Jamaican Diaspora UK: 3rd Biennial Conference, 16th June 2012

The Jamaican Diaspora UK will be hosting its 3rd Biennial Conference on 16th June 2012 in London at the Hotel NOVOTEL London West. All Jamaicans and friends of Jamaica are invited to participate as a delegate, volunteer, sponsor, or exhibitor.


EARLY Registration is now open!! Please circulate this information widely.

"The Conference, themed: “Out of Many, One People: celebrating Jamaica at 50 & shaping the future together” is a critical event for our Diaspora Community as it will address key areas of concern for all Jamaicans in the UK and in Jamaica. A series of workshops will be held on the day covering topics such as: health, social welfare, education, culture, arts and sports, youth, governmental affairs, religious affairs, trade and investment. Delegates can choose to attend up to 4 of twelve workshops on the day.
Delegates for Conference 2012 will also benefit from a special plenary session which will address the current Jamaican Government’s intention to change our governing structure from a Monarchy to a Republic. Conference 2012 will also feature an all day exhibition of Jamaican products and services as well as an evening concert to Celebrate Jamaica’s 50th Independence.

Special offer

Register before 5th May and receive a discount on your registration fees and a 40% discount on your Jamaican Diaspora annual membership.

Please visit: http://www.jadiasporaukconference.net/ and sign up for conference updates on the home page.


Contact: Sasha-Monique Henry-Crawford
Public Relations Officer (JDUK)
Email: pro@jadiasporauk.org
Web: http://www.jadiasporauk.org/

The Jamaican Diaspora UK
C/O The Jamaican High Commission
1-2 Prince Consort Road
South Kensington
London
SW7 2BZ

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

Newly open archives collection - Papers of Ben Turok

Newly opened and made available for researchers are ICS143 The papers of Benjamin Turok.

Benjamin Turok, was born in Latvia, 1927; and came with his family to South Africa, 1934. He was educated at the University of Cape Town; taught in London, 1950-1953; and returned to South Africa in 1953, becoming a full-time political activist: joining the South African Congress of Democrats and in 1955 became its secretary for the Cape western region, and acting as a full-time organiser for the Congress of the People. Turok was one of authors of the Freedom Charter; served with a banning order in 1955; arrested in the Treason Trial in 1956 and stood trial until charges against him were withdrawn in 1958; elected unopposed to represent Africans of the Western Cape on the Cape Provincial Council, 1957. During the 1960 emergency Turok evaded arrest, and went underground to help reestablish the ANC organisation; in 1962 he was convicted under the Explosives Act, and sentenced to three years in prison; after his release he escaped via Botswana; and resident in the UK from 1972 and employed by the Open University. He returned to South Africa in 1990; and was the first Head of the Commission on the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in the Gauteng Provincial Cabinet, 1994; and a member of the South African Parliament, representing the African National Congress, from 1995-present (2012).

The papers of Benjamin Turok, were held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the originals returned to Turok after his return to South Africa, with a microfilm copy made and kept to provide access to researchers.  The papers relate to his political involvement in South Africa (1961-1981) and include biographical tapes and transcripts (1983-1984); African National Congress (ANC) speeches, publications, press releases, and other material, 1971-1981; papers of the Institute for Industrial Education, Durban, 1974-1978; papers of the Communist Party of South Africa, 1978 and undated; papers of the South African Congress of Trade Unions, 1971-1973; correspondence, 1971-1980, with Oliver Tambo and others, mainly on ANC activities; transcripts and audio tapes of biographical material.

Computers in the Library Survey

Computers in the Library Survey


The Library is keen to hear your views about using computers and IT support in the Senate House Library. Please take a minute to fill in the online survey to let us know your experiences. Your feedback is appreciated and will be used to develop our services.


Please click here to visit the Computers in the Library Survey.

Working Papers in Australian Studies

The Menzies Centre for Australian Studies' Working Papers in Australian Studies have been digitised and made available on the web. The series starts in 1985 and ends in 200, from when a new series the London Papers in Australian Studies started.

Working Paper 1 is entitled  "No Irish Need Apply": Aspects of the Employer- Employee Relationship Australian Domestice Service 1860-1900" by Paula Hamilton, and looks at discrimination against Irish migrants but focuses on the relationship bewteen employers and domestic servants in early colonial Australia. The final paper in the series, no. 188, by K S Inglis, is entitled "London calling: the empire of the airwaves" and outlines the nature of Australian radio broadcasting in the 1930s, and looks at the modelling of the broadcasting service on that of the BBC, with comparative study of other dominions notably New Zeland and Canada, as well as broadcasts made from the UK to the colonies.

Between the presentation of these two papers topics and themes explored in the series included: Aboriginal rights and social injustice, Australian politics, literature and writers, Australian historiography, settlement and town planning, environmental and economic conflict, expatriate writers and artists, education, women, national identity, Bondi beach, sexuality, the Cold War, sport and leisure, Aboriginal writing, art and drama, mental health, and citizenship.

Henry Charles Chapman Visiting Fellowship at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Applications for the Henry Charles Chapman Visiting Fellowship at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies are being accepted.
The Fellowship, offered biennially, is financed by income from a bequest to the University of London by the late Mr Henry Charles Chapman for the promotion of the study of Commonwealth affairs.

The Fellowship is open to members of the academic staff of any university in the Commonwealth, or elsewhere, who wish to spend a period of leave from their present post doing research at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.

Further information, including details about the application process, can be found in on the Institute of Commonwealth Studies website. Please note that the deadline for submissions in 31 May 2012.

New PDF list for Moyne Commission papers

We have recently added a PDF format list of the archive collection ICS56 Moyne papers on the West India Royal Commission

The PDF list complements the detailed list available on the catalogue by providing a clear overview of the styructure of the collection and we are continuing to create these for collections so as to improve ease of use of the catalogue for users.

ICS56 comprises the papers of Walter Edward Guinness, Lord Moyne, relating to his chairmanship of the West India Royal Commission (WIRC), 1938-1939. The majority of the material comprises memoranda on means of improving the social and economic conditions of the people, submitted to WIRC by interested parties in Trinidad and Tobago, although Colonial Office publications and draft speeches are also included. The collection complements and in some cases duplicates the larger collection relating to the West India Royal Commission held at the National Archives, being Lord Moyne's personal papers from the Commission.

The West India Royal Commission was a comprehensive investigation of the social and economic condition of all the British territories in the Caribbean. Led by Lord Moyne, the Commission held public hearings throughout the region, and recommended sweeping reforms in everything from employment practices and social welfare, to radical political change. The full findings of the commission were not published until 1945 but an immediate start was made upon the implementation of less controversial recommendations. The British government decided to make substantial increases in the amount of money available for colonial development of all kinds and set about creating a framework for change.

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies also holds considerable material in its library collections, including official publications from both the UK and the colonies, documenting the impact of the reforms started after the West India Royal Commission.