Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982
Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982
In 1893, a group of colonial officials from thirteen countries abandoned their imperial rivalry and established the International Colonial Institute (ICI), which became the world's most important colonial think tank of the twentieth century. Through the lens of the ICI, Florian Wagner argues that this international cooperation reshaped colonialism as a transimperial and governmental policy. The book demonstrates that the ICI's strategy of using indigenous institutions and customary laws to encourage colonial development served to maintain colonial rule even beyond the official end of empires. By selectively choosing loyalists among the colonized to participate in the ICI, it increased their autonomy while equally delegitimizing more radical claims for independence. The book presents a detailed study of the ICI's creation, the transcolonial activities of its prominent members, its interactions with the League of Nations and fascist governments, and its role in laying the groundwork for the structural and discursive dependence of the Global South after 1945.
- Combines transnational and colonial history to provide an account of a key, understudied subject
- Offers readers insight into the underlying racism and colonialism that accompanied most Western activities in the Global South
- Demonstrates the long continuity of colonialism by connecting internationalism of the 1890s with international development policies of the post-1945 era
Reviews & endorsements
‘… the book makes a significant contribution, with the breadth of the research presented; in showcasing ICI’s influence over a lengthy timespan; and in its ability to analyse the role of NGOs and their members. Historians of empire are well advised to consult this book, particularly those pursuing transnational, transimperial or institutional histories of Africa and Asia.’ Hamish McDougall, International Affairs
‘… highly successful in its granular approach to the evolution of ICI members’ preferred methods and logics …’ Margot Tudor, European Review of History
‘an excellently researched study on a previously little-known form of international colonialism, which provides new evidence of the abundance of interconnections and knowledge transfer between the European colonial powers in the 20th century.’ Ulrike von Hirschhausen, H-Soz-Kult
Product details
July 2024Paperback
9781009069311
433 pages
229 × 152 × 25 mm
0.7kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. “More Beautiful than the Nationalist Thought”? Colonialist Fraternization and the Birth of Transnational Cooperation
- 2. A Transcolonial Governmentality Sui Generis: The Invention of Emulative Development
- 3. Politics of Comparison: The Dutch Model and the Reform of Colonial Training Schools
- 4. Cultivating the Myth of Transcolonial Progress: The ICI and the Global Career of Buitenzorg's Agronomic Laboratory
- 5. The Adatization of Islamic Law and Muslim Codes of Development
- 6. Creating an “Anti-Geneva Bloc” and the Question of Representivity
- 7. Inventing Fascist Eurafrica at the Volta Congress
- 8. False Authenticity: The Fokon'olona and the Cooperative World Commonwealth
- 9. “That Has Been Our Program for Fifty Years”: Sustained Development and Loyal Emancipation after 1945
- Conclusion.
