Connecting the Portuguese Burghers to the Commonwealth and Beyond: Language Matters
John Cowley, Fellow ICwS: Numberless Are The Sands On The Seashore : 'The Real Bahamas' and the field recording experience (1935-1965)

12 June 2013
Susan Williams, Senior Fellow ICwS, and Dr Luke McKernan, Lead Curator, Moving Image, The British Library: The screening of decolonisation: from book to film

Convenors: Susan Williams (susan.williams@sas.ac.uk) and Shihan de Silva (shihan.desilva@sas.ac.uk )



Friday, 27 July 2012

Second tranche of "migrated archives" released

The National Archives and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) continue to transfer and release the colonial administration records, referred to as the 'migrated archives'. While it has been questioned how much new information is contained in these records, the records provide some insight into and have braodened knowledge about British policy and actions at "the end of Empire".
The second tranche of colonial administration records is now available to view in the reading rooms at The National Archives. This release contains records from Basutoland, the Cameroons, Ceylon, Cyprus, Fiji, the Gambia, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and Gold Coast.

A guide to the newly-released files has been published on The National Archives' website and provides more information on how to search the records.

Guide to the second tranche of records (PDF, 0.35Mb)

The collection is part of record series FCO 141: Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Records of Former Colonial Administrations: Migrated Archives, and the records cover a wide range of subject matter relating to colonial administration, reflecting events in the territories generally pre-independence, and Her Majesty's Government's views at that time.

Thursday, 29 March 2012

Colonial administration records (migrated archives) to be released to The National Archives

The National Archives is working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to transfer and begin releasing colonial administration records, referred to as the 'migrated archives' between April 2012 and November 2013, in accordance with FCO's published timeline on the FCO website.

The first batch will be made available in the reading rooms at The National Archives from Wednesday 18 April 2012. This release will contain records from Aden, Anguilla, Bahamas, Basutoland. Bechuanaland, British Indian Ocean Territories, Brunei, Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, Sarawak and Seychelles.

On Wednesday 18 April 2012, a guide to the first batch of files will be published on The National Archives website and will provide more information on how to search the records.

In addition, there will be free public talks on accessing the records in the reading rooms at Kew at 11:00 and 14:00. Tickets are available on site on 18 April.

The collection will form record series FCO 141: Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Records of Former Colonial Administrations: Migrated Archives.

The records cover a wide range of subject matter relating to colonial administration. The material reflects events in the territories generally pre-independence and Her Majesty's Government's views at that time.

For up to date information about the records and ongoing release, see the National Archives' Colonial administration records web page.

Monday, 3 October 2011

CFP: From Strangers to Partners? The Commonwealth of Nations and the European Union

From Strangers to Partners? The Commonwealth of Nations and the European Union


23 March 2012 - Strasbourg

One-day conference organised by the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (IEP), Strasbourg, and Université Paris Diderot

The early history of relations between the Commonwealth and Europe is to be read in the light of Britain's own relations with the European Economic Community. As Britain twice applied and twice faced the French veto in the 1960s, the Commonwealth of Nations evolved radically. From an association essentially defined through its relationship with the ex-imperial power, the Commonwealth expanded as decolonisation gathered pace, was given a Secretariat in 1965 and Arnold Smith, the first Secretary General, contributed greatly to the assertion of an independent Commonwealth voice, determined to mark its relevance in a rapidly changing world.

The Commonwealth of Nations issued its first declaration of principles in January 1971, as Britain finally progressed towards EEC membership and officially joined in January 1973. For British foreign policy, the Commonwealth and Europe had long represented conflicting attractions and the determination to conciliate both sets of partners had initially been a seemingly insoluble dilemma. While the two spheres retained their specificities, they now intersected, not only through Britain, but through the association of a number of ex-British territories in the 1975 Lomé Convention and the later joint membership of Cyprus and Malta. Is the EU one of the "strategic partners" of the Commonwealth in its actions for development and democracy? To what extent do values converge? To what extent does the Commonwealth have any influence on EU development policies? How can the past and present framework for consultation between the EU and the Commonwealth be understood - and is there scope for improvement? At a time when tensions between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat partners of the coalition government in London have hit the headlines on European issues, and when Foreign Secretary William Hague has called for the reinvigoration of the Commonwealth, understanding current cooperation networks and possible ventures seems an essential undertaking.

