Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Decolonisation'

This study considers the role that touring Shakespeare productions played in securing British interests during the Cold War and decolonisation. Focusing on a selection of British Council supported tours during the period the relationship between Shakespeare in Britain and Shakespeare abroad is examined. The evolution of touring Shakespeare’s use in cultural diplomacy is located within the broader history of Britain’s imperial decline and Cold War entanglements. The thesis draws upon the National Archive’s Records of the British Council; the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s collections; and the British Library’s Newspaper, and Manuscript collections. A wide-range of performance, administrative, and anecdotal accounts are brought to light in order to reveal the political and cultural tensions characterising each tour. The shift to using Shakespeare in post-war cultural diplomacy is determined through an examination of tours supporting British colonial interests in Egypt between 1939 and 1946, a formative era of anti-colonial agitation and emerging Cold War dynamics. The late 1940s saw touring Shakespeare assist in the re-colonisation of Australia, with cultural-diplomatic initiatives dedicated to strengthening Britain’s imperial and Cold War objectives. As the military stalemate of the 1950s witnessed the compensatory rise of culture as a political resource, Shakespeare tours countered Soviet influence in Austria, Yugoslavia, and Poland. The 1960s saw Shakespeare used in support of British economic interests in West Africa in general, and UK publishing interests in Nigeria in particular. The thesis concludes that Shakespeare productions were dispatched to Cold War and colonial destinations with the purpose of supporting Britain’s commercial and political interests; that Shakespeare proved to be an effective and protean cultural weapon in service to the British nation; and that contradictory results ensued, including resistance from reluctant hosts and disagreements within Britain’s metropolitan Shakespeare culture itself over Shakespeare’s global role.

It has been more than five decades since the wave of decolonization swept across Africa. For people on the continent, the rise to power by the former liberation movements brought hope for a better future in the post-colonial state. However later developments showed that independence would, in fact, not change the material and social conditions of the ordinary people. Although the national liberation movement took over the government of the former colony, colonial institutions and structures of power, which were founded on the economic exploitation of the colony, remained unchanged. Thus in this thesis I set out to examine Frantz Fanon’s thought in order to provide a critique of post-independence failures in Africa. I will argue that whilst Fanon shared the same ideals as the anti-colonial movements in their objective to remove colonial regimes from power, that Fanon, in fact, had a critical attitude towards the anti-colonial movement. Whereas the latter conceived of freedom as independence, Fanon conceived of freedom as disalienation, premised on the complete recovery of the black self from the negative effects of colonialism. Thus the study sets out to examine the extent to which Fanon offered an alternative idea of freedom and liberation to the one which was being advanced by the national liberation movements.

La carriere litteraire de francois mauriac s'est prolonge, a partir du prix nobel obtenu en 1952, par une importante oeuvre journalistique rassemblee dans le bloc-notes qui comprend cinq volumes. Bien que le romanicer se soit interesse a tous les problemes de son temps, les repercussions du processus de decolonisation sur les institution et sur la societe francaise y occupent une place essentielle. La these se propose d'en rechercher la dimension historique et d'apprecier la vision de francois mauriac sur des evenements qui ont marque profondement et durablement la vie des francais. Title: "francois mauriac, the novelist as a witness to french decolonisation" contents of the thesis after the nobel prize he got in 1952, francois mauriac's literary career has been followed by important journalistic works collected in the "bloc-notes" which comprises five volumes. Though the novelist has taken interest in all the problems of the time, the effects of the process of decolonisation on institutions and on french society hold on an important ( a preponderant) place in this work. The thesis intends to search for its historic dimension and to estimate francois mauriac's vision on events which have affected french people's life deeply and for long.

This thesis is a study of Nigerian universities in the global age of development. It focuses on three themes: first, the place of the university in development; second, the relationship between the global and the local in development; and third, the connections between decolonisation and development. A development consensus arose during the 1930s and the Second World War that produced plans for universities through an interaction between deep-rooted Nigerian aspirations and networks that mediated western ideas. University College, Ibadan (UCI), Nigeria’s first university founded by the British in 1948, and the Nigerian-led university projects of the 1950s, exemplify relationships between decolonisation and development. Their history offers new perspectives on British decolonisation policy. It highlights the complex nature of neo-colonialism, the crucial importance of the state in decolonising nations, and the role of the United States in the late British empire. Analyses of university built environments and student culture offer alternative ways to consider development and decolonisation. UCI’s buildings are analysed to reinterpret the relationship between built environments and late colonialism, rediscovering Nigerian planning contributions, tensions within the British colonial establishment, and the importance of the buildings’ reception and use. Student culture exemplifies the variety of forms of agency in everyday life at UCI. Evidence from practices of eating, dress, dance and rebellion shows that student culture was not defined by university authorities, but created by students who drew on a variety of cultural styles. Finally, the thesis considers Nigerian universities after independence in 1960. New universities were founded, and foreign aid flowed in to support their role in national development. The thesis shows how national political crises interacted with tensions within global development ideologies to contribute to growing disenchantment about the importance of universities in Nigerian development.

During the Second World War, around 8,000 men from fifteen colonial territories fought for the British Empire in locally-raised naval volunteer forces. Their relatively small size has meant that up to now they have remained merely a footnote within the wider historiography of the war. Yet, if examined beyond their ambiguous wartime contribution and placed within the broader context of imperial history, they provide an important new lens for analysing the dynamics of imperialism during the twilight of the British Empire. Through a comparative analysis of three case studies: the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and East Asia - and by reconciling the 'official' record in the 'metropole' with 'subaltern' sources located in those regions, this thesis examines for the first time the political, social and cultural impact of these forces. It explores how they emerged out of a climate of 'imperial overstretch' as bulwarks for the preservation of British 'prestige'; how imperial ideology and racial discourses of power influenced naval recruitment, strategy and management, affecting colonial conceptions of identity, indigenous belief systems and ethnic relations; and how naval service, during both war and peacetime, influenced motivations, imperial sentiment, group cohesion and force discipline. This thesis will also assess the evolution of these part-time colonial volunteer forces into professional sovereign navies within the context of decolonisation. It will investigate the extent to which British hegemonic influence was maintained within post-colonial relationships. Issues of nationalisation, its utilisation as a tool for 'nation-building', and the impact of nationalist ideology and social engineering upon service efficiency and esprit de corps will also be examined. In the process this thesis furthers developments within the 'new naval history', by reconceptualising our understanding of navies as not merely organisations for the physical projection and maintenance of political and economic influence, but as human and cultural institutions, in which power was expressed as much in the ideas and relations they cultivated, as the barrels of their guns.

