HIST47230: Decolonising History

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• To critically engage with the practices and methods involved in decolonising history-writing and research.
• To explore historiographical and theoretical debates over decolonisation as scholarly practice.
• To consider the implications of these methods for historical research on and beyond histories of the British Empire in the modern world.

• most traditional sense, studying decolonisation involves looking into distinct historical processes of the demise of European maritime empires and the social and political changes that resulted in the former imperial colonies breaking away from the metropolis. As a way of writing history, to decolonise means to critically engage with the methodology developed for the analysis of how, in the Anglo-American world, hegemonic discourses and narratives of history privileged histories of specific groups while silencing and marginalising others. Understanding the complexities of Black history and the histories of race has been key to this methodology; however, it has since been applied to a range of other regions and chronologies, from the histories of the global South to borderline regions of Europe. Recent public protests, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the destruction of public monuments to colonisers around the world that they inspired brought this critical methodology to the fore of historians attention. How central are the histories of race to this methodology and how productive is its application to other contexts? What are the advantages of the understanding of historical processes previously analysed within the framework of nationalism and political sovereignty as decolonisation? This team-taught module aims to explore various dimensions of decolonisation on the global scale, including but not limited to the British Empire in the modern period, and to re-examine the innovative approaches to re-centring histories of race, intersectionality, and the subaltern.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• An advanced understanding of the key debates on decolonisation as scholarly practice.
• An introduction to a range of historical case studies in which decolonisation has been applied.
• An introduction to the historiography and historiographical debates of these case studies.

Subject-specific Skills:

• The ability to recognise and historicise colonial and decolonial practises;
• The ability to synthesize and critically evaluate the theoretical literature on decolonisation;
• A sophisticated grasp of debates surrounding colonial legacies and decolonial practises in specific historical contexts

Key Skills:

• The confidence to undertake research using decolonial frameworks;
• The appropriate analytical aptitude to assess and interpretation a range of primary and secondary sources;
• The ability to communicate sophisticated theoretical and historical arguments in lucid prose;
• The ability to interrogate the link between colonial practices and contemporary de- and postcolonial discourses.

• Student learning is facilitated by a range of teaching methods:
• Seminar discussions will be guided by subject specific experts on this team-taught module, and will comprise a mix of those focused on understanding decolonisation from a theoretical perspective, and a range of case study examples that allow students to apply the framework of decolonisation to different contexts. Each example will introduce students to new historical material, through which we will examine some of the core questions that animate this module; for example: how productively has decolonisation been applied in various contexts? What are the advantages, and any challenges, of decolonising the history of various case study examples?
• Structured reading expects students to do a significant amount of preparatory reading for seminars, which will prepare them for robust class discussions and facilitate the acquisition of skills and knowledge necessary for completing the module assessment.
• Assessment:
• Summative: The module culminates in the production of a single summative assessment, an independent project of 5000 words or an agreed equivalent in another format. This project will be defined by the student in consultation with the module convenors, and may analyse the use of decolonisation by other scholars, and/or may aim to apply it in their own work.
• Formative: Students will submit a short proposal (c. 500 words) for their final project and will receive formative feedback on it from module convenors.

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