Creating postcolonial subjectivity: subaltern geopolitics, knowledge and citizenship in Tanzania
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Geographical & Earth Sciences
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Joanne Sharp (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Halliday JEB
(2017)
Driving improvements in emerging disease surveillance through locally relevant capacity strengthening.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Joanne Sharp
(2013)
The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies
Sharp J
(2019)
Subaltern Geographies.
Sharp J
(2011)
A subaltern critical geopolitics of the war on terror: Postcolonial security in Tanzania
in Geoforum
Sharp J
(2011)
Subaltern geopolitics: Introduction
in Geoforum
Sharp J
(2014)
The violences of remembering
in Area
Sharp J
(2020)
??????? (The Encyclopaedia of New Geopolitics)
Sharp J
(2013)
Geopolitics at the margins? Reconsidering genealogies of critical geopolitics
in Political Geography
Sharp J
(2013)
Reply: Thinking through marginality
in Political Geography
| Description | Fellowship outcomes - media training courses by the ESRC and from The Guardian: I have now published my first media piece and have been in discussion with a senior producer at the BBC about a radio documentary from the fellowship research; - language training: from being a complete novice at the start of the fellowship, I have successfully completed both the intermediate and advanced Swahili courses at the respected languge training centre at Usa River, northern Tanzania. - developing research in East Africa: I currently am Co-I on two interdisciplinary grants, where I am leading the social sciences component, and have just been awarded another two. One of these, a research programme grant from the DfID-RCUK Zoonoses of Emerging Livestock Systems call, sees me as joint-PI with an epidemiologist, recognising the truly interdisciplinary nature of the research. The time afforded by the fellowship gave me the opportunity to deveop these relationships and establish the central importance of qualitative social science approaches to research into health and poverty in Africa. The research component of the fellowship sought to examine postcolonial political identity in Tanzania through the analysis of the geographical imagination projected through both formal and popular geopolitics during various periods since independence: 1. Analysis of Nyerere's writings has exposed a challenging post-colonial geopolitical view that is still evident in contemporary Tanzanian geopolitics. Due to the late start of the fellowship, I was able to add an examination of the 50th anniversaries of both uhuru (independence) for Tanganyika and the union with Zanzibar to form modern-day Tanzania. This has highlighted the tension in contemporary Tanzania between wanting to celebrate the legacy of Nyerere's vision and acknowledging the challenges facing Tanzanian society in the neoliberal world order. This has allowed me to effectively close the circle, starting from the optimistic projections of the Arusha Declaration, and ending with the reflections on this process half a century later. 2. Geopolitics is not only made by great leaders but is remade and experienced through the everyday. The University of Dar es Salaam in the period between the Arusha Declaration and the mid 19080s was a place within which Nyerere's vision was discussed and debated, where a new university was being formed, and where the everyday impacts of Nyerere's policies were experienced. Interviews with those who participated in the establishment of the new university, from Tanzania and far beyond, have provided an important complement to the official narrative examined in 1 above to understand everyday responses to official policy, but also offers a perhaps unique understanding of a situation within which people were trying to rethink and remake the world order too. However, while it was clearly a heady intellectual period, it was also apparently one where some of the tensions running through Nyerere's vision were made evident, pressure to achieve African socialism led to repression, women were often absent from debates, and it was one where conflicts sometimes emerged between the radical ambitions of those from around the world who came to participate, and the colonial experience which had meant the need for foreign staff to build the new nation. 3. Considering more contemporary geopolitics, reading key English and Swahili language media has highlighted a very different narrative of the "war on terror" to that which dominated mainstream western accounts - one that feared more from the US reprisals than it did from terrorism and that pushed for compassion and understanding rather than revenge. |
| Exploitation Route | The media and, to a large extent, academic, reporting of current geopolitics are strongly shaped by western perspectives and concerns. Traditionally, geopolitics has been limited to the thoughts and actions of great powers as it is these powers which shape the majority of events. However, it is important to understand the security concerns of non-hegemonic states too, in order to make sense of and anticipate their responses to events. I hope that dissemination through academic and media pathways will help to stimulate a questioning of the taken-for-granted western geopolitical imagination. |
| Sectors | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Security and Diplomacy |
| Description | Media training helped me to produce outputs for non-academic sources. I have had an article published on CNN online, and have co-edited an edition of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society's general interest magazine, The Geographer. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
| Sector | Education,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Integrative & Innovative Approaches: Why social sciences are central to zoonoses research workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This one-day workshop, to run ahead of the annual DFiD-RCUK-funder meeting annual meeting of the Zoonoses and Emerging Livestock Systems research groups (ZELS) in Hanoi, Vietnam, in January 2018, will draw out some of the lesson's learned and best practices from integrating social sciences into zoonoses research. Drawing on experience from the ZELS research projects and elsewhere, the workshop will present state of the art research and explore challenges still facing both social sciences research in zoonoses, and the integration of these approaches to interdisciplinary projects. The workshop is intended to reach all ZELS scientists, both social and non-social scientists alike who will highlight their experiences in interdisciplinary research. The workshop will also present a range of useful approaches and practices to improve integrative research in the future. The one-day event should be of interest to all researchers interested in zoonoses and will not assume a social science background. Expected workshop outcomes: " Detailed presentation and discussion about the importance of social science and social science themes in interdisciplinary zoonoses research. " Best practices based on ZELS project processes and outcomes to help further/inform interdisciplinary research in the future |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invitation to deliver the annual Gordon Manley lecture at Royal Holloway University of London. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The Manley lecture is a public lecture delivered each year to a mixed audience of members of the Geography Department at Royal Holloway (mostly undergraduates but also postgraduates and staff), alumni and the general public. It offers the opportunity to communicate research in an accessible form to a wider audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Invitation to lead a one-day workshop on Participatory Research at the Institute of International Relations, Prague, Czech Republic. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I led a day-long workshop on participatory methods in research and policy at the Institute of International Relations. Around 15 people attended. The audience comprised postgraduate students, academics, independent researchers and policy-makers. I started the day with a talk and then led a discussion around the issues raised which drew in other participants' experiences. An interview with me on the topic has been posted on the Institute's webpage. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl0vJvG3NB0 |
| Description | Invited public lecture and seminar presentation, National PhD course in Political Geography, Sweden |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 15 PhD students from across Sweden participated in two seminars that I ran at Karlstad University in May. In addition, I delivered an open lecture about the research funded by my ESRC fellowship to an audience of around 50 people from across the university. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Invited to present a session on "The role of social science in zoonosis research" to an international workshop: Addressing the challenge of zoonotic disease with inter-disciplinary research, School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, 27-29th March. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to a meeting of predominantly biomedical researchers to explain the importance of including social science researchers, questions and methods in zoonoses research. The workshop was attended by an international audience, and aimed to establish a new research project. Discussion on the day indicated a positive response in terms of audience members realising the value of social science contributions to health research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Visit of the foreign professor to the Department of Geography, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Research seminar (staff and postgraduate students) and lecture (to undergraduates) on Subaltern Geopolitics, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic. I have had a further invitation to speak about my research in the Czech Republic as a result of this. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |