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 )

Britain Zimbabwe Society’s Annual Research Day 2012 ‘Zimbabwe and the Region’

The Britain Zimbabwe Society’s annual research day will be held on the 16th June at St. Antony’s College, Oxford (corner of Woodstock/Bevington Road, North Oxford, OX2 6JF).

This year participants will explore the historical and contemporary connections between Zimbabwe and her neighbours. The southern African region, broadly conceived, has a rich and inter-connected history of social, cultural and political movements which transcend national boundaries. During the pre-colonial era, polities and territorial cults cut across areas of land later divided by colonial borders. Colonialism also opened up areas of southern Africa to a greater degree of demographic mobility, producing a rich cultural and political heritage. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the various liberation struggles of southern Africa were closely connected through the formation of governments in exile, expressions of solidarity between nationalist/revolutionary parties, and the establishment of military training camps and bases across borders. Since independence many of these histories have been overshadowed by new political concerns with national security, immigration, and citizenship rights. Still, families, religious groups, economic and political networks continue to stretch across and beyond Zimbabwe’s borders. More recently, as events in Zimbabwe have impacted on the wider region, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has come to play a key role in negotiations to resolve the political impasse.

We are pleased to announce our keynote speakers this year will be Professor Jack Spence, OBE (King’s College London) and Professor Welshman Ncube (Zimbabwe Minister for Commerce and Trade - tbc).

Other speakers include: Timothy Scarnecchia; Joseph Mujere; Francis Musoni; Maxim Bolt; Blessing-Miles Tendi; Andrew Mutandwa; Jocelyn Alexander; Hugh Macmillan; JoAnn McGregor; Tinashe Nyamunda and Ushehwedu Kufakurinani.

Publishers Zed Books (Africa Now, African Arguments and Africa in the New Millennium Series) and James Currey will be selling a selection of their books throughout the day and the event will conclude with a book launch and drinks reception.
Registration fees (for attendance only): £30 standard; £20 BZS members; £15 students and unwaged. To register in advance please contact Marieke Clarke: mariekefclarke@pop3.poptel.org.uk

Registration and payments can be made on the day. Unfortunately, the BZS cannot accept credit or debit card payments.

Britain Zimbabwe Society's Annual Research Day 2012

Britain Zimbabwe Society's Annual Research Day 2012


The Britain Zimbabwe Society’s annual research day will be held on the 16th June at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford and will showcase research on ‘Zimbabwe and the Region’. The research day is an annual event focusing on academic research, but invites contributions from other practitioners to provide a wider context for academic papers. Priority is given to researchers from Zimbabwe and doctoral students working on related topics. Academics and non-academics are equally welcome.

This year participants will explore the historical and contemporary connections between Zimbabwe and her neighbours through a series of panels arranged around the following broad areas:

● the making of Zimbabwean identity, regional comparisons and contrasts ● cross-border identities, movements and connections during the liberation struggle ● Zimbabwe, SADC and the region’s role in resolving the recent political impasse ● Zimbabwe, the region and beyond

The southern African region, broadly conceived, has a rich and inter-connected history of social, cultural and political movements which transcend national boundaries. During the pre-colonial era, polities and territorial cults cut across areas of land later divided by colonial borders. Colonialism also opened up areas of southern Africa to a greater degree of demographic mobility, producing a rich cultural and political heritage. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the various liberation struggles of southern Africa were closely connected through the formation of governments in exile, expressions of solidarity between nationalist/revolutionary parties, and the establishment of military training camps and bases across borders.

Since independence many of these histories have been overshadowed by new political concerns with national security, immigration, and citizenship rights. Still, families, religious groups, economic and political networks continue to stretch across and beyond Zimbabwe’s borders. More recently, as events in Zimbabwe have impacted on the wider region, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has come to play a key role in negotiations to resolve the political impasse.

Would those interested in participating please contact either of the organizers below:
Dr. Zoë Groves - groves.zoe@googlemail.com Dr. Blessing-Miles Tendi - miles.tendi@sant.oxon.org

Other possible topics include: Pre-colonial territorial cults and polities; migration; British South Africa Company rule; South Africa and post-independence destabilization; trade; land reform; literature and culture.

