Affective politics and colonial heritage,Rhodes Must Fall at UCT and Oxford

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the spatial entanglement of colonial heritage struggles through a study of the Rhodes Must Fall student movement at the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford. We aim to shed light over why statues still matter in analyzing colonial traces and legacies in urban spaces and how the decolonizing activism of the RMF movement mobilizes around the controversial heritage associated with Cecil Rhodes at both places – a heritage that encompasses statues, buildings, Rhodes scholarship and the Rhodes Trust funds. We include a comparative study of the Facebook use of RMF as it demonstrates significant differences between the two places in the development of the student movements as political activism. Investigating in more detail the heritage politics of RMF at UCT we fledge out what we call an affective politics using non-representational bodily strategies. We argue that in order for actual social movements to mobilize in current political controversies, they need to put affective tactics to use.     

Italy and Africa: how to forget colonialism

Abstract

The debate on colonialism places great emphasis on the composite set of transformations put in motion by colonialism fully to give birth to what became the post-colonial state in independent Africa. Many authors suggest that Italian colonialism in the Horn of Africa was too weak to perform this task. The present article intends to review the influence and effects of the Italian colonial experience for state making in the Horn of Africa. This also brings about one of the main anomalies of the Horn of Africa, where colonialism ended without a process of true decolonization, in the sense of a confrontation between colonized and colonizers in the transfer of power from metropolitan rule to African representatives. The present Italian foreign policy in Africa is similarly conditioned by its colonial history: besides its focus on the Horn of Africa, which was the centre of Italy's colonial expansion as well as the only post-Second WorldWar administration (Italian Trust Administration of Somalia – AFIS), the relations between Italy and Africa reflect the many inconsistencies and uncertainties of the colonial experience.     

New Caledonia's Independence Referendum: Re-Defining the Future

The historic independence referendum that took place on 4 November 2018 in New Caledonia marks the beginning of a potentially four-year self-determination process that is, like the French territory itself, unique. It is the final stage of a series of agreements that ended civil war over independence, and that have overseen peace in New Caledonia for 30 years. The referendum has highlighted the real achievements under the peace agreements, but also areas of deep difference, creating new uncertainties and risks to stability. While the November vote saw majority support for staying with France, it exposed continued ethnic division, with a sizeable Indigenous Kanak vote for independence, despite years of Accord compromises. The referendum is only the first of potentially two more divisive votes by 2022, to be preceded by local provincial elections in May 2019. Whatever the voting outcomes, the majority loyalists must take into account Indigenous independence aspirations in considering the major issues left over after the Noumea Accord's completion, if peaceful governance is to continue. UN decolonization principles present three options: independence, independence in some kind of partnership with France, or continued integration with France. So long as the answer remains ‘no’ to independence, this final process will demand serious dialogue between bitterly opposed parties, at the least about expanded local powers, re-defining governance in New Caledonia beyond the Noumea Accord.     

Uncoupling binaries,unsettling narratives and enriching pedagogical practice: lessons from a trial to Indigenize geography curricula at the University of Adelaide,Australia

The development of culturally and social inclusive curricula is an important aspect of teaching geography. In countries such as Australia with a history of colonial oppression and dispossession the need to acknowledge Indigenous history and peoples in teaching is vital. This paper reports on the lessons learned from being part of the Indigenous Enrichment of Curricula Project (IECP) for geography curricula at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Drawing on advice from an Indigenous Reference Group, this project trialled the use of visual and aural delivery mechanisms, the development of country-based assessments, the use of “co-run conversations in safe spaces” and embedding of key narratives and storylines to provoke student learning and cultural reflexivity. Challenges are reported on, including working out how to decolonize curricula without adopting binary and essentialist constructions of Indigeneity, how to involve Indigenous colleagues without overburdening them, and how to represent Indigenous knowledge. The paper concludes that Indigenizing or enriching curricula must go beyond a content focus and avoid superficially gilding the lily (by the addition of culturally palatable and romanticized “nuggets” of Indigenous knowledge) but build towards a drastic re-structuring in practice of entire course frameworks consistent with Indigenous ways of doing and seeing.     

