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.

Map Kibera - Community Mapping in Nairobi, Kenya

Map Kibera


http://mapkibera.org/

Map Kibera is a fascinating example of citizens and aid agencies using social media for community empowerment and development.

Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, is a city suburb, which since 2009 has been creating a free open map of facilities and providing news services for local citizens and community activists. Kibera is the largest slum in Africa, situated in Nairobi, Kenya. Many UN agencies, including UN-HABITAT, US Government agencies such as USAID, and NGOs, have presences nearby in Nairobi, and as a result, Kibera is one of the most well known, researched, and serviced slums anywhere. Despite this focus, Kibera was literally a blank spot on the map, its patterns of traffic, scarce water resources, limited medial facilities, etc. remained invisible to the outside world, and residents themselves. Without a basic knowledge of the geography of Kibera it is impossible to have an informed discussion on how to improve the lives of the residents of Kibera.


In November 2009, local young people learned to create maps using OpenStreetMap techniques. This included surveying with GPS, and digitization of satellite imagery and paper based annotation with Walking Papers. The work has been ongoing since, with the support of local community members and financial support from a number of agencies. In April 2010, Map Kibera started two media and local news reporting groups formed to elaborate on information in Kibera. Kibera News Network uses handheld Flip video cameras to record local news and stories and edit videos to post on Youtube and share in the community.Voice of Kibera uses Ushahidi software to map local stories and reports onto the Kibera map, and serve as a local information hub. Both groups are led by Kibera youth.

The project blog  provides descriptions of the implementation of the project which discusses the uses and promotion of mapping technology. The project wiki provides an ovierview of the project and details of plans and project documentation.

Index to Kenyan newspaper articles

Indexkenya.org is an online index of articles published in Nairobi newspapers. The focus of the articles indexed includes culture, law/governance, reproductive health, and other topics about which information is difficult to obtain. The index aims to selectively index details of articles published since 1980. The actual content of an article is not provided, rather online citations describing the articles. Hard copy of any article indexed can be ordered directly from the Kenya Indexing Project. This database will be updated on a regular basis.

The index selectively coveres four newspapers published in Nairobi since 1980. These are the Daily Nation, East African, East African Standard and The People. The database is being created by a project team which has received finance from the Ford Foundation and short term funding from the International Development Research Centre to index legal articles.

New journal issue of Journal of Southern African Studies with focus on Histories and Legacies of Punishment in Southern Africa

Newly available (in both print and electronic access) and with a special focus on the history and legacies of punishment is the following journal issue:

Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, 01 Sep 2011
This new issue contains the following articles:

"Introduction: Histories and Legacies of Punishment in Southern Africa", Jocelyn Alexander & Gary Kynoch

"Defining Crime through Punishment: Sexual Assault in the Eastern Cape, c.1835–1900", Elizabeth Thornberry

"Law, Violence and Penal Reform: State Responses to Crime and Disorder in Colonial Malawi, c.1900–1959", Stacey Hynd

"Repression and Migration: Forced Labour Exile of Mozambicans to São Tomé, 1948–1955", Zachary Kagan-Guthrie

"Of Compounds and Cellblocks: The Foundations of Violence in Johannesburg, 1890s–1950s",
Gary Kynoch

"Punishment, Race and ‘The Raw Native’: Settler Society and Kenya's Flogging Scandals, 1895–1930",
David M. Anderson

"Containing the ‘Wandering Native’: Racial Jurisdiction and the Liberal Politics of Prison Reform in 1940s South Africa", Kelly Gillespie

"The Limits of Penal Reform: Punishing Children and Young Offenders in South Africa and Nigeria (1930s to 1960)", Laurent Fourchard

"In the Shadow of Mau Mau: Detainees and Detention Camps during Nyasaland's State of Emergency", John McCracken

"Nationalism and Self-government in Rhodesian Detention: Gonakudzingwa, 1964–1974", Jocelyn Alexander

"Discipline and Punishment in ZANLA: 1964–1979", Gerald Chikozho Mazarire

"State Discourse on Internal Security and the Politics of Punishment in Post-Independence Mozambique (1975–1983)", Benedito Luís Machava

"‘Entering the Red Sands’: The Corporality of Punishment and Imprisonment in Chimoio, Mozambique", Bjørn Enge Bertelsen

"Deviance, Punishment and Logics of Subjectification during Apartheid: Insane, Political and Common-law Prisoners in a South African Gaol", Natacha Filippi

Wellcome Library - African posters on health

The Wellcome Library has acquired a substantial number (over a thousand) posters published in thirty African countries to promote health and wellbeing. Dating from 1993 to 2010, they were collected in the latter year from the following countries:


Burkina Faso; Benin; Cameroon; Congo (from 1997); Djibouti; Egypt; Ethiopia; Gambia; Ghana; Guinea Bissau; Ivory Coast; Kenya; Liberia; Madagascar; Malawi; Mali; Mauritius; Morocco; Mozambique; Nigeria; Rwanda; Senegal; South Africa; Sudan; Tanzania; Tunisia; Uganda; Zaire (up to 1997); Zambia; Zimbabwe.

The best represented countries are Ethiopia (286), Kenya (219), Nigeria (130) and Tanzania (120). Some of the subjects represented:

Contraception and reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, "backyard abortion", breast feeding, weighing babies, child health centres, vitamins, vaccination, African traditional medicine, protection against communicable diseases including: polio, malaria, AIDS, schistosomiasis, food poisoning, nematode infections, tuberculosis, bird flu, and rodent-borne diseases; and against toxic pesticides and diarrhoea, as well as smoking, spitting, female genital mutilation, tattooing, general health education, environmental pollution, men's and women's roles in preserving health, the health of orphans, the health of camels, appeals to Islamic and Christian values and images, individual responsibility, child abuse, and activism.