For further information, please go to: http://www.britain-zimbabwe.org.uk/

Culture and Conflict - call for projects and research proposals

The Prince Claus Fund and the Commonwealth Foundation are calling for high quality, multi-disciplinary and innovative project proposals from civil society organisations addressing the issue of culture and conflict, within the framework of the Culture and Conflict Programme.


Grants will be awarded to civil society organisations in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Organisations should submit a proposal for the development and delivery of activities that use culture as a way of engaging with local communities. Projects should also include a tangible output that captures the experiences of the participants and highlights the impact of the project.

The Prince Claus Fund and the Commonwealth Foundation are also calling for high quality and innovative research proposals from individuals exploring the role of culture in conflict and post-conflict situations, within the framework of its Culture and Conflict programme.


Two researchers will be appointed with responsibility for examining arts and culture-led initiatives for conflict resolution, including the work of the Culture and Conflict Programme grant recipients in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. One researcher will be appointed from Africa and another from Asia.

Applicants should have proven professional research experience or practice in the field of culture and conflict and/or development.

All applications and queries should be sent to: h.thomas@commonwealth.int

Deadline: 27 January 2012, 17:00 (GMT)

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

African Arguments

African Arguments is hosted by the Royal African Society and the Social Science Research Council. This online discussion forum was launched in 2009 as a multiblogging site to supplement the African Arguments book series, edited jointly by Alex de Waal and Richard Dowden. Published by Zed Books in the U.K. and Palgrave Macmillan in the U.S.A. it aims to offer online discussion of controversies facing Africa. These include politics, globalisation, terrorism and international security. The site covers both contemporary African events as they unfold, and develops debates on themes centrally important to an ever changing continent.

Each debate will consist of many individual ‘arguments’ – the first contribution being commissioned from an expert on the theme. Responses are then invited, and will be moderated by the editor.

The site currently has country-specific debates on Sudan and Zimbabwe, thematic discussions on development policy and Asian involvement in the continent, as well as a rolling news-based commentary on contemporary political affairs.

Education in Zimbabwe

The Britain Zimbabwe Society/Oxford African Studies Centre annual Research Day this year is on the topic of Education in Zimbabwe.

It will be held at St Antony's College, Oxford on 18th June 2011.


The Research Day is an annual event that focuses on academic research, but includes other practitioners to provide a wider context for the academic papers. It gives priority to researchers from Zimbabwe and to doctoral students in need of a supportive, informed environment in which to introduce their work. Academics and non-academics are equally welcome. There is a long lunch-hour to allow plenty of time for networking, and the day will be preceded this year by a book launch on the Friday evening.

The panels will cover:
- education in schools;
- the historical and contemporary role of universities;
- global links in the provision and accreditation of education and skills training; and
- the growing role of the military in providing education and training.

Invited speakers include Dr Teresa Barnes, Assoc Professor History Dept, UIUC; Dr Gerald Mazarire, Head of History at University of Zimbawe; Dr Elaosi Vhurumuku, lecturer in Science and Science Teaching at Wits University; and Mrs Nomathemba Neseni-Nyoni, Executive Director of the Institute of Water and Sanitation, ZW.

Further information at http://www.britain-zimbabwe.org.uk/

Archive Cataloguing project: Catholic Institute for International Relations

The ULRLS commences an exciting new archives cataloguing project this week, which will provide improved access to the papers of the Catholic Institute for International Relations. These papers relate to Southern Africa, Sri Lanka, and Latin America, and were recently deposited with the libraries of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas. A one-day conference is planned as part of this project, looking at the role of NGOs in development and resources for the study of such NGOs. The ULRLS is grateful to the Vice Chancellor's Development Fund, which has funded this project.

We are therefore delighted to welcome Jane Kirby who has taken up the archives cataloguing post for this project. Jane joins us having just completed a project at the Wellcome Library.

New Online Exhibition - Rhodesia UDI 1965

This new online exhibition showcases some of the materials within our Archives and Special Collections relating to Rhodesia and its unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) in 1965. The exhibition examines the following themes: The Road to UDI, Sanctions, African Nationalists, Reactions from the Commonwealth, and events after UDI.

The aim of this online exhibition is to promote the potential of archives and encourage existing, new and different users to experience all that archives have to offer. View the exhibition

Image: The President of U.A.N.C.: Bishop Abel Tendekai Muzorewa, 1980 Election poster