The work of the conference will be articulated around two major themes:

1) Connecting institutional pasts

Possible topics for papers include:

- British foreign policy and diplomacy in Commonwealth and European circles: mutual influences, evolving interests and shifting identities
- The impact of Britain's application to the EEC, and membership of the EEC/EU on Commonwealth ties
- The role of Cyprus and Malta in bringing both organisations closer together and as vehicles for common understanding
- Intra-Commonwealth divisions on European relations

2) Present Dynamics and Future Cooperation

Possible topics for papers include:
- Lobbying and co-operation in multilateral organisations
- The articulation of Commonwealth policies and EU policies outside Europe (in the Pacific and the Caribbean where some territories are part of the EU, but also in Africa)
- European and Commonwealth approaches to development
- The scope for cooperation in democratic processes, from election observation to institution building
- Commonwealth and La Francophonie cross-influences in the EU, and the impact of Britain and France's imperial past on EU policies in developing countries.

This conference follows two previous conferences held at Université Paris Diderot in 2009 (The Commonwealth of Nations: a force for democracy?) and 2010 (The Commonwealth@60: identity and relevance in perspective).

Proposals (max. 500 words) and a short biography should be sent to the organisers, Ron Leask, Virginie Roiron and Mélanie Torrent (cweu2012@gmail.com) no later than 15 November 2011.

Participants are expected to cover their travel and accommodation expenses.

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Cyprus digital resources - Council of Historical Memory of the Liberation Struggle of EOKA

Council of Historical Memory of the Liberation Struggle of EOKA

1955-1959 (SIMAE) archives

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library has strong collections of books and other materials on the recent history of Cyprus, one of the European Commonwealth countries, and has supported a number of researchers, including Institute of Commonwealth Studies doctoral students, examining aspects of the history of Cyprus in the pre- and post-independence era. Our own collections are supplemented by material elsewhere including a new digital resource.

The Council of Historical Memory of the Liberation Struggle of EOKA 1955-1959 (SIMAE) archives  forms part of the University of Cyprus digital library. It provides information and access to a selection of online documents from the archives of the Council for the Historical Memory of EOKA 1955-1959.

EOKA (the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) was active from 1955 to 1959. Its members were Greek-Cypriots, who aimed by means of guerrilla warfare to rid the island of British rule and unite Cyprus with Greece. The materials included in this collection include online pamphlets and documents, video film clips with former members, historic photographs of events and members and oral history interviews. At the time of writing the collection consists of 2.140 photographs, 28 printed publications, 530 audio tapes and 75 videotapes Topics covered include the political history of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios and relations between Britain and Cyprus. Some materials are in Greek only.

Monday, 14 June 2010

New archives catalogue available in PDF format - Colin Legum

As part of our rolling project to add PDF attachments of existing finding aids to the online archives catalogue we're pleased to announce that we have drawn together a number of lists for the Colin Legum collection.

Colin Legum was born in 1919. In 1934 Colin Legum began working at the Sunday Express in Johannesburg. Later he became the newspaper's political correspondent. He joined the South African Labour Party and, in 1942, was elected to the Johannesburg City Council. From the mid-1950s to the mid 1980s he reported on foreign affairs for the UK's Observer. In 1960 he married Margaret Jean Roberts. In 1964 Colin and Margaret Legum published South Africa: Crisis for the West, in which they argued for economic sanctions against the South African government to bring an end to apartheid. In 1968 Colin Legum became editor of the annual Africa Contemporary Record. Legum was the author of over 20 books including Pan-Africanism: A Brief History (1962), and Africa: A Handbook of the Continent (1962).


In 1991, the Legums returned to South Africa from Great Britain. In 1999 Colin Legum authored and published Africa Since Independence.


Colin Legum died on 8 July 2003, aged 84. He was survived by his wife (who died in 2007), three daughters and grandchildren.

The collection of papers held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library comprises of papers acquired by Colin Legum on Cyprus, Aden, Malta, and Commonwealth matters, 1950-1977, and include research material, newspaper clippings, articles, notes and correspondence covering the three countries listed as well as Commonwealth discussions on Rhodesia. The material covers an important period in the history of decolonisation. A complete list of material held in this collection, can now be found attached within the ULRLS archives catalogue entry for this collection.

The bulk of Colin Legum's papers were later donated to and are available at Edinburgh University Library.