This thesis is an exploration of how, in the late colonial period, Hong Kong’s government and business groups sought to keep the colony’s channels of trade free from restriction, and the colonial regime sought to keep Hong Kong’s free port status intact. Hong Kong’s colonial history began with its founding as a free port in a period when Britain subscribed wholeheartedly to free trade ideals, and the colony would remain broadly committed to free trade even as the metropole’s own faith wavered. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, however, the Chinese communist government placed restrictions on certain imports from abroad. Further undermining Hong Kong’s re-export trade with China was a UN-imposed economic embargo on the PRC following their participation in the Korean War. Hong Kong’s subsequent reliance on light industry and textile exports was met with protectionist responses from Western governments – including the colony’s sovereign power – from the late 1950s onwards. Finally, the prospect of return to China put in doubt Hong Kong’s future status as a free port and an exemplar of free enterprise principles more widely. As a colonial dependency with little economic leverage on the international stage, Hong Kong’s government and business elites relied on appeals to the metropole, public relations initiatives, and commercial diplomacy in attempts to reduce barriers to trade and maximise access to export markets. Arguments for the preservation of Hong Kong’s right to free trade involved a number of constructed narratives that led to certain conceptualised images of Hong Kong. These narratives included the fundamental importance of free trade to Hong Kong’s economic wellbeing and political stability, Hong Kong’s regional importance as a bastion of free enterprise and democratic principles at the edge of the Sino-Soviet communist bloc, the responsibility of imperial metropoles to their colonies and of developed nations to the developing, and a commitment to free trade as part of a wider belief in minimal government intervention as the basis of good governance. These rhetorical strategies tell us much about how geopolitical changes and shifts in the nature of the international economy shaped the trajectory of Hong Kong’s late colonial history, and likewise, how the colony’s government and business elites conceived instrumentalist ideals of Hong Kong. As a period beginning with Britain’s commitment to re-establishing British rule in Hong Kong after Japanese occupation, and ending with an agreement that would transfer sovereignty to China, the implications of a gradual imperial withdrawal are a paramount consideration. On one hand, the endurance of colonial status into a post-colonial period had ramifications for Hong Kong’s capacity to defend its trading rights on the international stage, whilst on the other, as imperial ties began to dissolve, the colony’s emergence into an autonomous, global city with its own identity and ideals was realised. This thesis, therefore, through an investigation of Hong Kong’s defence of its access to free trade, provides new understandings of the postwar history of Hong Kong in imperial and international contexts, and therefore of British imperialism and its interaction with other global forces.

This thesis explores the question of what factors shaped Rwandan ethnicity in the late 1950s and early 1960s; in particular, how and why was ethnicity transformed into ‘political tribalism’ in decolonising Rwanda? The Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the subsequent post-genocide peace-building have drawn our attention to the problems of ethnicity and nationalism. While ethnicity and nationalism in Africa have been a matter of debate amongst the primordialist, instrumentalist and constructivist schools, it has become more or less accepted knowledge that ethnicity in Africa was constructed by dynamic interactions between Europeans and Africans in particular colonial contexts. This constructivist approach may have advanced our understanding of ethnicity in pre-colonial and colonial Rwanda, but our perception of Rwandan ethnicity in the 1950s and 1960s has not benefited from this academic trend. Instead, the literature on this issue, most of which was written several decades ago, tends to take a primordialist approach towards the Rwandan Revolution and the ethnic conflict that emerged at the end of colonial period. By theoretically adhering to a constructivist approach, and relying on John Lonsdale’s ‘political tribalism’ model in particular, the thesis argues that to take a nuanced hybrid-constructivist approach is essential, because primordial ethnic conflict was not the cause of the Revolution and other historical events, but the other way round. Ethnicity in Rwanda was not simply invented by the Europeans during the colonial period, nor was it so primordial that the conflict between the Tutsi and the Hutu was inevitable; in fact, several conflicts (and not always along ethnic boundaries) existed, and even some alternatives were suggested for ethnic cooperation. Ethnicity went through a dynamic transformation into ‘political tribalism’ through interactions between Rwandans and non-Rwandans, as well as through relationships amongst different groups of Rwandans. Various domestic factors – including intra-Tutsi leadership rivalry, the alliance among the political parties and the inter-ethnic power struggle – affected the process of the Revolution, and politicised ethnicity. External factors, such as factions within the Belgian administrations as well as the heated debates in the Cold War-era United Nations, also provided opportunities for Rwandan ethnicity to become politicised. Contingency, the mass movement of people, violence and the processes of revolution and decolonisation had a synergistic impact on the spread of ‘political tribalism’ over Rwanda. Primordial perceptions on ethnicity, as well as interpretations of the past, and visions for the future held by each actor, were factors that shaped ethnicity and forced the ethnic split into the foreground. In this sense, Rwandan ethnicity cannot simply be understood through the dichotomised debate of primordialists and constructivists. Rather, it was a more dynamic process of ethnic transformation with unaccomplished alternatives and inter/intra-group relationships, strongly bound by the historical and political contexts of the time. ‘Political tribalism’ and interpretations of the past have influenced and, even today, continue to influence post-colonial Rwandan politics.

The thesis offers a first-hand historically informed research on the trajectory of the making of the post-colonial state in Somalia (1940-60). It does so by investigating the interplay between the emergence and diffusion of national movements following the defeat of the Italians in 1941 and the establishment of a British Military Administration, and the process of decolonisation through a 10-year UN trusteeship to Italy in 1950. It examines the extent to which the features of Somali nationalism were affected/shaped by the institutional framework established by the UN mandate. The central argument of the thesis is that the imposition of the UN trusteeship, rather than enabling democratization, led to a ‘verticalisation’ of Somali nationalism and created a highly restrictive political space. Based on a combination of archival and oral sources, the thesis explores the socioeconomic context and possibilities of the wartime. It argues that Somali nationalism developed an efficient and inclusive message that successfully engaged in dialogue with the masses in the 1940s. However, the protraction of the UN debate and the extension of the military administration caused the radicalisation of conflicts among different groups. The imposition of self-government and democratization through the trusteeship system led to the establishment of a highly centralised and fixed institutional framework. Within this context, not only nationalism came to lose its original horizontal and inclusive political line, but national politics were reduced to zero-sum competition to access power and power structures. Ultimately, this exclusive, autocratic and distorted version of the nation-state negatively affected the process of unification of Somalia and Somaliland. By exploring the political trajectory leading to independence and unification, the thesis enhances a broader understanding of the development of post-colonial politics in Somalia. It contributes to specific discussions that centred on the features of the colonial legacy, on the effects of state and nation building, and on the consolidation of a clan-based discourse in post-colonial politics.

This dissertation, “Coloniality, Education and Indigenous Nation Building”, is a post-qualitative meta-analysis that examines the continuing inability of the Australian schooling system to adequately service the needs of Indigenous learners. The concepts of coloniality, education and Indigenous nation-building are used to establish the distinct parameters of my research locale. These tropes outline diffuse subtleties orchestrated to constrain Indigenous self-determination. Coloniality signifies the shift of Australia toward a modern nation, with its continuing strength contingent upon the “large-scale economic, political, spatial and ecological marginalisation of First Peoples” (Middleton, 2015, p. 564). While Indigenous nation-building denotes the “political, legal, spiritual, educational, and economic processes through which Indigenous peoples engage in order to build local capacity” (Castagno et al., 2016, p. 242), I align these tropes to deconstruct the current Australian school system. My analysis is guided by the question, Why are Indigenous learners continuing to underachieve in Australian schools?, and three correlational research problems: (1) Schooling and its effect upon Indigenous learners; (2) Ineffectual Indigenous-themed education research; and (3) Australian education (coloniality) versus Indigenous nation -building (decolonisation). I interlink my research question with problems, so as to better disentangle subtle complexities I see associated with Indigenous learning in a constraining educational milieu. The question of continuing Indigenous underachievement anchors this work, as above all, despite inter-governmental investment and monitoring, and an ever- increasing corpus of educational research, large-scale Indigenous success fails to translate. Given the persistent failures of recent investments, monitoring and research, I argue that Indigenous researchers require new methodological tools to understand the persistence of failure. I argue that despite advancing access for Indigenous Peoples to the academy, we have, in a very short timeframe, shifted from objects of research to participants, and now increasingly, producers of research. Given the rapid shift across a diaspora of exclusion to inclusion and leadership, I advocate for more reflection, critique, and discussion to better understand if, and where, agency can be found within our institutional participation, and academic proximity. Primarily, this dissertation functions to resolve a range of methodological tensions associated with Indigenous learners and the relationship they share with school and educational research. Facilitating my examination of Indigenous learning is the development and application of Critical Indigenous Cartography, a multiple method innovation, that purposefully intertwines researcher within the world and the spaces of this research. I employ Critical Indigenous Cartography methodically, through staged, systematic processes, to chart intersections between Closing the Gap, the Australian Curriculum, the National Program: Literacy and Numeracy, and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. “Coloniality, Education and Indigenous Nation Building” concludes with a ‘map’ of Indigenous underachievement, revealing how schools operate to deliberately acculturate and stratify the Indigenous body politic. Emerging from this study, is a reaffirmation for Indigenous communities and our allies, to view schools as apparatuses of power and deceit; as such, they should be viewed with appropriate respect and caution.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Hum, Lang & Soc Sc
Arts, Education and Law
Full Text

