Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T02:20:58.948Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Gilley ‘debate’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2019

Tom Young
Tom Young*
Affiliation:
Dunmow, Essex, UK
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I suggest that the recent furore over Gilley's article on colonialism raises at least three distinct issues both within academia and the wider space of public debate. The first concerns the category of ‘offence’, who can be offended and by what. The second concerns the nature of colonialism, its contemporary understanding and why that remains politically controversial. The third concerns possible continuities between certain aspects of colonial rule and current forms of Western intervention in Africa. In each case I make some very tentative suggestions as to why one journal article attracted so much attention and antagonism.

Type
Briefing Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 325 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful to the following who, risking their reputations on social media, if not life and limb, commented at short notice on this essay: Ali Ansari, Peter Brett, Charles Tripp, David Williams and Alexej Ulbricht.

References

REFERENCES

Ali, M., Fjeldstad, O.H., Jiang, B. & Shifa, A.B.. 2018. ‘Colonial legacy, state-building and the salience of ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa’, The Economic Journal. <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecoj.12595>..>Google Scholar
Austin, G. 2015. ‘The Economics of Colonialism in Africa’, in Monga, C. & Lin, J.Y., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics. Volume 1: context and concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barton, D. 2004. An Affair with Africa. Authors OnLine.Google Scholar
Baten, J. & Cappelli, G.. 2016. ‘The Evolution of Human Capital in Africa, 1730–1970: a colonial legacy?’ CEPR Discussion Paper 11273. Centre for Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Bejan, T.M. 2018. ‘Review essay: recent work on toleration’, Review of Politics 80, 4: 701–8.Google Scholar
Berry, S. 1992. ‘Hegemony on a shoestring: indirect rule and access to agricultural land’, Africa 62, 3: 327–55.Google Scholar
Berry, S. 1993. No Condition is Permanent: the social dynamics of agrarian change in sub-Saharan Africa. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Bridges, R. 2008. ‘The Christian vision and secular imperialism: missionaries, geography, and the approach to East Africa, c. 1844–1890’, in Robert, D., ed. Converting Colonialism: visions and realities in mission history, 1706–1914. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdsman, 43–59.Google Scholar
Burroughs, P. 1999. ‘Imperial institutions and the government of Empire’, in Porter, A., ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire: the nineteenth century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 320–45.Google Scholar
Collins, J.R. 2009. ‘Redeeming the enlightenment: new histories of religious toleration’, Journal of Modern History 81, 3: 607–36.Google Scholar
Dabashi, H. 2017. ‘Moral paralysis in American academia: on “civilized” scholars and their liberal defence of immoral hate mongering’, Al Jazeera, <https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/moral-paralysis-american-academia-170928091638481.html>..>Google Scholar
Gilley, B. 2016. ‘Chinua Achebe on the positive legacies of colonialism’, African Affairs 115, 461: 646–63.Google Scholar
Gilley, B. 2018. ‘The case for colonialism’, Academic Questions 31, 2: 167–85.Google Scholar
Duffy, E. 2005. The Stripping of the Altars: traditional religion in England, 1400–1580. Second edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. 1991. ‘The claim to freedom of conscience: Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of worship?’ Oxford scholarship online. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201960.003.0007.Google Scholar
Feinberg, J. 1985. The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Vol. 2. Offense to Others. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Galeotti, A. 2002. Toleration as Recognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Han, E. & O'Mahoney, J.. 2018. British Colonialism and the Criminalization of Homosexuality: queens, crime and empire. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heldring, L. & Robinson, J.A.. 2012. ‘Colonialism and Economic Development in Africa.’ NBER Working Paper No. 18566.Google Scholar
Hodge, J.M., Hödl, G. & Kopf, M., eds. 2016. Developing Africa: concepts and practices in twentieth-century colonialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hopkins, A.G. 1999. ‘Back to the future: from national history to imperial history’, Past & Present 164: 198–243.Google Scholar
Jefferies, H.A. 2013. ‘‘Revisionism’ in Tudor reformation studies’, Irish Historical Studies 38, 152: 690–5.Google Scholar
Jones, I. 2017. ‘A grave offence: corpse desecration and the criminal law’, Legal Studies 37, 4: 599–620.Google Scholar
Klein, M.A. 2018. ‘A critique of colonial rule: a response to Bruce Gilley’, Australasian Review of African Studies 39, 1: 39–52.Google Scholar
Long, D. 2005. ‘Paternalism and the internationalization of imperialism: J. A. Hobson on the International Government of the ‘Lower Races’’, in Long, D. & Schmidt, B.C., eds. Imperialism and Internationalism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 71–91.Google Scholar
McCracken, J. 2012. A History of Malawi, 1859–1966. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.Google Scholar
MacInnes, A.I. 1996. Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603–1788. East Linton: Tuckwell Press.Google Scholar
Mill, J.S. 1964. Utilitarianism: Liberty; Representative Government. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Mitra, N. 2018. ‘Decolonising History’, History at Cambridge 9: 10–11.Google Scholar
Modood, T. 1989. ‘Religious anger and minority rights’, Political Quarterly 60, 3: 280–4.Google Scholar
Moradi, A. 2009. ‘Towards an objective account of nutrition and health in colonial Kenya: a study of stature in African army recruits and civilians, 1880–1980’, Journal of Economic History 69, 3: 719–54.Google Scholar
Prior, C. 2013. Exporting Empire. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, E. 2008. The Highland Clearances. Edinburgh: Birlinn.Google Scholar
Robinson, A.L. 2014. ‘National versus ethnic identification in Africa: modernization, colonial legacy, and the origins of territorial nationalism’, World Politics 66, 4: 709–46.Google Scholar
Robinson, N.J. 2017. <https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/09/a-quick-reminder-of-why-colonialism-was-bad>..>Google Scholar
Russell, C. 1993. Academic Freedom. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sheridan, A. 1980. Michel Foucault: the will to truth. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 1994. Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition, ed. Gutmann, Amy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, K. 2001. ‘The life of learning.’ British Academy Lecture. Proceedings of the British Academy 117: 201–35.Google Scholar
Van Tol, D. 2007. ‘Mothers, babies, and the colonial state: the introduction of maternal and infant welfare services in Nigeria, 1925–1945’, Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science 1, 1: 110–31.Google Scholar
Whittington, K.E. 2018. Speak Freely: why universities must defend free speech. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wiener, M.J. 2013. ‘The idea of ‘colonial legacy’ and the historiography of empire’, Journal of the Historical Society 13, 1: 1–32.Google Scholar
Williams, D. & Young, T.. 2013. ‘The international politics of social transformation, trusteeship and intervention in historical perspective’, in Duffield, M. & Hewitt, V., eds. Empire, Development and Colonialism: the past in the present. Woodbridge: James Currey.Google Scholar
Young, T. 2018. Neither Devil nor Child: how western attitudes are harming Africa. London: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar