Short Abstract

Research continues to open new perspectives on the late 20th century southern African liberation struggles. But what did those in the liberation movements and other nationalist circles from the 1960s to 1990s think decolonisation/liberation would mean? The panel will attempt to answer this question.

Long Abstract

Ongoing research continues to open new perspectives on the late 20th century southern African liberation struggles. Some recent work uses, with greater intensity and in a more systematic manner than before, “African” material from new archival sources, including Portuguese ones (the PIDE archive in Lisbon is of particular importance in this regard). This panel will explore such work and some of the new perspectives it offers. This will include re-examining the relevant historiography and considering African memories of the decolonisation process. The various movements and those within them held very different views of what the struggles were about, views that changed over time. What did those in the liberation movements and other nationalist circles in southern Africa from the 1960s to the 1990s think decolonisation/liberation would mean? How realistic were their expectations, and how would they now assess the experience of the transfer of power and the outcome? These are among the questions the panel will attempt to answer.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
Propose paper