colonialism

Topic description and stories

ʻAhuʻula (feathered cape) from Hawaii, MAA, 1947.403. Photo ©Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology

Pacific curators restore Indigenous voices to colonial-era collections

08 Dec 2024

'Fault Lines', a new exhibition at MAA, offers an intimate exploration of Pacific cultures guided by Indigenous curators and contemporary artists...

Britain's first colonial anthropology experiment revealed

12 Jun 2021

A new exhibition at MAA examines the pioneering ethnographic archive assembled by Britain’s first colonial anthropologist, Cambridge alumnus...

A head-hunter's skull from Nagaland which was worn on the chest of a Konyak warrior who had captured an enemy head.

Another India exhibition gives voice to India’s most marginalised communities

08 Mar 2017

Hundreds of objects which tell the story of 100 million of India’s most marginalised citizens – its Indigenous and Adivasi people – are to go on...

Image from Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer (ANOM), Jean-Baptiste Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles, Credit: Mélanie Lamotte

Before race mattered: what archives tell us about early encounters in the French colonies

16 Nov 2016

As Europe expanded its overseas colonies, fixed ideas of racial differences took hold. Historian Dr Mélanie Lamotte, whose forebears include a slave...

«Dança dos Tapuias», célebre quadro do pintor neerlandês Albert Eckhout

Opinion: Pirate, turncoat, survivor: the life and times of Anthony Knivet, a Briton in 16th-century Brazil

14 Oct 2016

Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá (Department of Spanish & Portuguese) discusses the life and times of Anthony Knivet, a young soldier from Norfolk who...

Maharaja Sayaji Rao III of Baroda, aged twelve, November 1875

The illiterate boy who became a maharaja

31 May 2016

As they struggled to maintain their grip on India as the jewel in the colonial crown, the British attempted to mould the character of India’s princes...

Pilgrims at the Masjid al-Haram on Hajj in 2008

Package tour to Mecca? How the Hajj became an essential part of the British calendar

21 Sep 2015

This week, millions of Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca known as the Hajj. A new study reveals how, in the age of Empire, the spiritual...

How the British treated 'hardcore' Mau Mau women

28 Aug 2014

New research on the treatment of 'hardcore' female Mau Mau prisoners by the British in the late 1950s sheds new light on how ideas about gender...

Letter from directors of the East India Company ordering an inquiry into the allegations of torture raised in a recent parliamentary debate.

Hidden narratives of torture

05 Jul 2012

Allegations of torture by government officials are emerging daily from countries caught up in the struggle for democracy. Derek Elliott, a researcher...