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Work and Discipline on the East African Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2019

Abstract:

Frederick Cooper’s first three books, published between 1977 and 1987, were written during African historians’ first sustained critical engagement with African archives and African voices. Cooper’s books were literally in the weeds with slave and free labor in East Africa, yet their importance went beyond the region. Read in sequence, we see how Cooper’s work was shifting toward studies of the metropole by the mid-1980s. Taken together we see how practices in the workplace shaped policies in Whitehall, that conditions on plantations and on docks caused a rethinking of how colonialists might most successfully exert control.

Résumé:

Les trois premiers livres de Frederick Cooper, publiés entre 1977 et 1987, ont été écrits lors du premier engagement critique soutenu des historiens de l’Afrique sur les archives et les voix africaines. Les livres de Cooper étaient submergés par les détails sur l’esclavage et le travail libre en Afrique de l’Est, mais leur importance dépassait les limites de la région. En les lisant successivement, nous voyons l’évolution des travaux de Cooper en direction des études de la métropole au milieu des années 1980. Pris ensemble, nous voyons comment les pratiques sur le lieu de travail ont façonné les politiques de Whitehall: ainsi, les conditions dans les plantations et dans les ports ont amené les colonisateurs à repenser la manière dont ils pourraient exercer leur domination avec plus de succès.

Type
Frederick Cooper and the Historiography of Africa
Copyright
© African Studies Association 2019

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