‘Navigating sovereignty under a Cold War military industrial colonial complex: US military empire and Marshallese decolonization’

Abstract

As World War II unsettled the global balance of power ushering in a wave of decolonization, the postwar period also saw the expansion of US military imperialism into Micronesia. In this central Pacific region, a new colonial era began rooted in US strategic concerns and mandated under a 1947 United Nations Trusteeship Agreement. During the Cold War, the United States buttressed its nuclear arsenal by testing its deadliest weapons of mass destruction (nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile) in the Marshall Islands, residing on the eastern edge of Micronesia. This weapons testing program would inform Marshallese struggles towards self-determination, ultimately shaping the contours of Marshallese sovereignty as the region achieved formal decolonization through a Compact of Free Association in 1986.     

Making the Loyalist Bargain: Surrender,Amnesty and Impunity in Kenya's Decolonization, 1952–63

ABSTRACT

In fighting Mau Mau rebels in Kenya between 1952 and 1956, the British armed and deployed an African militia, known as the Kikuyu Home Guard. This article considers the role played by these allies in the counter-insurgency war, looking specifically at amnesty and surrenders. The British held secret talks with Mau Mau leaders in 1954, and again in 1955, to organize rebel surrenders. The politics of surrenders split the Mau Mau movement, and also raised massive opposition amongst white settlers. Amnesty and impunity were inducements to Mau Mau surrenders, but were offered primarily to prevent disaffection and desertion among loyalist Kikuyu African militia allies who feared prosecution for abuses and atrocities carried out during counter-insurgency operations. Loyalist Africans also feared the consequences of rebels returning to their home communities. Amnesty and promises of impunity thus shaped the character of Kenya's counter-insurgency campaign and the decolonization that followed. This was determined by the need for the British to secure the continued support of African allies up to Kenya's independence in 1963, and beyond.     

India’s Part in the Politics of Fiji’s Decolonization: From ‘Outworn Slogans’ to ‘Pragmatism and Realism’

United Nations (UN) demands for the unconditional ending of colonial rule troubled British officials confronted by local political difficulties impeding their efforts to establish self-government for Fiji, alarmed Indigenous Fijian leaders who initially resisted that reform, and encouraged the polarizing demand by Indo-Fijian leaders for a common franchise. India was initially at the forefront in maintaining UN pressure on Britain to move Fiji rapidly to independence with this franchise. Yet in the last two years of British rule, as ethnic tension in Fiji rose dangerously, India assumed the lead in urging moderation at the UN. India’s volte-face from antagonist to ally of the British helped open the way to the political accord on which Fiji’s independence constitution was based. The article highlights the major part played by the pre-eminent Indigenous leader Ratu Kamisese Mara in winning India’s support for a cautious approach to reform.     

Secret Intelligence and Anti-Nazi Resistance: The Mysterious Exile of Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus

The U.S. decision to send 14,000 marines to Lebanon during the civil war of 1958 exasperated Lebanese peoples. The American military intervention, as a result, contributed to a cultural process in which many Lebanese began to imagine the United States as an “imperial” force, inheriting the legacy of Empire in the Middle East and stepping into the shoes of former European imperial powers, Britain and France. While admiring U.S. values and cultures, Lebanese anti-colonialists, nationalists, and pan-Arabists expressed their antipathy vis-à-vis the “imperial” nature of Washington's involvement in their internal affairs. Others, primarily content with and invested in the socio-political status quo, stood by and exalted the American presence in their country.

Using Lebanon as a case study, this paper examines popular perceptions of and experiences with U.S. global power during the 1958 crisis. As a result, it goes beyond traditional interstate relations and combines top-down and bottom-up approaches in order to illuminate power negotiations between a global superpower, the United States, and the Arab masses of Lebanon. In this spirit, the voices and actions of national and local leaders, as well as everyday men and women are integrated into the global story of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.