This thesis analyses French policies towards and perceptions of the British colony of Rhodesia, from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War up until the territory’s independence as Zimbabwe in 1980. Its main objective is to challenge notions of exceptionality associated with Franco-African relations, by investigating French engagement with a region outside of its traditional sphere of African influence. The first two chapters explore the development of Franco-Rhodesian relations in the eighteen years following the establishment of a French Consulate in Salisbury in 1947. Chapter One examines the foreign policy mind-set that underpinned French engagement with Rhodesia at this time, whilst Chapter Two addresses how this mind-set operated in practice. The remaining three chapters explore the evolution of France’s presence in this British colony in the fourteen and a half years following the white settlers’ Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Chapter Three sets out the particularities of the post-1965 context, in terms of France’s foreign policy agenda and the situation on the ground in Central Southern Anglophone Africa. Chapter Four analyses how the policies of state and non-state French actors were implemented in Rhodesia after 1965, and Chapter Five assesses the impact of these policies for France’s relations with Africa, Britain and the United States, as well as for the end of European rule in Rhodesia. This thesis argues that France’s African vision began to expand to include Anglophone Africa, not in the post colonial or post-Cold War eras, but immediately following the Second World War, thus challenging the view that France was solely concerned with its own African Empire at this time. Throughout, Rhodesia was intertwined with France’s policies towards Francophone Africa in terms of motivations, methods and men. This, in turn, had far reaching consequences for France’s presence on the African continent, its relationship with “les Anglo-Saxons” and the course of Rhodesian decolonisation.

This thesis deals with French decolonisation policy towards Tunisia and Morocco and international impacts on the decolonisation process. It is very important to deal with the two countries at the same time, because nationalist movements in each country and French policy responses were closely related. So far, research on French decolonisation has examined the reason why France was forced to retreat from their overseas territories and indicated that nationalist and international pressures largely contributed to this process. This thesis rather aims to clarify how the French tried to maintain their influence in Tunisia and Morocco. In terms of international impact, the existing research has stressed the role of American pressure towards decolonisation but has not referred to British policy. The thesis also focuses on Britain's role in determining French attitudes especially in the UN. Furthermore, this work aims to locate the decolonisation process of both countries in a broader context of post-war French policy towards their overseas territories. The thesis argues that the French accepted Tunisia's internal autonomy because they realised that the Tunisian people's consent was essential to retain influence. Hitherto, the French had been controlling Tunisia through puppet governments, which had been legitimised by the Tunisian sovereign's traditional authority. Now the French understood that they had to secure collaborators who could rally popular support. The thesis also argues that the French decision on Morocco's independence was aimed at preserving the unity of Morocco, whose opinion had been seriously divided. Indeed, France was aiming to produce pro-French moderate nationalism, thereby maintaining France's interest and influence. However, Morocco, and then Tunisia achieved independence without the framework of the French Union, the organisation grouping French overseas territories. Soon after Morocco's independence, France decided to give internal autonomy to the African territories, a move which paved the way to those territories' independence.

This thesis contributes to historical understanding of decolonisation in the British-colonised South Pacific through a detailed case study of the internationalisation of post-war public health. The role that health policy played in colonisation, both in the South Pacific and empire wide, is well understood, but its part in British decolonisation strategies is less known. Through analysing how Britain used maternal and child health policy to shape decolonisation in Fiji this thesis addresses this underexplored question. The negotiations surrounding health policy decisions reveal much about this process at a territorial, intra-colonial, inter-imperial, and international level. At a territorial and intra-colonial level, maternal and child health was entwined in colonial attempts to manage a charged ethno-political situation in Fiji in the run up to independence. At a regional and international level, the new Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) of the World Health Organization (WHO), attempted to disseminate universal rights and norms in health. Britain, and other imperial powers administrating Pacific Islands, perceived WPRO as a threat to their sovereignty over health and development. They established an inter-imperial organisation – the South Pacific Commission (SPC) – partly to demonstrate acquiescence with, but prevent interference by, UN agencies. The SPC and WPRO tried to build institutional prestige through efforts to establish themselves as authorities on maternal and child health. Using under-exploited sources this thesis uses the sub-case studies of maternal and infant nutrition, family planning/population control, and women’s health education, to discuss collaboration and contest between these actors. It demonstrates that conflict over decolonisation, as well as health, created barriers to policy innovation, which were only bridged by interventions by civil society organisations. It shows that colonial health policy shaped decolonisation in Fiji and international health in the region. It highlights the underappreciated role of civil society in colonial and international health.

Ce travail offre une analyse approfondie des forces multiples et souvent contradictoires et ambigues qui furent a la base de la politique americaine dans le maghreb durant la guerre froide. En s'ecartant des visions simplistes, ce travail montre le double jeu de la diplomatie americaine au maghreb. D'une part, elle suivait l'ideologie paternaliste de developpement et d'independance evolutive tout en utilisant le modele philippin comme solution potentielle aux problemes des colonies et comme modele de transition qui transformerait les structures coloniales en une influence officieuse. Les etats-unis encourageaient les francais a adopter ce modele de decolonisation et a preparer d'une maniere progressive les maghrebins a l'auto-determination, puis en dernier lieu, a l'independance, a condition que les colonies soient capables de maintenir une stabilite interne et des systemes economiques et politiques compatibles avec le capitalisme. Ceci se ferait bien sur par la mise en place des reformes minutieusement etudiees et planifiees. D'autre part, la diplomatie americaine fut influencee par les enjeux geo-strategiques de la guerre froide. La bureaucratie americaine etant tiraillee entre ces deux positions, le resultat fut souvent la confusion, l'incoherence et une tendance a oeuvrer en faveur des interets francais
This study offers a sophisticated analysis of the multiple and often contradictory forces that shaped american maghrebi policy during the cold war period. Rejecting simplistic views, this work shows that two countervailing forces shaped american maghrebi policy. On one hand, it was influenced by a paternalistic ideology of development and gradual independence that was a hall mark of u. S. Foreigh policy, using the process of philippines independence as a model for the transition of colonial peoples to self-government. The u. S. Thus encouraged france to adopt this model of decolonization, and to progressively prepare the maghrebis for the task of self-government and eventual selfdetermination. Independence would be only granted, however, after it was ensured - through an ordely and gradual decolonization process that the former colonies would be fully integrated into the capitalist world order, maintaining economic ties with their former colonizers, and that they were no longer susceptible to internal instability or vulnerable to external pressures such as the threat of communism. This would take place by the implementation of carefully - timed reforms leading to an eventual "graduation" day

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-141).
The focus of this dissertation is on colonisation and decolonisation as cornerstones in the development of sub-Saharan Africa's current institutions and how these historical institutions affect current economic growth outcomes. The dissertation consists of three main chapters besides the introductory and concluding chapters. The rst main chapter considers conditions of optimality in a co-optive strategy of colonial rule. It proposes a simple model of elite formation emanating from a coloniser's quest to maximise extracted rents from its colonies... In the second main chapter, I argue that the pattern of decolonisation in West Africa was a function of the nature of human capital transfers from the colonisers to the indigenous elites of the former colonies. Underpinning the nature of these human capital transfers is the colonial educational ideology... The third main chapter investigates the channels through which colonial origin affects economic outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It focuses on four key channels of transmission namely, human capital, trade openness, market distortion and selection bias.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2004.
Title from electronic document (viewed 15/6/10) Presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Western Sydney, 2004. Includes bibliography.

