131-025 Empire, Race and Human Rights: 1800-2000

Usually 25 points of first-year history, see Prerequisites.

This subject examines issues of human rights during the development of the British Empire in the 19th century and the period of decolonisation in the 20th. It focuses in particular on power, subordination, governance and the construction of ideas of race, including whiteness, in such sites as Australia, Canada, the African colonies, India, Papua New Guinea and the West Indies. Topics include slavery and its abolition, the expropriation of indigenous peoples' land, resources and labour, rebellions in the West Indies and India, policies of exclusion/assimilation in the white Dominions, Australian strategies of empire in the Pacific, Indigenous political rights, land rights and reconciliation. On completion of the subject students should develop an understanding of the construction of ideas of race in the former British empire; the movements of resistance (political and otherwise) of colonised peoples against their positions of subordination; the changing ideas of human rights and racial theories, especially after World War 2, and their impact on developments in these 'postcolonial' societies.

Written work totalling 4000 words.

A subject reader will be available.