Anne Hänisch
PhD Project:
"In Palestine, as in Ireland". British Decolonisation Between Diplomacy and Violence in Ireland and Mandatory Palestine (1912-1948)
The PhD project deals with three violent decolonisation conflicts in Ireland and Mandatory Palestine between 1912 and 1948, which, against the backdrop of two world wars, resulted in spirals of violence between British colonial security forces and national underground groups. British policy against the Irish, Arab and Zionist rebellions oscillated between diplomatic and violent attempts to keep the situation under control. In the 1920s, the so-called "Black and Tans", whose reputation preceded them from Ireland into the Mandate territory, were already a symbol for the use of violence by the imperial state in the face of national demands for independence.
In my thesis, I examine the three decolonisation conflicts comparatively and analyse processes of transfer and imperial entanglement. In addition to the obvious conflicts between the colonial power and independence movements, tensions within the British government and administration will be uncovered, which intensified in the case of conflict and influenced decision-making processes. The role that imperial patterns of thought regarding religion, ethnicity, class or gender played will also be examined and weighed up. Hence, the focus is on logics and processes of action in British politics which were influenced and shaped by actors and events in the periphery and at the international level. Altogether, the work aims to analyse British approaches to counter-insurgency between diplomacy and violence and to situate them in the field of comparative decolonisation studies.
Introductory Seminars:
Summer 2022: Great Britain and Ireland 1912-1923: History of a Conflict
Winter 2021/22: British Rule in Mandatory Palestine 1917-1948
Contact:
E-mail: anne.haenisch(at)uni-koeln.de
Department of History
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
50923 Cologne
Philosophikum, Room 3.125