White ants, empire and entomo-politics in South Asia

By focussing on the history of white ants in colonial South Asia, this article shows how insects were ubiquitous and fundamental to the shaping of British colonial power. British rule in India was vulnerable to white ants because these insects consumed paper and wood, the key material foundations of the colonial state. The white ant problem also made the colonial state more resilient and intrusive. The sphere of strict governmental intervention was extended to include both animate and inanimate nonhumans, while these insects were invoked as symbols to characterise colonised landscapes, peoples and cultures. Nonetheless, encounters with white ants were not entirely within the control of the colonial state. Despite effective state intervention, white ants didn’t vanish altogether, and remained objects of everyday control till the final decade of colonial rule and after. Meanwhile, colonised and post-colonial South Asians used white ants to articulate their own distinct political agendas. Over time, white ants featured variously as metaphors for Islamic decadence, British colonial exploitation, communism, democratic socialism and more recently, the Indian National Congress. This article argues that co-constitutive encounters between the worlds of insects and politics have been an intrinsic feature of British colonialism and its legacies in South Asia

Colonial Experience and Postcolonial Underdevelopment in Africa

IIn this paper, we analyze the connection between the history of colonial rule and postcolonial development in Africa. We focus on the fact that many African colonies were governed by indirect rule. Under indirect rule, indigenous people are divided into two groups: a privileged ruling group and an unprivileged ruled group. Our model assumes that the ruled group cannot observe how their deprived resources are divided between the metropolitan ruler and the ruling group. In this economy, a large level of exploitation by the metropolitan ruler yields distrust among indigenous groups and creates a negative effect on postcolonial economic and political development.Africa, colonialism, indirect rule, colonial legacies, ethnic conflict

Adam Smith and Colonialism

In the context of debates about liberalism and colonialism, the arguments of Adam Smith have been taken as illustrative of an important line of anti-colonial liberal thought. The reading of Smith presented here challenges this interpretation. It argues that Smith’s opposition to colonial rule derived largely from its impact on the metropole, rather than on its impact on the conquered and colonised; that Smith recognised colonialism had brought ‘improvement’ in conquered territories and that Smith struggled to balance recognition of moral diversity with a universal moral framework and a commitment to a particular interpretation of progress through history. These arguments have a wider significance as they point towards some of the issues at stake in liberal anti-colonial arguments more generally

The 'Cat's Paw of Dictatorship': State Security and Self-Rule in the Gold Coast, 1948 to 1957

On February 28th, 1948, a deadly police shooting at a veteran’s demonstration in the Gold Coast sparked three days of rioting in the capital city of Accra and surrounding communities. It was the first crisis of its kind for the British colony and a clear indication of the shifting political realities of the post-war era. Though colonial rule had been in place for several generations, the people of the Gold Coast would increasingly balk at an imperial system that denied them a voice in their own government. The following nine years would witness the Gold Coast’s extraordinary transition from British colony, to self-ruled territory, and eventually an independent state that renamed itself the Republic of Ghana.In the more than sixty years since Ghana’s independence in 1957, scholars and commentators alike have recognized the February riots as a turning point in Ghanaian and imperial history, signaling the new wave of decolonization that would sweep across sub-Saharan Africa in the years to follow. What has remained unknown and relatively unstudied is the fact that the riots also compelled the development of a government intelligence network in the Gold Coast. Before British officials accepted that colonial rule was as its end in West Africa, they sought to safeguard the state by providing it a domestic intelligence organization. This organization operated throughout the terminal years of British rule in the Gold Coast and succeeded in both altering the nature of the colonial state and the process of decolonization in unexpected ways.This dissertation interrogates the role of government intelligence in the Gold Coast between the years of 1948 and 1957. By examining police superintendents, Security Service officers, and colonial administrators, it reconstructs the establishment and application of intelligence resources to better understand the process and politics of decolonization in the Britain’s West African empire

Terror in Galilee: British-Jewish collaboration and the Special Night Squads in Palestine during the Arab revolt, 1938–39

This essay examines an aspect of British counter-insurgency in Palestine in the 1930s during the Arab revolt there against British colonial rule and Jewish settlement: the pro-British, anti-rebel Palestinian militia “peace bands,” associated with the Palestinian Nashashibi family and raised with British and Jewish military and financial assistance, and with support from the British Consul in Damascus, Gilbert MacKereth. Using Hebrew, Arabic and untapped local British regimental sources, it details how the British helped to raise the peace bands and the bands’ subsequent activities in the field; it assesses the impact of the bands on the course of the Arab revolt; and it sets out the views of the British Army towards those willing to work with them. In doing this, it extends the recent thesis of Hillel Cohen on Palestinian collaboration with Zionists to include the British and it augments the useful but dated work of Yehoshua Porath and Yuval Arnon-Ohanna on the subject. Such a study is significant for our understanding of British methods of imperial pacification methods, especially the British Army’s manipulation during colonial unrest of “turned” insurgents as a “loyalist” force against rebels, an early form of “pseudo” warfare. The collaboration by Palestinians resonates with broader histories of imperial and neo-imperial rule, it extends military histories on colonial pacification methods, and it provides rich, new texture on why colonial subjects resisted and collaborated with the emergency state, using the Palestinians as a case study