This thesis uses the city of Dar es Salaam as a prism for exploring the intersection of the Cold War and decolonisation with political life in post-colonial Tanzania. By deconstructing politics in the city through transnational and international approaches, it challenges prevailing narratives of the global Cold War, African liberation, and the contemporary Tanzanian history. In the decade after Tanzania became independent in 1961, President Julius Nyerere’s commitment to the liberation of Africa transformed Dar es Salaam into a cosmopolitan epicentre of international affairs in Africa, on the frontline of both the Cold War and decolonisation. In shifting the focus away from superpower relations and the paradigm of the nation-state, this thesis shows how African politicians exercised significant influence over Cold War powers, but also how the global context pushed Nyerere’s government into increasingly authoritarian methods of rule. The political geography and public sphere of Dar es Salaam, as a ‘Cold War city’, provides an interpretative lens through which diverse but ultimately entwined narratives are understood. These include the international rivalry between East Germany and West Germany; the politics of the exiled Mozambican liberation movement, FRELIMO; the local experience of the global ‘1968’; and thecourse of elite politics in a critical period in the Tanzania’s recent history. This multilateral history is made possible by a multiarchival approach, to shed light on developments in Dar es Salaam from multiple, triangulated perspectives.

This dissertation explores the notion of decolonial reconstruction to promote the decolonising process in South Africa. Decolonial reconstruction entails the creation of a new South African society through a clear paradigmatic shift from a Eurocentric one to a decolonising paradigm. Decolonising is required in South Africa due to its colonial past, as well as the fact that contemporary South African society is neocolonial. In order to change the neocolonial status quo, it is necessary to create a decolonising framework. For the purposes of this dissertation the framework will be applied to South African universities. Universities are the focus because they exist as microcosms of the broader South African society. A tetralogy of books by Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o provide the blueprint for the four aspects of the decolonising framework. These four aspects are: decolonising the mind; moving the centre; re-membering Africa; and globalectics. Decolonising the mind addresses the fact that in order to begin decolonising one must start with the minds of the coloniser and colonised and begin to shift their minds away from a colonial or neocolonial paradigm. In terms of the second aspect of the decolonising framework, it is necessary to move the centre away from Eurocentrism towards a multiplicity of centres. Another aspect of the decolonising framework is re-membering Africa, this is pertinent as Africa underwent dismemberment through colonialism which brought about epistemicide. As a result, it is necessary to put African cultures and epistemologies back together by re-membering them. The final aspect of the decolonising framework is to enter into global dialectics so that cultures and epistemologies can learn from each other and come to coexist in a pluraversal world. Through applying this framework to South African universities, they can undertake a decolonising process of decolonial reconstruction that will make them into pluriversities which promote harmony and coexistence.
Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019.
Jurisprudence
LLM
Unrestricted

Amongst Western political scientists and policy-makers, a perceived economic and political ‘crisis’ of the African state since the 1980s has produced a terminology of ‘weak states’, ‘quasi-states’ and ‘failed states’. Such terminology, however, represents a narrow and pathological understanding of the African state, one that has reduced its post-independence trajectory to a series of deviations from an ideal-typical – and largely Eurocentric – model of statehood. The normative standards of this ‘strong’ and ‘successful’ ideal of statehood have, predominantly, been defined by a government’s ability to exercise complete domestic authority, and to provide for the full welfare and development of its population. Within this paradigm, armed conflict, and a government’s reliance on foreign aid, are both seen to represent a country’s ‘lack’ of statehood. The application of these universal standards to Africa has tended to ignore the distinct historical context from which independent African states emerged. Using the example of French Cameroon, this thesis firstly establishes such a historical context, one that was significantly shaped by the limiting and shallow development efforts of colonial administrations. Importantly, however, this context was also constituted by new opportunities for international support that emerged during the post-war period, represented by the newly formed U.N., an increasing number of independent (and former colonial) states, as well as former colonial powers. It is a context that necessitates a more specific set of standards to analyse the exercise of statehood in Africa. The thesis consequently identifies one such standard – or function – of statehood: the ability to control access to external resources, through a claim to represent an internationally recognised state. It is a function in which recourse to external aid, and even armed conflict, become understandable as rational strategies that reinforce statehood in an African context, rather than negate it. The original contribution of the thesis, however, proceeds from identifying this function in a group that was excluded from the institutions, and even territory, of the Cameroonian state. That group was the Union des Populations du Cameroun (U.P.C.); a nationalist party that waged a guerrilla insurgency against Cameroon’s colonial and independent governments, and whose leadership predominantly remained in exile. By locating the U.P.C.’s history within this logic of African statehood, the thesis offers an alternative reading of the party’s campaign, and a means of understanding the relationship between its armed and diplomatic struggles. By examining how the U.P.C. competed with Cameroon’s government to successfully perform a fundamental function of African statehood, the thesis enables a more detailed analysis of its underlying dynamics, and interrogates the basis upon which the party – and indeed the African state – have been conventionally judged as ‘failed’. Finally, the thesis contributes to a growing number of studies that have sought to examine empire and decolonisation from a transnational perspective, studying the complex and contingent relationships between local, national, regional and international histories.

The trickster is a powerful figure of transformation in many societies, including Native Canadian and Maori cultures. As a demi-god, the trickster has the ability to assume the shape of a variety of animals and humans, but is typically associated with one particular form. In Native Canadian tribes, the trickster is identified as an animal and can range from a Raven to a Coyote, depending on the tribal mythologies from which he/she is derived. In Maori culture, Maui is the trickster figure and is conceptualised as a human male. In this thesis, I discuss how the traditional trickster is contexualised in the contemporary texts of both Native Canadian and Maori writers. Thomas King, Lee Maracle, Witi Ihimaera, and Patricia Grace all use the trickster figure, and the tricksterish strategies of creation/destruction, pedagogy, and humour to facilitate the decolonisation of culture within the textual realms of their novels. The trickster enables the destruction of stereotyped representations of colonised peoples and the creation of revised portrayals of these communities from an indigenous perspective. These recreated realities aid in teaching indigenous communities the strengths inherent in their cultural traditions, and foreground the use of comedy as an effective pedagogical device and subversive weapon. Although the use of trickster is considerable in both Maori and Native Canadian texts, it tends to be more explicit in the latter. A number of possibilities for these differences are considered.

