CfP extension: New Perspectives on Anti-Colonialism in the Metropolis

Opening of the 5th Pan-African Congress 1945 in Manchester. © British Library

Date: 17-18 June 2021

Venue: Online

Extended CfP-Deadline: 25 April 2021

The transnational networks of colonialism and increased mobility led to a sharp rise in anti-colonial activism in European cities, especially in the twentieth century. A central role can historically be ascribed to activists resisting against imperialism from within, as they played a crucial role in the organization of anticolonial resistance in metropole and colony. They developed strategies and alliances against colonial oppression and racism. For these radical intellectuals and independence activists in exile, European cities offered a productive environment as they were able to pursue their political work in relative freedom compared to their countries of origin, despite censorship, repression and widespread surveillance by local authorities.

This workshop for PhD students and early career researchers aims to examine poignant examples of anti-colonial activism in the Europe, with a focus on the 20th century, altough applications from the 19th century are welcome as well. Applicants working on metropoles such as London, Paris, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin or in fact other cities are also very welcome to apply.

Among others, the workshop will address the following questions:

How have ideas that criticize colonialism developed in European metropoles, regarding national or federal independence, imperial reforms, antiracism and pan-national movements? To what extent can we spatialize the global thinking of anti-colonial movements in the framework of the urban? What were the connections between anti-colonial actors from the global South and the political left of European metropolises? How can we conceive of the First and Second World War as a catalyst for anti-colonial independence movements?

This workshop will be held digitally via Zoom on 17.-18. June 2021, due to the Coronavirus pandemic and is part of the research project “The London Moment”, funded by the Volkswagen-Stiftung. Proposals for papers should include the title, an abstract of maximum 300 words, and a short CV of the applicant. Please send proposals to anticolonialisminthemetropole@gmail.com by 25. April 2021. Notification of acceptance will be announced shortly after the deadline has passed. Participants are expected to submit a written paper or project description ahead of the workshop in April.

PhD-students from the Global South are particularly encouraged to send in their contributions. For further information and questions please do not hesitate to get in touch at anticolonialisminthemetropole@gmail.com.


Simeon Marty

I am a PhD student at the Department of History of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and member of the research project “The London Moment”. After completing my B.A. in History (major) and Science of Religion (minor) at the Universities Fribourg and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2016, I recently graduated from King’s College London with a master’s degree in World History and Cultures. My M.A. thesis “The mouse that roared: The Anguillan secessionist movement and British policy making in the decolonisation of the Anglophone Caribbean, 1966-1971” explores the interconnection between cultural stereotypes in post-war British administration and policy making in the process of decolonisation. In my PhD Project, I will explore the transnational networks that have been established by non-Europeans, especially anti-colonial and Pan-African movements, in London during the Second World War. This research hopes to uncover to what extent the “London Moment” with its extraordinarily high concentration of political groupings and international political actors offered new perspectives for anti-colonial activists and intellectuals in the formulation of social and political alternatives. In a broader sense, it will examine how this has contributed to the manifold processes of decolonisation that followed shortly afterwards.

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