Colonialism\u27s Role in the Success of the Filipino Skin Whitening Industry

In the Philippines and other developing countries, the skin whitening industry is prolific and expanding among native populations. However, this desire for white skin has dire health repercussions, both physical and psychological. Many researchers in the field of Filipino-American psychology attribute this desire for whiter skin to the American colonial rule of the Philippines, which began in 1898 and lasted for nearly fifty years. Historians often characterize the American occupation as cruel and demeaning, leading to colonial mentality that has continued into the post-colonial era. As a result, in order to ameliorate this dilemma, one must explore how the internalized oppression and psychological state of the Filipino people caused by America’s previous colonial rule of the Philippines contributes to the success of the Filipino skin whitening industry. To research this question, historical journal articles that contextualize the American treatment of the Filipino people are utilized, in order to explore possible motives for occupying the Philippines. Articles in the field of Filipino-American psychology are also studied, thus exploring the psychological health of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans in relation to colonial rule. Articles in the field of history and sociology show the relationship between colonialism and skin whitening, both in the Philippines and in other countries. To explore other possible contributing factors, in the field of psychology and sociology are utilized. The success of the Filipino Skin Whitening Industry is greatly attributed to the damaged psychological state of the native people brought on by American colonial rule. This can be attributed to the mistreatment of the native population, and the subsequent development of internalized oppression, colonial mentality, and an ingrained preference for white skin. However, contemporary factors may also contribute to the industry’s success, such as the phenomenon of “cosmopolitan whiteness,” and Filipino-Americans’ tendency to conform to popular culture. Although colonialism plays a significant role in the success of the skin whitening industry, it is possible that many other factors come into play. As a result, it is imperative to explore colonial mentality more thoroughly, as well as its mental health implications. In addition, it would be valuable to explore the ways in which internalized oppression can be combated, thus decreasing the need for the skin whitening industry

[Review of] The Vietnamese-American 1.5 Generation. Ed. Sucheng Chan

The Vietnamese-American 1.5 Generation is divided into two parts. Part I offers an overview of Vietnamese history, focusing on Vietnam under French colonial rule, the First Indochina War, American involvement in Vietnam, the Fall of Saigon and its aftermath, and refugee exoduses. Part Il comprises narratives written by Vietnamese-American students enrolled at the University of California system

Lu Yan Associate Professor of History, COLA, travels to London

Professor Lu Yan traveled to London and Oxford to continue her research plan for her book on social activism during late colonial rule in British Hong Kong.In the early summer of 2012, I spent two weeks in London and Oxford to collect materials for my book project on social activism and late colonial rule in British Hong Kong. The trip was the second half of a research plan abroad, which included three weeks in Hong Kong during the summer of 2011. Both trips were very rewarding—I was able to get both sides of the story and to have a feel of the places where the many individuals in my story had once lived and worked

Laurant Ropa and Paul Achard : second thoughts on colonial encroachments

Laurent Ropa’s The Song of the Noria (1932) and Paul Achard’s Man from the Sea (1931) are twin novels which deal with the Maltese community that settled in Algeria under French rule. Today, in hindsight, the reader realizes that the Arabs and Berbers, who in colonial literature are treated with paternalism, were later on in 1962 to ‘turn the tables on’ the European community. In this paper, I intend to dwell on a double insularity, that is, on islanders who in the long run turn out to belong to a besieged community.peer-reviewe

Diaspora: (post)colonial visions

The exhibition 'Diaspora: (Post)colonial Visions’ is part of the project ‘Memory Matters’, a partnership between the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (University of Kent) and CORECOG, a Congolese community group based in East London. The exhibition documents the ways in which project participants, mostly British Congolese young people, engaged discursively and visually with the urban and socio-historical spaces of (post)colonial memories. Through a series of heritage workshops organised in London and a 3-day visit to Brussels, several aspects of (post)colonial material representations and legacies were explored. In Brussels, the young people participated in an urban tour of the city’s colonial monuments and a visit to the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) a ‘Little Versailles’, dreamt by the Belgian king Leopold II to stage the grandeur of its colonial rule. Between 1885 and 1908 Leopold II was the sole owner of the ‘Congo Free State’, almost 80 times the size of Belgium. He implemented a harsh forced labour regime in the Congo to extract principally rubber as well as other natural riches. Coined the ‘only colonial museum left in the world’, and still bearing the ubiquitous mark of Leopold II, the RCMA is now undergoing major refurbishment and renovation. The museum exhibits unique ethnographic collections but also showcases a whole universe of colonial fantasies. Civilising desires and animalised aesthetics of a ‘primitive Other’ are conveyed through decontextualized and a-temporal visions of an imagined ‘Africa’ - a ‘Heart of Darkness’ turned ‘art of darkness’. ‘Diaspora: (Post)colonial Visions’ is also a witness to the struggle of Congolese activists in London, engaged in long-distance transnational politics and opposing the current Congolese government. Organising flashmobs, protests and demonstrations some of these activists denounce the exploitation of peoples and the plunder of mineral resources by a host of national and international actors, including multinational companies. Their public presence in the centre of London, at the heart of the ‘global city’ and former imperial capital, suggests the extent to which appropriating urban spaces and reclaiming visibility also serves to reconnect colonial past(s) and postcolonial present(s)