This article examines the process of nation-building in post-colonial Qatar. By using a postcolonial lens, the study discusses the historical context of Qatar’s state formation, tracing the impact of colonialism and the role of external powers in shaping political structures and narratives. Through an analysis of key historical figures and events, such as Shaykh Jassim and the Qatari constitution, this article explores the use of tradition and indigenous modernity in the construction of Qatar’s national identity. By drawing on theoretical frameworks such as “invented traditions,” “imagined communities,” and the politics of tradition and modernity, the article provides a roadmap to understanding the main tenets of the national identity politics of Qatar today and key factors of its national identity narratives, including ethno-political migrations, citizenship dynamics, and institutional frameworks established by the state constitution. It argues that while nation-building processes may share commonalities across different geographies, the specific historical, cultural, and political dynamics of Qatar shaped its unique trajectory. Ultimately, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the complexities of nation-building in post-colonial contexts and the construction of national identity in the Gulf region

Muslims in the Central African Republic have experienced extreme violence for more than a decade. Through ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, this article shows how the foundations for contemporary violence were created through colonial and postcolonial state-making. The civilizing mission of republican colonialism set Muslims apart. Lifestyle and mobility were never fully colonized; escape depicted difference. Nationalist liberation mythologies render Muslim citizenship as foreign, precarious, and subject to ongoing contestation. Pentecostalism, a lateral liberation philosophy presented as patriotism, provides power to anti-Muslim discourse. Violence against Muslims is situated in an accumulated “pastness” of state-making and struggle in Central African historiography.

What political imaginaries have existed beyond the nation-state? What might the misfitting (queer?) materials of the past—those unamenable to inclusion in narratives of national resistance—teach us about colonial and apartheid pasts? What alternatives to the colony and its contemporary forms might we imagine now? To respond to these questions, this essay assembles an archive of twentieth-century Capetonian queenliness, placing the historical Queen Elizabeth in proximity with textual renderings of the queer queens of apartheid Cape Town. A fictional, tongue-in-cheek, book review, published in Drum magazine in 1977, figures as a paradigmatic text of a mid-century popular textual genre that is animated by the sensibility that I call “camp royalist.” The critical impetus that animates camp royalism provokes us to reconsider how we represent colonial and apartheid pasts and invites us to think about possible future, nonnational, political collectivities and critiques.

This reflection explores the transformative power of critical theory through a quality improvement (QI) project creating culturally relevant dietary resources for Pacific Islander communities in Washington State, USA. Food injustice and lack of food sovereignty are examined as manifestations of modern-day colonialism perpetuated by capitalist-driven social structures. The methodology employed critical reflection, defined as the process of examining assumptions and power relations that shape practice, central to critical theory. Iterative group discussions aimed to understand the impact of individual and collective assumptions, power dynamics, and oppression on the project’s conceptualization, implementation, and evaluation.

Specific recommendations are integrated into the discussion to aid those replicating similar protocols, emphasizing actionable steps such as engaging with the community at all project stages. The research team, composed of osteopathic medical students and a critical theory expert, engaged in reflexivity to understand how social locations and lived experiences influenced perceptions. Despite the goal of fostering cultural inclusivity, limitations in engaging the Pacific Islander community throughout the project lifecycle highlighted the need for cultural humility and participatory action methodology.

This study underscores the importance of understanding the history and socio-political context of marginalized communities to avoid perpetuating colonial practices and trauma. It emphasizes the necessity for medical schools to incorporate sociological theories into curricula to promote compassionate, culturally appropriate care and research. By critically examining positionality and engaging in transformative learning, the group advocates for systemic changes towards a more equitable global healthcare system.

Through critical reflection, the group has come to understand how lived experiences have shaped perceptions of oppression, which are entrenched within and perpetuated by social institutions. Actionable items from these reflections are presented to help future practitioners and educators apply cultural humility, community empowerment, and critical theory in QI projects.

A recurring issue of debate for scholars of Central Europe has been the extent to which analyses of European colonialism apply to Austria-Hungary and its successor states. This article considers this issue in relation to the theologian, archeologist, and scholar of Arabic culture, Alois Musil (1868–1940). Long celebrated in Austria and Czechoslovakia, he has seldom been subject to critical analysis. A loyal Habsburg subject—and confessor to the Empress Zita until 1918—then an enthusiastic promoter of Czechoslovakia and co-founder of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Prague, Musil was a striking example of how individuals in Central Europe adapted to changing political realities. The article focuses in particular on his attitudes to European colonialism. On the one hand, he was critical of British and Italian colonialism, but he worked to further Habsburg imperial interests in the Middle East. When discussing Japanese ambitions in the 1930s, he emphasized the superiority of European colonial rule. He illustrates the complex stance of many Czechs (and other Central Europeans) toward colonialism. They imagined they were innocent of its taint but were in fact enmeshed in it, often endorsing it or acting as agents of the schemes of the European powers.

