Podcasts · New Books in African Studies

Florian Wagner, "Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

· 54 min · Episode 1229

Episode Florian Wagner, "Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

0:00 54:29

Today I talked to Florian Wagner about his new book Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982 (Cambridge UP, 2022).

From its founding in 1893, to its decline in the 1970s, the International Colonial Institute (ICI) was one of the most powerful nongovernmental actors on the colonial scene. Styling itself a reformist institution, the ICI applied the tools of transnational scientific exchange to “rationalize” the practice of colonial rule. As part of this reformist project, members of the ICI mobilized progressive ideas in ways that built broad political consensus across Europe while also furthering inequality, exploitation, and segregation in the Global South, even beyond the end of formal empire. Tracing the long history of the ICI reveals fundamental continuities, argues Florian Wagner, that colonialist narratives of change obscure.

Elisa Prosperetti is an Assistant Professor in International History at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. Her research focuses on the connected histories of education and development in postcolonial West Africa. Contact her at here.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The episode on the publisher’s site (opens in a new tab)

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.