This thesis explores the role of ‘alternative’ international journalism – broadly conceived – in geopolitics. Theoretically anchored in the typically poststructuralist and discourse-focussed subdiscipline of critical geopolitics, and drawing on literature from journalism and media studies, it is concerned with journalistic constructions of the Global South during the latter half of the twentieth century. Its central case study is the Gemini News Service, an ‘alternative’ news features agency, active 1967-2002, which focussed on providing news coverage of and for the Global South and, crucially, having journalists in the Global South report about the places they were from. The agency was opposed to the superficial, conflict-ladened ‘parachute’ reporting of the hegemonic, Western-controlled global media and sought to utilise its large network of freelance journalists to provide more, ‘better’, ‘fuller’ and ‘richer’ accounts of the newly-postcolonial world. It supplied analytical, long-form articles to more than 100 subscribing newspapers; combining the readership of these titles, Gemini advertised that it had a daily audience of ‘millions’ for its journalistic content. This thesis will argue that these dispatches were, in many senses, an alternative to the geopolitical renderings of the hegemonic global news media. Gemini’s popular geopolitical discourses actively rejected the notion of a world characterised by a binary superpower rivalry, insisting, instead, that it was the attainment of independence and the fights for more equitable and just forms of global governance by scores of states, new on the international scene, that defined the geopolitics of this era. The thesis asks questions of Gemini’s alterity and concludes that while the agency may have been considered ‘radical’ in many traditional journalistic circles, there were numerous practical, conceptual and cultural constraints that prevented it from producing a popular journalistic geopolitics that was counterhegemonic or decolonising. This thesis, then, considers Gemini’s articles to be significant producers, for a wide international readership, of geopolitical ‘knowledge’ about the decolonising and newly-postcolonial world. It contends that critical engagement with popular geopolitics has largely ignored such ostensibly ‘alternative’ ways of ‘knowing’ and representing the world and seeks, therefore, to unearth and highlight these overlooked means by which a large number of people – predominantly in the Global South – gained a mediated experience of geopolitics and an understanding of their place within it. It contends, though, that in thinking about the (de)colonisation of popular journalistic ‘knowledge’ it is crucial to also consider the subject of journalism itself, as a practice, ideology, profession and set of texts with distinct philological characteristics. It argues that Gemini, alongside a host of other actors who have sought to intervene on this issue, have thought about the decolonisation of the popular news media solely in terms of representation: the felicitous representation of (formerly) colonised peoples in the pages of newspapers and the representation of people of colour on the staff of journalistic outlets. In addressing the colonisation of journalism, we also need to consider how the international journalistic field is characterised by professional ideologies, norms and practices particular to Western historical, political and social contexts, yet widely assumed to be universally applicable. We need to consider the particular (racialised, classed and gendered) cultures, hierarchies and political economies of journalism, all of which significantly influence the nature of journalistic ‘knowledge’ production. In addition, then, to textual analysis of Gemini’s popular journalistic material, the thesis investigates the extent to which ostensibly ‘alternative’, Global South-oriented journalistic institutions engaged in alternative journalistic practices and adopted alternative ways of ‘knowing’ and representing global space and global politics. This helps us to understand not only how – by various discursive and rhetorical means – these outlets constructed geopolitical space, but also why they produced geopolitics as they did; in Gemini’s case, constructing a sparsely-populated, masculinist vision of global politics, in which all but the state and the state’s political elite were rendered invisible and denied any meaningful agency. It is hoped that this focus on how the decolonisation of journalism has been constrained by widespread notions of Western epistemological supremacy in the journalistic field, common journalistic conventions, and the culture of professional journalism will prove useful for ongoing, and much needed, attempts to decolonise the news media. This thesis also demonstrates the fruitfulness for critical geopolitics of considering carefully the (material, cultural, practical and ideological) historical geographies of popular media production. It makes the case for the importance of engaging, in tandem, with journalistic geopolitics – the discursive construction of global political space by the professional news media – and with the geopolitics of journalism – the spatio-political factors that shape journalistic production and consumption – and proposes that a distinct, and methodologically and conceptually pluralistic, stream of scholarship within critical geopolitics, formed to further such research, could bear fruit.

This thesis responds to the dearth of detailed studies of pioneering African modernists; and the need for fresh theoretical frameworks for the interpretation of their art. Building on recent scholarship that applies decolonisation as an epistemic framework, it argues that a productive decolonial discourse needs to consider concurrent forms of nationalism and cultural agency in both the anti/colonial and postcolonial periods. Central to this approach is an analysis of the aesthetic responses of artists to the experiences and legacies of colonialism. This thesis is grounded in a study of Malangatana Valente Ngwenya (1936-2011), Mozambique’s most celebrated artist. It draws substantially on archival material and rare publications, mostly in Portuguese. The artist’s career is located within changing social and political contexts, specifically the anti/colonial period, and the promise and collapse of the postcolonial revolutionary project, with the pervasive influence of the Cold War highlighted. Following the advent of globalisation, the artist’s role in normalising postcolonial relations with Portugal is foregrounded. Parallel to his contribution to Mozambican art and society, Malangatana features prominently in surveys of modern African art. The notion of the artist fulfilling divergent social roles at different points in time for evolving publics is linked to an analysis of his emergence as a composite cultural sign: autodidact; revolutionary; cultural ‘ambassador’; and global citizen. The artist’s decolonial aesthetics are positioned in relation to those of his pan-African peers, with four 6 themes elaborated: colonial assimilation; anti-colonial resistance; postcolonial dystopia; and the articulation of a new Mozambican identity. Key to this analysis is an elaboration of the concept of the polemic sign, initially proposed by Jean Duvignaud (1967), adapted here to interpret the artist’s predilection for composite visual signs that, in their ambivalence and often provocative significations, resist processes of definitive translation. It is argued that through a juxtaposition of disparate forms of signs, and the simultaneous deployment of semi-realist and narrative pictorial strategies, the artist develops a complex, eclectic and evocative aesthetic that requires critical and open-ended engagement. The thesis concludes with provocative questions regarding the extent to which the artist’s aesthetics reflect hegemonic national narratives, or act to unsettle these. of a new Mozambican identity. Key to this analysis is an elaboration of the concept of the polemic sign, initially proposed by Jean Duvignaud (1967), adapted here to interpret the artist’s predilection for composite visual signs that, in their ambivalence and often provocative significations, resist processes of definitive translation. It is argued that through a juxtaposition of disparate forms of signs, and the simultaneous deployment of semi-realist and narrative pictorial strategies, the artist develops a complex, eclectic and evocative aesthetic that requires critical and open-ended engagement. The thesis concludes with provocative questions regarding the extent to which the artist’s aesthetics reflect hegemonic national narratives, or act to unsettle these.

Throughout the 1960s, West Papuan activists engaged in a political campaign for West Papuan independence at the United Nations. West Papuans were marginalised by the bilateral dispute between the Netherlands and Indonesia over the future of the territory. The Netherlands attempted to control the process of decolonisation in West Papua, while Indonesian nationalists waged an aggressive campaign to ‘liberate’ West Papua from Dutch control. West Papuans argued for decolonisation apart from Indonesia and advocated for their direct participation in the negotiations over the future of the territory. The West Papuan campaign for independence was interrupted by the signing of the New York Agreement in 1962, which transferred the territory to Indonesian control after a period of UN administration. Conditions in West Papuan quickly deteriorated under Indonesian rule and many West Papuan nationalists were forced to seek refuge in Papua New Guinea and the Netherlands. However, Indonesian oppression only propelled the movement and from 1963-67 West Papuan leaders established transnational activist networks connecting the territory to West Papuan diasporas in PNG and the Netherlands. West Papuan activists then deployed these networks in the lead up to the Act of Free Choice in 1969 to draw attention to Indonesian rights abuses and the political oppression of the West Papuan people. This thesis examines the strategies used by West Papuan activists in their transnational campaign for West Papua independence to the UN. I focus on how the West Papuan activists attempted to utilise growing discourse on race and rights as a strategy to advocate for independence while navigating the rise of Afro-Asian politics and the changing nature of anticolonialism during the Cold War. Drawing on West Papuan petitions and oral history interviews, I position this history in relation to diverse West Papuan perspectives. Many accounts of the struggle over West Papua in the 1960s have focused on the diplomatic conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands and Indonesia’s conduct of the Act of Free Choice. By focusing on the West Papuan campaign itself, I resist a geopolitical framing of the 1960s, which places the perspectives of international diplomats above those of West Papuans. In doing so, I reject the colonial infrastructure that defined West Papuans’ lives, instead allowing actors to define their activities on their own terms. More broadly, I argue for Pacific islands to be included in international histories of decolonization, as they challenge our understandings of colonialism and conventional chronologies of decolonisation. This history forces historians to confront the question: did colonialism in West Papua ever end?

