Decentring the family: Northern Ireland, Zambia and the restitution of colonial archives

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

In August 1958 in Mayembe, Northern Rhodesia, a twenty-three-year-old wrote,

The only sound now, is the whirr of my Tilley lamp, and the murmurings of the messengers + carriers round the camp fire where they will sleep, + the occasional raucous croak of a frog. There aren’t even any crickets. The next 10-14 days will be spent on bicycle, touring through all the villages in this larger area which is probably 70-100 miles wide by 50 long...doing short population census, inspecting agriculture, checking up on arms defences, reviewing Native Court cases + inspecting the new school dormitories which are being built (about the only development which is going on around here) + addressing gatherings of villagers on the subject of ‘self help’ etc.

This passage summons binaries between darkness and light; loneliness inside the tent and company without; noisy frog and absent crickets; cycling and mechanisation; night-time quiet and anticipated gatherings; rural scene and originating metropolis; and, blatantly, colonial administrator and colonially administered. Documents like these made memories tangible in my Northern Irish family, and this paper emerges from a region where colonial and postcolonial oppositions produced violent conflict. It explores whether the descendants of colonial functionaries can revisit private correspondence to disrupt family narratives; and whether doing so might help to connect papers like these with lived experiences, including to those of people who have been marginalised, in Zambia. By discussing options for their digital restitution, the paper seeks to open pathways for transcultural collaboration that may help to resituate such documents within a scholarly or practice-based framework of ‘modern heritage’. Finally, the paper considers the nostalgia with which these materials appear to resonate as a potential site for discussing anthropocenic experiences.

Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 26 Oct 2022
EventModern Heritage in the Anthropocene Symposium - The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Duration: 26 Oct 202228 Oct 2022
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2022/oct/modern-heritage-anthropocene-symposium-0

Conference

ConferenceModern Heritage in the Anthropocene Symposium
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period26/10/202228/10/2022
Internet address

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Decentring the family: Northern Ireland, Zambia and the restitution of colonial archives'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this