'Our man on the Spot': Reassessing the 'imperial periphery'

On 20 July 2016, the Centre hosted a one-day postgraduate conference on the theme: 'Our man on the spot': Reassessing the 'imperial periphery'. The conference, organized by Southampton History PhD student Joseph Higgins, brought together postgraduate and early career researchers from across the UK to consider the significance of the imperial periphery to the understanding of empires and imperial rule. The fourteen papers ranged richly in focus from the BBC’s reporting of African decolonization, the press management techniques of the US embassy in Saigon, the agency of imperial subjects within the Russian empire, the use of indigenous knowledge by the special correspondents of British newspapers stationed on the imperial periphery, representations of speechlessness and illiteracy in accounts of Australian aboriginal culture, the use of drama by the Pukhtun movement to challenges the torture and injustice of the British Raj, the role of British agricultural officials in East Africa after the end of empire; and the response of New Zealanders to the 1920s empire-wide campaign to raise money to conserve the HMS Victory.