The Construction and Circulation of Ideas of "Desirable" and "Undesirable" Colonial Labour by Sir Granville St John Orde Browne, 1885-1950.

This project uses a social network and discourse analysis of the life, relations, and works of Sir Granville St John Orde
Browne, labour advisor to the secretary of state of the Colonial Office, to highlight the construction and circulation of
ideas about "desirable" and "undesirable" labour across multiple institutions and empires. It uses the network, language,
and career of Orde Browne from 1885 to 1950 as a basis to examine a wider question: why and how did colonial offices
and institutions such as the ILO develop and exchange changing and enduring ideas about gender, age, race, and class
and how did these affect the governance of colonial labour in a multi-institutional and inter-colonial context? Through the
application of GEPHI and an intersectional analysis of Orde Browne's personal papers at the Weston Libary and labour
files from the UK, Jamaican, Sri Lankan, and Ghanaian national archives, this project analyzes continuities and changes
in ideas about gender, age, class, and race in a global context and highlights how these related to developments in
colonial labour policies in multiple spheres of governance - ranging from the British Empire to international institutions
such as the ILO. It seeks to overcome the historiographical separation between post-colonial and gender-based critical
analysis of colonialism and the emphasis on networks within global and imperial history by combining a network and
discourse analysis of the governance of labour between 1885-1950.