Curating the Colonial Past

Decolonisation and struggles over colonial archives

In the early 1960s, British colonial administrations in East Africa organized the systematic destruction and removal of documents from colonies approaching independence. This exercise was later repeated resulting in the deposit of roughly 20,000 files from over 40 dependencies in secret storage in and around London, where they remained until a 2011 court case brought against the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office by survivors of the Kenyan Emergency. This talk considers struggles to conceal and […]

WW1’s Hidden Voices

The Role of India, East Africa, Nigeria and the West Indies

Two critical presentations about the role of India, East Africa, Nigeria and the West Indies in WWI, including colonialism and recruitment, the impacts of war and our ongoing culture of war followed by discussion. Cultural Representations of World War One and other wars: how colonies are kept invisible. Presented by Kooj Chuhan Colonial realities of WWI: uncovering the involvement and experience of peoples from British colonies Presented by Dipali Das and Ruth Tait The Great War of 1914 -1918 is […]