The Wellcome Library has started cataloguing the collection with brief, first-draft catalogue records. Individual items will become available in the Library as they are catalogued, but in the meantime anyone wants to see works from a particular country may see them in the Wellcome Library by ordering them from the online catalogue.

The Wellcome's blog post about the collection can be seen here

Africa through a lens

Africa through a lens is a set of thousands of images taken from a broader photographic collection of Foreign and Commonwealth Office images, held at The National Archives. Starting with some incredible early photographs from the 1860s, the images span over 100 years of African history. These images are now available, for the first time, to view online at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/africa/.



The website includes podcasts looking at the origins and aims of the project; a focus on Nigeria; Africa through a lens, discussing photography and image making; and finally a podcast on conserving the images. Users can tag images on Flickr to add information about these as not all are captioned, and the captions are representative of the time they were taken (and not necessarily captions we would use today).

Particular strengths in coverage include South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Zanzibar and Tanzania

Institute of Commonwealth Studies Decolonization Research Seminar

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Decolonization Research Seminar

Autumn Term 2010

5.30-7.00 pm
Room G35, Senate House, Malet Street, London

Mon. 11 Oct:
Rory Cormac (King’s College, London) ‘The Joint Intelligence Committee and Colonial Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire’

Gregor Davey (King’s College, London) ‘Professional factors affecting the activity and machinery of the 'Imperial' intelligence system 1948-1956’

Mon. 25 Oct:
A discussion of Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, War and Decolonization (CUP, 2009) by Daniel Branch. Discussants: Dr Joanna Lewis (LSE) and Professor David Anderson (University of Oxford). Response by Dr Daniel Branch

Mon. 22 Nov:
Professor Martin Thomas (University of Exeter) ‘Oil and Order: Repressive Violence in Trinidad’s Oilfields before 1939’.

'Negotiating with the ‘Enemy’: perspectives past and present - 24th September 2010

University of London School of Advanced Study, Institute of Commonwealth Studies-Open University Empire and Postcolonial Group and Ferguson Centre for African & Asian Studies

Workshops on Counterinsurgency and Colonialism


'Negotiating with the ‘Enemy’: perspectives past and present

Friday 24 September 2010

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Venue: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of
London, Court Room, South Block, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU

Theme:

Counterinsurgency, 'homeland security' and 'The War on Terror' have led to a renewed interest in historical case studies of counterinsurgency, including case studies from the British Empire and Commonwealth. There has been debate in the US and UK of military
strategies, 'winning hearts and minds', and policing for international operations. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the peace process in Northern Ireland, demonstrate that another, relatively neglected area can have a major impact on such campaigns. This is the 'negotiation' with, and 'persuasion' of, militant elites and their key civilian supporters. The Northern Ireland peace process was developed through complex, often secret, contacts. The Iraqi insurgency was turned around as much through the 'Anbar Awakening' as by a 'surge' and new counterinsurgency policy. The question of how to negotiate, persuade and buy over Taliban leaders and supporters came to the fore in Afghanistan policy in 2009-10. This workshop will look at a variety of ways and contexts, contemporary and historical, in which 'enemy' leaders (military and civilian) have been targeted for persuasion and negotiation.

Enquires: To apply to attend without a paper please email Troy Rutt: Troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk

Programme

Registration 9.00-9.15

Opening 9.15-9.30

Session 1 9.30-11.00 Negotiating with tribal societies – AfPak perspectives

• Negotiating Frontier Relations: Britain & Wazistan (Hugh Beattie, Open University) Discussant: TBC
• The Political Officer: Managing the Pashtun tribes of the NW Frontier of India 1901-1947 (Chris Tripodi, Kings College London, DSD) Discussant: TBC
• Pashtun Perspectives on negotiating with the Soviets & British, 1839-1987 (Rob Johnson, Oxford University) Discussant: John Bew

Tea 11.00-11.15

Session 2 11.15-12.45 Levels of Negotiation: surrender & loyalty transfer

• Negotiating with Mau Mau: pseudo-gangs and surrender schemes, 1952-56 (Huw Bennett, King’s College London) Discussant: Karl Hack.
• Communist perspectives on coming to terms with the British & semi-autonomous local politicians: Malaya 1948-60’ (Karl Hack, Open University). Discussant: TBC.

Lunch 12.45-1.45

Session 3 1.45-3.15 Covert peacemaking: Northern Ireland experiences

• Covert peacemaking: Clandestine Negotiations &Backchannels with the IRA during the early ‘Troubles’, 1972-76 (Andrew Mumford, University of Hull) Discussant: TBC
• Behind the Scenes: Negotiating with Republicans & Loyalists and the Northern Ireland Peace Process, 1980s-90s (Paul Dixon, Kingston University) Discussant: TBC.

Tea 3.15-3.30

Session 4 3.30-5.00 Paradoxes, Paradigms and Problems

• The Northern Ireland model re-examined: conditions for successful negotiation (John Bew, Kings College London) Discussant: Paul Dixon
• The Paradoxes of Negotiation (Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Bart Schuurman, Utrecht University, Netherlands) Discussant: TBC.

Roundtable/overview 5.00-5.30

For further details see the full programme.