French India consisted of five small, non-contiguous, defenceless, and economically insignificant territories, remnants of old trading posts scattered along the Indian coastline. The territories nevertheless had distinct cultural, historical, social, and linguistic characteristics. The independence of India in August 1947 brought into sharp focus the presence of France on the subcontinent and her territorial sovereignty over the French Indian territories. The issue was exacerbated by the new French constitution that made French India, like other French overseas territories, an indivisible part of the Fourth Republic (1946-1958) that could only secede through a referendum. This thesis suggests that France’s status as a subaltern coloniser, which had been defined by the historical dimensions of Franco-British relations in India, resulted in France’s creation of a myth of French India. This myth was part of the formation of a French national identity, and consequently French India was imagined to be greater than it really was. These considerations prevented France’s swift withdrawal from the subcontinent after India’s independence. In addition, a post-war colonial policy based on national grandeur, historical continuity, and a belief in the strategic value of French India in relation to the rest of the empire, in particular Indochina, led to France’s determination to remain in India - where it had a presence since 1663 - despite India’s territorial claims over European territories on the subcontinent and rising anti-colonial criticism. India’s own construct of French India as part of the Indian homeland drove both France and India to use French India as a political showcase for their own nationalist agendas. Diplomatic negotiations to decide the future of the French Indian territories dragged on for seven years; at the local level, pro-merger, anti-merger, and separatist factions, all of whom had been influenced by political, social, and historical factors, undermined both the arguments that French India should merge with India, and the arguments that she should remain within the French colonial framework. The factions, it will be argued, challenged both India’s nation-building process and France’s last attempt at regaining past colonial grandeur.

The game of cricket is often discussed as an enduring legacy of the British Empire. This dissertation examines the response of the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC) as the official governing body of ‘international’ men’s cricket to developments related to decolonisation of the British Empire between 1947 and 1965. This was a period of intense political flux and paradigmatic shifts. This study draws on primary sources in the form of records of ICC and MCC meetings and newspaper archives, and a wide-ranging corpus of secondary sources on the history of cricket, history of the Commonwealth and transnational perspectives on history. It is the contention of this dissertation that these cricket archives have hitherto not been exploited as commentary on decolonisation or the Commonwealth. Due attention is given to familiarising the reader with the political backdrop in the Empire and Commonwealth against which the ICC is studied. Primary source materials are used extensively to reconstruct and scrutinise major ‘off-field’ developments that affected the ICC in this period. This enables the dissertation to bring together the political Commonwealth, the non-governmental Commonwealth and the ICC for a comparative study. Using this synthesis as a framework, it analyses the ICC’s response to decolonisation. The dissertation also introduces literature on transnational perspectives on history and assesses the Commonwealth of Nations—of which the ICC was an important part—from this perspective. The last chapter concludes proceedings by highlighting the contribution of this dissertation to the wider body of historical knowledge. Based on the evidence, the dissertation finds that cricket’s encounter with decolonisation was unhappy and protracted. The clash of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Commonwealth, much-chronicled in commentary on the political Commonwealth, was echoed in the world of cricket. The ICC is portrayed as one among a plethora of individuals, institutions and interest groups that participated in the process of decolonisation of the British Empire. Against the backdrop of the demise of the British Empire, the Imperial Cricket Conference could be seen a Commonwealth interest group that, as a transnational site, continuously grappled with conflict arising from lingering (real and imagined) ‘bonds’ of empire and assertion of British soft power on the one hand, and increasing assertion of national identity and rights by member states on the other. One can read the ICC as a microcosm of important debates within the Empire and the Commonwealth in this period. The ICC is a rich repository of information on decolonisation and cricket and decolonisation in cricket. In spite of its long association with the Commonwealth, there has been little sustained engagement with cricket in Commonwealth studies. This dissertation attempts to address that gap by probing the historical role of cricket. It also offers fresh institutional and transnational perspectives in contrast to the dominant social history paradigm in the literature on cricket.

This thesis explores the engagement of a group of Mapuche-Pewenche communities with tourism in southern Chile. I argue that Trekaleyin, their tourism initiative, is part of a broader and long history of resistance and struggles for autonomy, territory and decolonisation, in which identity, development, agency and relations with other beings are negotiated, revitalised and re-produced. From my experience working as a development practitioner with these communities in the beginnings of Trekaleyin, I became interested in understanding the ways in which, as a collective experience, it is embedded in and articulated with political concerns and contestation with regards to neoliberalism and multiculturalism. I also became interested in how the communities are incorporating and reactivating diverse and solidarity economies in their work on tourism, while at the same time reworking their relations with and the market economy itself. I suggest that through Trekaleyin, the communities are also re-producing a relational and open sense of place and connectivity, mobilising particular ways of knowing, being and relating to territory and more-than-human beings in a context of global neoliberalism, reshaping scales and their possibilities. With this thesis I aim to explore how, through their engagement in tourism, community members are disrupting, expanding and hybridising discourses and practices around development, the economy, nature and cross-cultural relations, reworking them so as to craft a better position from where they can participate in them, but the consequences of which extend beyond the “local”, affecting us all, both indigenous and non-indigenous. Therefore, from an ethnographic site and poststructural, post-human and decolonising geographic approaches, this thesis brings new perspectives to the study of development, tourism and the environment, particularly among indigenous peoples, in which autonomy, hybridity, diversity and relational ontologies are articulated.

This thesis is about the power of political elites to establish the framework of political discourse, and to thereby control political power, in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican 'status question' - the debate about the island's ultimate juridical and political relationship with the United States and the rest of the world – is considered a manifestation of such power. Formal domestic politics in Puerto Rico is structured around three party political desires for an uncertain and unknowable postcolonial future, and not around any set of distinctive ideological positions for engaging with political issues in the present. An unresolved question of nationalism and state building therefore becomes the structural filter through which all politics must necessarily pass. Inspired by the concept of hegemony, the thesis is firstly interested in how political elites exercise power to establish status as the framework for domestic political discourse. Secondly, and more importantly, it is interested in how this framework is reinforced, modified, resisted and even overcome through elite exercises of power in concrete political settings. The thesis takes a particular focus on the relationship between status positions and everyday political practices in three Puerto Rican municipalities: Guaynabo, Caguas and Lares. The author arrived at this focus through an ethnographic engagement with the field that was made possible by his research positionality as a white British outsider to Puerto Rico. The thesis tells the story of the nuanced ways in which local political elites engage with the status question through practices of politics on the ground. Elite performances of local state power do not straightforwardly reproduce the hegemony of status, but rather, create a more complicated empirical terrain of contradictory, unexpected and subversive effects. In certain places, everyday practices of municipal politics appear to reflect the intractable entanglement of local priorities and centrally prescribed status positions. In others, politics gets done in ways that leave the status question behind, creating effects that include city-state sovereignty, elevated standards of living, non-nationalist forms of politics, and non-state-centric possibilities for decolonisation. Ironically, therefore, a political system that is so profoundly shaped by discourses of nationalism and state building is disrupted in practice by some of the very actors who help to give the system this shape. These findings contribute to critical geographies of the Caribbean and to recent debates on politics, power and decolonisation in Puerto Rico.

