Emily Baughan, de University of Sheffield, présentera sa communication “Saving the Children in the 1960s: the Development Decade and the Decline of Humanitarian Internationalism” le jeudi 29 novembre 2018 de 17h30 à 19h. Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, 75006, salle D421.
Résumé :
“The 1960s saw the rapid dismantling of the British empire, and the simultaneous rise of a British international development industry. A recent literature has argued that the rise of development at the moment of decolonisation was a means for British public and government to retain their position as global leaders after empire’s end. Development repackaged traditions of colonial rule as international benevolence, and repurposed imperial expertise for new international development projects. In this paper, I provide a new perspective on British involvement in the ‘development decade’ of the 1960s, examining the relationship between humanitarian interventions overseas and the growing apparatus of the welfare state at home. The doctrine of development was highly dependent on advances in welfare in Britain. Development programmes were a space in which African and Caribbean nurses – many of whom had trained in the postwar British welfare state –gained power and position in their communities. It was these women, rather than expatriate male experts – who shaped the British development agenda on the ground. Certainly, development was a legacy of British imperialism. Yet, development should also be understood as an attempt to globalise postwar welfare, and to challenge the very colonial legacies that it sought to embed.”