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

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

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.

Cultures of Decolonisation, c.1945-1970 symposium, 30 May 2012 - 31 May 2012

Registration is now open for the Cultures of Decolonisation, c.1945-1970 symposium, 30 May 2012 - 31 May 2012 to be held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Senate House, London.


Keynote Speaker: Dr Bill Schwarz

Convenors: Claire Wintle (University of Brighton) and Ruth Craggs (St Mary’s University College) Registration fee: £35 (includes lunch and refreshments for both days) For registration and a full programme: http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/events/eventdetails0.html?id=10987

If you have enquiries, please email Chloe Pieters: chloe.pieters@sas.ac.uk or ruth.craggs@smuc.ac.uk


Programme: 30th May

10-10-45 Coffee and Welcome

10.45-11.30 Keynote lecture: ‘Decolonisation and Postcolonial History’ Professor Bill Schwarz (English Literature, Queen Mary)

11.30-1.00 Cultural Frameworks and Political Networks
‘The Peasant Armed: Bengal, Vietnam and transnational solidarities in Utpal Dutt's Invincible Vietnam’, Abin Chakraborty (English, University of Calcutta)
 ‘The Radical Left and the Imagining of Post-imperial Britain in the 1960s’ Jodi Burkett (History, University of Portsmouth)
‘Networks of Decolonization: Cultural Alliances during the Cold War’ Monica Popescu (English, McGill University)

1.00-2.00 Lunch

2.00-3.45 Contested Expertise and Decolonising Knowledge
‘Careering through Decolonisation: Richard St Barbe Baker, soil erosion and reforestation in the Sahara, c. 1950-1966’, Paul Ashmore (History, University of Sheffield)
‘Anthropology as Satyagraha (truth force): Elwin in pre-independence India’ Daniel Rycroft (World Art, University of East Anglia)
‘Preserving Authentic Africa: Museum construction and ethnographic work in French West Africa 1945-1960’, Louisa Rice (History, University of Wisconsin)
 ‘Claiming Maori Cultural Space and Performances of Identity in the Museum’ Christofili Kefalas (Pitt Rivers Museum/ISCA, University of Oxford)

3.45-4.15 Tea

4.15-6.00 Sites of Learning: Decolonising Education
‘‘Building Egyptians: Schools and culture palaces in Nasser’s Egypt’ Mohamed Elshahed (Department of Middle East Studies, New York University)
‘Postwar Malay Dictionaries and the Lexicographic Agency of the Colonized, 1945-1950’ Rachel Leow (Economics, Politics and History, Harvard University)
 ‘Dressed for Decolonisation? Student dress at the University of Ibadan, 1948-1962’,Tim Livsey (History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck)

6.00-7.00 Wine Reception and Poster Session

Programme: 31st May

9.30-11.15 Building New Nations: Decolonising Symbols and Heritage
‘Designs on Money: New national identities and new coins for independent African nations’ Catherine Eagleton (Modern Money, British Museum)
‘Heritage as Performance: Re-enacting the temple of Angkor Wat in postcolonial Cambodia (1953-1970)’ Michael Falser (Global Art History, Heidelberg University)
‘Troubled Tales: The uneasy birth of a modern museum in a modern nation-state’ Atreyee Gupta (Art and Design, University of Minnesota)
‘The Vicissitudes of the Volta River Project, Ghana: Spatial inscriptions of globalisation or situated modern urbanisms?’ Viviana d'Auria (Architecture, Urbanism & Planning, KU Leuven)

11.15-11.45 Coffee

11.45-1.30 Metropolitan Experiences of Decolonisation
‘Anxiety Abroad’ David Wall (Visual & Media Studies, Utah State University)
‘Sexuality, Psychology and the Imperial Hero, c. 1945-1970’ Max Jones, (History, University of Manchester)
‘Individual Experience and Community Practice: The amateur enthusiast at the end of empire’ Anna Bocking-Welch, (History, University of York)
‘Henry Swanzy, Satre's Zombie? Black Power and the transformation of the Caribbean Artists Movement’ Rob Waters, (English Literature, Queen Mary)

1.30-2.30 Lunch

2.30-4.15 International Boundaries and Creative Appropriations
‘Colonial Rebels at Home and Abroad: Maori modernism and decolonisation in the 1960s’ Damian Skinner (Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge)
‘Joe Harriott: 'Free-form' jazz and decolonisation’, David Winks (English Literature, Queen Mary) ‘Barbarous Jungle Growth: Módulo magazine and the global media image of a modern Brazil’ Christian Larsen (Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture)

4.15-4.30 Closing Remarks

Supported by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of Brighton, and St Mary’s University College

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.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office - Colonial administration/migrated archives to be made available

The Foreign and COmmonwealth Office will soon be making available to the public a large collection of files from former British territories, sometimes known as the "migrated archives". The files will be made available between April 2012 and November 2013.

The Foreign Secretary made a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament on 5 May about the colonial administration files held by the FCO and subsequently informed Parliament on 30 June that he had appointed Professor Badger from Cambridge University as the Independent Reviewer.

Professor Badger has approved a timetable for the transfer of the migrated archive files to The National Archives (TNA). The first batch of files, representing around 16% of the total collection, is expected to be available at TNA in April 2012.

The files are being transferred in alphabetical order of the colonial territory concerned with the exception of prioritised release for Kenya, Cyprus, British India Ocean Territories (BIOT) and Malaya files where there has been particular interest.

Further details are available on the FCO website.

CFP: Cultures of Decolonisation, c.1945-1970

Please see below for details of a symposium entitled 'Cultures of Decolonisation' to be held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in May 2012. There is a particularly interest to receive contributions about cultures of decolonisation in emerging and newly-independent states as well as in Europe. The key-note speaker for the event will be Dr Bill Schwarz (Queen Mary University of London).


Please send abstracts of 250 words or expressions of interest to Dr Ruth Craggs, St Mary’s University College (craggsr@smuc.ac.uk) and Dr Claire Wintle, University of Brighton (c.wintle@brighton.ac.uk) by 30 January 2012.

Cultures of Decolonisation, c.1945-1970
Date: Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Venue: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, Senate House
Keynote Speaker: Dr Bill Schwarz, Queen Mary, University of London

This symposium will bring together scholars with an interest in the cultural practices, performances and material cultures of decolonisation, c.1945-1970.

While the problems of ‘empire’ and ‘the postcolonial’ have come under increasing scrutiny in the humanities and social sciences in recent years, and debate about the political and economic processes of decolonisation is well established, the cultural sites, spaces and social practices of this process in the middle years of the twentieth century have often been overlooked.

Yet new scholarship is beginning to point to the attention that the literary, visual and built environment paid to political, economic and social change in this period. In addition, the roles of individuals and institutions in cultural practices and performances of decolonisation are now drawing critical attention from a variety of fields. This symposium will bring together scholars from history, art and design history, cultural geography, literature, museum studies, architecture and other cultural fields to further explore these topics with regard to decolonisation between 1945 and 1970.

We invite contributions which examine aspects of cultural engagements with decolonisation. Papers may consider the peoples, sites, materials and practices of emerging and newly independent nations, as well as the processes of decolonisation as enacted in Europe. This event will lend new insights into debates about the contested nature of decolonisation, and into the impact of cultural practices on socio-political processes.

Papers might focus on:

• Cultural institutions and their reactions to and engagements with decolonisation
• Amateurs, professionals and enthusiasts in decolonisation
• Imperial knowledges, materials and collections, and their place in a decolonising world
• Specific media as arenas for political exchange
• Cultural sites of independence and decolonisation
• Visual and performance cultures of decolonisation
• Decolonising lives
• Networks of decolonisation

Symposium Website: http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/events/eventdetails0.html?id=10987

Supported by the Institute for Commonwealth Studies, University of London; Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton, and St Mary’s University College

Applications Invited for 2012 Decolonization Seminar

Applications Invited for 2012 Decolonization Seminar
Applications must be received by November 1, 2011

The National History Center invites applications from early-career scholars to participate in the seventh international summer seminar on decolonization, which will be held for four weeks, from Sunday, July 8, through Saturday, August 4, 2012, in Washington, D.C.

As in the previous six seminars in the series, the participants will engage in the common pursuit of knowledge about various dimensions of 20th-century decolonization in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

The 15 participants selected to participate in the four-week seminar will receive a small stipend to cover daily living expenses (food, local travel, and so on). The Center will arrange and pay for participants' accommodation in Washington. The Center will also reimburse (subject to limits) travel costs incurred by the selected participants for traveling between their workplace or place of normal residence and Washington, D.C., and back.

The seminar will be an opportunity for the participants to pursue research at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and other repositories of historical research materials in Washington, D.C., on projects within the overarching theme of decolonization; to exchange ideas among themselves and with the seminar leaders; and to produce a draft article or chapter of a book with the guid-ance of the faculty leaders, who, together with the participants themselves, will offer comments and critiques on the evolving draft papers.

That is, significant time will be allocated during the seminar to discussions (collective as well as individual), while participants will also be given time to conduct research in local libraries and archives.

Wm. Roger Louis, Kerr Professor of English History and Culture and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin (and the founding director of the National History Center), will direct the seminar. Other seminar leaders will include Jennifer Foray (Purdue Univ.) Dane Kennedy (George Washington Univ.), Philippa Levine (Univ. of Texas at Austin), Jason Parker (Texas A & M Univ.), and Pillarisetti Sudhir (AHA).

Applicants should preferably have a recent PhD and be at the beginning of their careers. Applications from advanced PhD students who are nearing completion of their dissertations are also encouraged.

Applicants should note that all the academic activities (including discussions and written work) will be in English. Applicants must, therefore, be fluent in English.

Those selected will have to agree that they will actively participate in the seminar, including all required meetings and events, for its entire duration.

For further information and complete application requirements, please check the website, http://nationalhistorycenter.org/applications-invited-for-2012-decolonization-seminar/

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’.