Decolonization's Discontents: Unfinished Revolutions in the Age of Independence
When:
—
Venue:
External
Thursday 6th March 2025, 5.00pm. Followed by a wine reception.
Montagu Lecture Theatre (GC601), Graduate Centre, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Book here (DecolonizationsDiscontents.eventbrite.co.uk)
While scholars have generally agreed that decolonization was about much more than a transfer of power, studies of decolonizing processes after political independence remain overwhelmingly on those in power: focused on states and the political elites who helmed them (and who shaped consequent historical narratives). In turn, anticolonial activists who were marginalized during the end of empires often have been expunged from the record. Yet these critics continued to organize, serving as challengers to emerging (inter)national norms. For groups excluded from or contesting state power, decolonization increasingly came to mean dissent: mobilizing to oppose and reshape state practices, governing norms, and notions of belonging.
Through the life of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, one such dissident with legacies across Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, this talk offers an alternative reading of decolonization to problematize categories central to international relations and to rethink the pursuit of independence as a simultaneously local and universal, individual and collective, phenomenon.
For information please contact Katy at the Raphael Samuel History Centre (k.pettit@bbk.ac.uk)
The public lecture is co-funded by RSHC and the IHSS Visiting Fellowship Scheme
Contact name:
Katy Pettit