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Dr Hannah Whittaker
Senior Lecturer in Modern African History

Marie Jahoda 225

Research area(s)

  • African history
  • Kenya and Somalia
  • Colonialism and decolonization
  • Development 
  • Borders and frontiers

Research Interests

My research explores issues relating to colonialism, development, borders and conflict in twentieth century Africa.

I am curently working on two research projects. The first is a long-term history of frontier development in Africa. Taking the northern Kenyan borderland as a case study, the research details the connections between development, violence and state-building across the colonial and postcolonial periods. This research has received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust.

The second project concerns public representations of empire in Britain, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. The project explores the ways that empire has been remembered, articulated and forgotten in public monuments across Britain and Africa.

Research grants and projects

Grants

Development on the Margins: Histories of Inclusion and Exclusion in Kenya, c.1895-present
Funder: British Academy/Leverhulme
Duration: December 2015 - November 2016

Recent research on development in Africa has established that development projects do not normally achieve what they set out to do. Although there are existing studies that address these questions, most have focused on specific development projects at specific times. This grant is sought to support extensive archival and oral historical research on colonial and postcolonial development in northern Kenya, in order to understand the impact that development projects do have over the long term. This will enable me to write a systematic account of the changing relationship between development and the expression of state power over the colonial and postcolonial periods, as well as examine how development has been appropriated at the local level, especially in relation to resource conflict.

Project details

Current projects:

Development on the margins: violence and state-building on an African frontier, 1930-present
Memories of empire in Britain and Africa

Completed:

Development on the Margins: Histories of Inclusion and Exclusion in Kenya, 1930-present. British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant (2015-2016), £7,322

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Kenya: A Social History of the Shifta Conflict, c. 1963-8 (2015)

AHRC The socioeconomic dynamics of the Shifta conflict in Kenya, c. 1963-8 (2007-2010), £45,000

Research links

Similar research interests