Indigenous self-determination is a spectre haunting colonial settler states. Struggles for land, cultural rights and sovereignty challenge governments built on dispossession, plunder and genocide. As the neoliberal phase of capitalism and its push for greater resource extraction pushes the planet to ecocide, Indigenous communities and their environmental ontologies offer solutions to catastrophic ecological and social crisis. This comparative thesis examines campaigns for Indigenous sovereignty in Bolivia and Australia and briefly explores the topic of Indigenous-led answers to the climate crisis. This study is inspired by a visit to Bolivia in 2006 and a motivation to deepen an understanding around Indigenous struggles in Australia. Bolivia is a focal point for this research because its ‘government of the social movements’ (Achtenberg 2015, para 6) is an experiment in Indigenous emancipation. In Australia, Aboriginal activists Pat Eatock and Ray Jackson encouraged my research around local campaigns. Engaging and convincing, Aunty Pat and Uncle Ray lived by a ‘political commitment to take up the side of the oppressed and exploited’ (Kinsman 2008, para 4). A good deal of intellectual and activist work on Indigenous self-determination employs a contrastive framework. Drawing out similarities and differences across nation-state boundaries clarifies colonial strategies and strengthens a global solidarity response. However, there is a scholarship emphasis towards the global north due to the domination of imperialist narratives. This explains why self-determination studies within Australia do not feature research on Bolivia’s sovereignty model. The research fills a gap within scholarly texts, because, as yet, no comparison between Bolivian Indigenous resistance and Indigenous Australian struggles exists. Research road map This investigation starts with an introduction, delves into the research’s theoretical and methodological approach, divides into three chapters and concludes. Each chapter compares Bolivia and Australia’s three structural pillars that form the basis of Indigenous self-determination: land, cultural rights and self-governance bodies. The concluding chapter assesses and compares the strengths and weaknesses of First Nation struggles in each country. The research finds that Indigenous sovereignty battles have benefited from coalitions between Indigenous and socialist forces in ‘black-red’ alliances (coalitions between Indigenous, communists and socialist forces) (Townsend 2009, p.5). Finally, an emancipatory vision of Indigenous self-determination, based on battle models within Australia and Bolivia, is proffered. Theoretical framework and methodological approach This investigation fuses Indigenous cosmological tenets and a Marxist philosophical framework. It engages a participatory activist research methodology through engagement with and interviews from Indigenous and mestizo activists and scholars. The research finds commonality between Marxist philosophical foundations and aspects of Indigenous ontologies. Marxism was the theoretical child of Western liberal thought, which hosted a range of pro-colonial positions. In comparison, Karl Marx critiqued colonialism’s enslavement of Aboriginal people (Marx 1867 p. 531). Marx and Friedrich Engels developed Marxism’s philosophical and scientific tenets — dialectics and materialism - arguing the material world is primary and provable. Marxism’s dialectics notes ‘an interconnected, eternal motion existing within all phenomena’ (Engels 1873-1886, para 1) (Marx and Engels 1869, para 4) (Engels 1896, para 4, 5). That is, A equals A, and non-A. Dialectics is built upon in Indigenous Bolivian Aymara philosophies. Aymaran ‘trivalent logic’ is the Indigenous Bolivia’s hyper-dialectical cosmological tenet. Trivalent logic advances the Marxist dialectic, through adding one more recognised dimension. The Aymaran ‘plurivalence’ is neither formalistic nor absolutist. It is neither A nor B, but can be A, B, or C. Another commonality between Marxism and Indigenous cosmologies are their ecological positions. The emphasis on a communitarian ethic in both Marx’s writings and Indigenous approaches point to additional parallelisms. However, a key contrasting tenet of Marxism to Indigenous spirituality, is its scientific approach – it’s materialism. However, this study concludes that a Marxist approach and Indigenous cosmologies host more similar ideas and concepts than oppositional ones, and so fuses both frameworks. The participatory action research method situates this study within an empowerment frame. Colonisation attempts to silence Indigenous people. Therefore, this study features the judgements of Murri elder Ken Canning, active in the Sydney based Indigenous Social Justice Association, alongside Gumbaynggirr man Roxley Foley, and Zachary Joseph Wone, from the Kabi Kabi Nation of the Dundaburra clan. All the Bolivian interviewees, Enrique Castana Ballivian, Odalis Zuazo and Pablo Regalsky work within Indigenous communities, or publish articles about land management and Indigenous rights. Complications in comparisons This research uncovers a difficulty in comparing self-determination battles in Australia and Bolivia. Bolivia was colonised by Spain, Australia, by Britain. Bolivia holds the highest percentage of indigenous people of any nation in the Western hemisphere – 42% (Fontana 2013 para 3), (TeleSur 2015, para 2). Yet only 2.8% of the population identify as Indigenous in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017, para 1). Australia is a rich imperialist country, while Bolivia is part of the exploited, impoverished third world. However, this study reveals, Indigenous Australian and Bolivian communities confront common enemies. Imperialism’s profit motive targets homelands, kinships and organisations. In this, the two resistance struggles interlink. Struggles for land in Bolivia and Australia An examination of Bolivia and Australia’s land rights battles in the neoliberal phase uncover more differences than similarities. Bolivia’s struggles proved more powerful, ending with the election of President Evo Morales, who leads an Indigenous government. However, a constant between the two nations struggles was the critical role of the black-red alliances. In Australia, the modern land rights movement was sparked by Aboriginal labourers strike in 1946–1949, in the Pilbara, Western Australia - assisted by non-Aboriginal communist Don McLeod. Then, in 1966, Aboriginal communities in Gurindji led the longest strike in Australia’s history, winning nine years later. Frank Hardy, Communist Party member, was a critical ally in the struggle. Following these seminal fights, Aboriginal people have won some control over 33% of Australia’s land mass. In Australia’s neoliberal period, land rights were attacked. Firstly, through the Northern Territory (NT) Intervention in 2007, then in 2015, with attempts to close remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia (WA) and South Australia (SA). The ‘Stop the NT Intervention’ movement was not successful, but mass protests in 2015, led by the #sosblakaustralia movement stopped the closures of remote communities. Both the Indigenous rights movement and black-red alliances have not been strong enough to assuage neoliberalism’s assault on land rights. While 33% of land in Australia has been re-won, in some form, to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the majority of land to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is in remote and arid lands. In comparison, Bolivia’s land rights movements and black-red alliances in the neoliberal phase proved incredibly hardy. On the back of strong movements: The Coca, Gas and Water Wars, Indigenous Aymara Evo Morales was elected in 2005. Sections of the government proposed a ‘communitarian socialist’ Bolivia and Morales’s agrarian revolution handed 9600 square miles of state-owned land to Indigenous communities. However, Bolivia’s pro-Indigenous land reform and pachamama (mother-earth) approach was questioned by a proposal build a highway through the Isiboro Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) in 2011. Various Non-Government Organisations (NGO) charged Morales with coercion and ignoring Indigenous wishes. On the other side of the debate, Vice-President Alvero Garcia Linera argued anti-government NGOs led a green imperialist intervention against the TIPNIS project. After withdrawing from the highway’s timeframe and consulting with communities, a number of TIPNIS opponents withdrew their opposition. Struggles for cultural rights in Australia and Bolivia Spanish and British colonial projects both attempted ethnocide against thirty-six Bolivian communities and five hundred distinct First Nations in Australia. Britain sought to physically eliminate Indigenous people, but when resistance proved too robust, they began a cultural war through protectionist policies and an assimilation wave. By comparison, Spain’s strategy was to attempt genocide against Indigenous Incas, then co-opt a layer of compliant Incan nobility to enslave remainder Indigenous population. In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander campaigning in the 1960s forced the end of assimilationist policies with Freedom Rides, the resilient Tent Embassy in Canberra and an urban expansion in Redfern leading a powerful cultural revival. In the neoliberal phase, governments in Australia are leading a second assimilation phase. A culture war decrying a ‘black armband’ view of history included the abolition of the national Indigenous self-governance body Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and $534 million in cuts from Indigenous services in 2014. Despite these obstacles, communities fought off a government-funded ‘Constitutional Recognition’ campaign. However, school history textbooks continue to portray Australia in a colonial white frame. Language reclamation battles have only elicited incremental progress. Comparatively, under the Morales government, Bolivia’s Indigenous cultural rights have progressed. The Bolivian government established a ‘Vice Ministry for Decolonization’. The new constitution acknowledges thirty-six recognized indigenous peoples, compels universities to teach Indigenous languages and memorializes anti-colonial warriors. On increasing Indigenous identification, the government has received a set-back. However, on balance, the MAS government is advancing a decolonizing program. Struggles for self-governance Winning self-governance structures in an anti-colonial frame is critical for Indigenous self-determination. The research uncovers socialists have developed autonomy structures for minority governance that aid Indigenous self-governance projects. From the Russian Bolshevik federated structure model, to Bolivia’s plurinationalism and Indigenous native peasant autonomy structures (AIOCs), socialists have, and are experimenting with democratic structures that benefit to Indigenous and ethnic minorities. However, in Bolivia, there appears to be a retreat from an AIOC model, as Indigenous autonomies do not feature in the 2025 government strategy document. In Australia, British genocide policies weakened First Nations governance, but nation-wide resistance organisations developed from the 1920s. By the 1970s Aboriginal communities had won elected national representation and localised land councils. In the neoliberal phase ATSIC was established – but the government disbanded it in 2004. Militant, national alliances such as the Freedom Summit, Grandmothers Against Removal, #sosblak and Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) formed to fight land grabs and a re-assimilation push. The research discovers a weaker self-governance movement in Australia compared to Bolivia. Additionally, Australia’s socialist movement is more fragile– although a number of Aboriginal militants joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in the 20th century. This study concludes that two organisations, Socialist Alliance and Solidarity, assist Aboriginal campaigns in the 21st century. Aboriginal activists stand as Socialist Alliance candidates in state and federal elections. Socialists in Australia only gather 1.5–5% in state and federal elections. However, three socialists at the local council level have been elected with 30–55% of the vote. In comparison, openly socialist Bolivian presidential candidate Evo Morales wins 65% of the national vote. Conclusions This comparative study discovers strong Indigenous self-determination battles and structures in Bolivia, and weaker ones in Australia. Australian Indigenous resistance offers a rich experience of decolonising lessons to Bolivia’s Indigenous struggles. Equally, Bolivia’s empowerment structures hold encouraging insights. This research concludes that neoliberalism’s strength, a small Indigenous population and the weakness of progressive forces, leave the battle for a pan-Aboriginal republic at an embryonic stage. In contract, Bolivia’s Plurinational project is empowering Indigenous people with land, cultural rights and governance structures. While under pressure due to its positioning in the global capitalist market, Bolivia’s revolution is building Andean capitalism and an Indigenous nationalist model, with a communitarian socialist trajectory. This tension of having to operate within imperialism, I contend, do not detract from Bolivia’s positive example of a Indigenous sovereignty model. The study concludes that vying for state power hosts contradictions for Indigenous self-determination battles. However, Bolivia’s example shows that building Indigenous power from within and separate from the state, has benefited the majority of its people. Black-red alliances have been critical in both Bolivia and Australia’s battles for land, culture and governance rights. Indeed, Bolivia’s Plurinational structures can be viewed as a continuation of a socialist democratic principle. Bolivia points to a pathway for Indigenous emancipation in Australia. A multi-national, pan-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander anti-corporate republic offers a powerful decolonising frame. Through songlines and memorias, heroic wars, embassies and sovereignty plans, these autonomist models are providing robust self-determination prototypes.