One common explanation for ethnicized politics and limited national identification in Africa lies with colonial boundaries. Europeans frequently divided ethnic groups as they divvied territory in the nineteenth century; this might have long-run repercussions, as individuals prioritize ties with coethnics in neighboring states rather than with non-coethnic co-nationals. Contra these expectations, we argue that divided groups should have weaker attachments to their ethnicity than non-divided groups will, because partition particularly disrupted pre-existing traditional institutions of governance and exchange within these groups. We argue that partition weakened traditional authorities and, consequently, ethnic identities through three mechanisms: (1) administrative shifts that reduced traditional authorities’ power; (2) limitations on leaders’ capacity to raise revenues; and (3) exacerbating intra-group divisions among co-ethnics living on different sides of the borders. We test this using georeferenced data from rounds 3-6 of the Afrobarometer and find support for our argument. These results are robust to different measures of the extent to which an ethnic group was split and various considerations of ethnic groups’ local and national demographic and political power. Our findings have important implications for studies of the legacies of colonialism and identity politics in Africa today.

This piece troubleshoots an array of epistemological, political, and practical difficulties involved in public studies of colonial atrocities. It explores the deficiencies of the Commission on Colonialism backed by the Belgian parliament between 2020–22, and suggests pathways for facilitating a fuller accounting of colonial wrongs. The argument leverages the author’s experiences in investigating and publicizing the colonial massacre of Mozambican civilians in Wiriyamu in 1972, which culminated in a public apology from Portugal’s prime minister in 2022.

Court records are rich primary sources to social historians, and much attention has been paid to these types of documents in different African territories. In most cases only summaries have survived, but in Angola complete proceedings have been preserved. Examining the court case collection available at the Benguela District Court, we discuss its strengths and methodological challenges, and present possible themes for future research. The use of these records reveals new aspects of the Angolan past, including more information on local norms and the ability of African women to use the Portuguese courts.

Through analyzing the compensation accounts and stock ledgers in the Bank of England Archive, this article explores how British firms—especially those in the City of London—profited from the unique business opportunity that arose through the payment of slavery compensation in 1835. It uses a new dataset with 18,930 observations to establish that a cohort of 27 “compensation agents” handled as intermediaries approximately two-thirds of the transactions associated with £5 million paid in compensation as government stock (3.5% Reduced Annuities) to slave owners in Barbados, Mauritius, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Virgin Islands. The article argues that this demonstrates how the City’s financial capacity, infrastructure, and business community were significant in delivering the efficient payment of compensation. It also underscores the need to understand the slavery compensation process as contemporaries did; as an important moment in the history of the City and its financial markets.

This article uses the postwar trial of Fascist Italy’s most prominent general, Rodolfo Graziani, to examine issues of transitional justice and the formation of popular memory of Italian Fascism and colonialism after 1945. During the Fascist ventennio, the regime constructed Graziani as the nation’s colonial ‘hero’ despite his leading role in genocidal measures during Fascist Italy’s colonial wars in North and East Africa. His position as minister of defence in Mussolini’s Nazi-backed Salò Republic in 1943–5, however, threatened his heroic reputation as he worked with Nazi commanders and became responsible for atrocities against Italian civilians. After the Second World War, Graziani was tried for Nazi collaborationism at the Supreme Court in 1948, but his colonial conduct was left unquestioned. Unlike in the Nuremberg Trials in post-Nazi Germany, few Italians were tried for war crimes after 1945. This historical inquiry analyses the legal proceedings, transnational representation and outcome of Rodolfo Graziani’s 1948 trial as an emblematic case study to explore de-fascistisation and decolonialisation initiatives and their limitations in post-Fascist postcolonial Italy.

This paper engages in a comprehensive analysis of the historical processes leading to the destruction of the Original Nations of Belarus and Latvia. The research is structured in three sections, with the first outlining the tribal roots common to both Latvian and Belarusian nations, serving as a foundation for subsequent analyses. The second section constitutes the core of the research, employing an Original Nation approach to dissect the impact of historic occupations in the five key waves—religious conversion, invasions of the Mongol-Tatar Yoke that led to administrative integration into states, a language push under the Russian Empire, identity erasure during Sovietization, and lastly, the restoration of independence in both countries. The last section surveys the modern states of Belarus and Latvia, emphasising their endeavours to revive their Original Nations, as both nations share the burden of recovering lost national elements, resisting cultural repression, and building a robust national identity.

This article analyses the struggle for possession of the House of Baha’u’llah in Baghdad during the 1920s and 1930s. One of the Bahai religion’s most sacred sites, the House of Baha’u’llah was the subject of protracted legal and political-diplomatic disputes following efforts by anti-Bahai activists to appropriate it from its Bahai custodians in 1921. The ensuing case touched almost every facet of the Iraqi judicial system, galvanised the international Bahai community and captured the attention of the British colonial state, the Iraqi government and the League of Nations. This article explores the causes and implications of the dispute, which can be considered one of the first incidents of religious persecution in modern Iraq. Rather than explaining the incident with reference to the intolerant attitudes of the Shi`i majority, the article argues for the role of the institutions of colonial modernity – the Mandates system, the new minorities regime, the praxis and discourse of colonial expansion, and the internationalism of the interwar period – for the unravelling of the case itself and for affecting modern, secular articulations of anti-Bahai prejudice.