{"id":24823,"date":"2026-02-23T11:54:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/?post_type=events&p=24823"},"modified":"2026-03-04T12:47:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T12:47:23","slug":"curating-the-colonial-past","status":"publish","type":"events","link":"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/events\/curating-the-colonial-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Curating the Colonial Past"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The four Kenyans at the high court who successfully sued the British government over atrocities committed during the Mau Mau uprising.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 reveal colonial records in the context of decolonization \u2013 in Kenya, England and the world. In doing so, it raises questions over the relationships between archival location and history-writing and postcolonial claim-making.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":24824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categories":[431,1755,432],"tags":[2223,1127,2224,734,2225],"class_list":["post-24823","events","type-events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colonialism","category-museums","category-race-racism","tag-colonial","tag-east-africa","tag-foreign-office","tag-kenya","tag-postcolonial"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCurating the Colonial Past - Bristol Radical History Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/events\/curating-the-colonial-past\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Curating the Colonial Past - Bristol Radical History Group\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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 […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/events\/curating-the-colonial-past\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Bristol Radical History Group\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/126960655805\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-04T12:47:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CtCP_Book-Cover.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"275\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"417\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@BrisRadHis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Curating the Colonial Past - Bristol Radical History Group","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/events\/curating-the-colonial-past\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Curating the Colonial Past - Bristol Radical History Group","og_description":"In the early 1960s, British colonial administrations in East Africa organized the systematic destruction and removal of documents from colonies approaching independence. 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