Indigenous art has been one of the most important vehicles for promoting intercultural understanding in Australia. It visualises Indigenous ways of seeing, knowing and experiencing the world. Indigenous forms of curation have been instrumental in creating these profound moments of intercultural connection, contributing to new theorisations of Indigenous art. This research project seeks to identify an Indigenous critical framework with which to apprehend the complexity of Indigenous art exhibitions. Through detailed case-studies of six exhibitionary projects by Indigenous curators, running from the Aboriginal Memorial of 1988 to barrangal dyara (skin and bones) in 2016, I demonstrate that Indigenous curation is not only an important political act of recognition and visibility, it is also deeply indebted to Indigenous cultural practices and philosophies. The projects chosen are situated within sites of high national and international value and through these case studies I chart a curatorial manoeuvre that I describe as ‘unbelonging’. Unbelonging is not a position of statelessness, but a deliberative model of both subversively unsettling and detaching from the imposition of statehood. In many instances, it uses the resources of leading institutions, but agitates to create self-determined spaces within them. Through a process of unbelonging to the state, to the institution, to disciplines and to history, Indigenous curators are rewriting their own ways of belonging. I understand Indigenous curation as not politically reactive to colonisation as is often presumed, but emerging from Indigenous political formations of governance and sovereignty, value and heritage, consensus and relation. By creating new and broadening complacent formulations of art and social history, identity, and museological practice and temporality, Indigenous curators have reshaped institutional and disciplinary cultures and have contributed to the strengthening of Indigenous art and culture.

On 14-15 August 1947, India obtained freedom from British colonial rule. For the so-called 'criminal tribes', however, freedom did not come at the midnight hour but five years later, on 31 August 1952, when the Government of India repealed the Criminal Tribes Act. Enacted by the colonial government in 1871, this draconian legislation sought to control a disparate set of supposedly criminal communities (and later gangs and individuals) through a raft of punitive and surveillance measures. This study examines the postcolonial afterlives of the 'criminal tribe' in the region of Punjab. Specifically, it traces the ways in which the postcolonial state re-embedded this ostensibly colonial category of identification in its legislative, discursive and material practices, at the same time as it dismantled the Act itself. The study is primarily situated in the 1940s and 1950s, as Partition and decolonisation wrought enormous changes upon the subcontinent. It argues that state actors, whether politicians, bureaucrats or local officers, infused the 'criminal tribe' with heightened salience in the years after 1947 in response to the exigencies of independence and nation-building. Its findings reveal that the 'criminal tribe' remained a tangible and intelligible category for the postcolonial state long after its legal abolition, whether in the refugee regime, legal structures and penal practices, or welfare policies for disadvantaged citizens. This sheds light on a hitherto overlooked period of the Criminal Tribes Act, namely the early post-independence years. It examines the continued relevance of the 'criminal tribe' within postcolonial statecraft not as an inevitable colonial hangover but the product of more contested lineages and developments rooted both pre- and post-1947. This also offers new insights onto the state at this critical juncture. In contrast to the existing scholarship on the Act, which emphasises its unwavering dominance, this study illustrates the uncertainties, contingencies, and tensions of the late colonial and decolonising state.

This thesis fills a significant gap in current secondary literature on post-war British defence and internal security policy. Hitherto, post-war British defence policy in Kenya has only been considered in passing, in relation to the larger question of Middle East strategy. Very little attention has been paid to Kenya's particular importance in the post-1956 ‘east of Suez’ role. Current works on British internal security policy in Kenya concentrate either on post-war policing in general or, more specifically, on the British counter-insurgency campaign during the Mau Mau revolt (1952-6). In examining post-war British defence and internal security policy and practice in Kenya until 1965, this thesis demonstrates the essential continuity in British strategic priorities in the area. Far from having to ‘scram from Africa’, Britain adapted its defence requirements to an acceptable minimum, thereby ameliorating the more ‘extreme’ face of African nationalism, and denying it political capital with which to apply pressure to Britain's ‘moderate’ collaborators. The success of this flexible approach to defensive requirements is clear because, in losing its politically unacceptable army base, Britain gained a great deal in terms of retention of communications, leave camp, overflying, staging and training rights and facilities, in exchange for arming and training the Kenyan military and assisting in the maintenance of post-independence internal security. Such arrangements continued well beyond the apparent demise of the ‘east of Suez role’. This thesis sets British internal security policy in Kenya in its broad Cold War context (1945-65). Even after apparent military victory in 1956, Britain remained fearful of a recurrence of Mau Mau, and the possible failure of attempts to fudge a ‘political solution’ in Kenya. Britain also had to ensure that its ‘moderate’ successors would be safe from the more radical elements in Kenya African politics, especially given the earlier contradictions inherent in the divisive political and socio-economic reforms which had been designed to foster economic and political stability. Quite simply, therefore, this study demonstrates that British defence and internal security interests in Kenya were far more important, and far more intricately connected with the transfer of political power, than has hitherto been acknowledged.