We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire

Ian Sanjay Patel

Summary

This event will discuss Ian Sanjay Patel’s new book We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire, in which he explores the postwar afterlives of British imperial citizenship and related attempts to reimagine British imperialism after 1945.

Contributing to transnational histories of decolonisation, the book discusses the interconnections between human rights, postwar migration, and international diplomacy. A study of the global 1960s and the British imperial imagination, the book also examines the interrelationships between immigration laws, the decline of formal British imperial power, postcolonial states in East Africa, and British officials’ commitment to the Commonwealth as a means by which to contend in the making of the postwar world.

Biography

Dr Ian Sanjay Patel is LSE Fellow in Human Rights in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Discussant

Dr Taylor C Sherman teaches in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics. Her research covers the middle decades of the 20th century, exploring migration, belonging and secularism, socialism, development and the nature of the state, as well as state violence and punishment. She is currently completing a project entitled, Nehru's India: Seven Myths .

Registration

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Organiser: SOAS South Asia Institute

Contact email: ssai@soas.ac.uk