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How British was the British World? The case of South Africa
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 23:56 authored by Saul DubowThis paper discusses the utility of the term 'Britishness' in the context of the 'British World' conference series. It suggests reasons why the 'British world' idea as presently understood was relatively slow to emerge out of traditional nineteenth- and twentieth-century imperial and commonwealth history. Ranging over more than a century from the 1870s to the present, it surveys uses of the term 'British' in imperial historiography and draws most of its empirical evidence from the unusual case of South Africa. The paper eschews 'ethnic' or 'racial' definitions of Britishness and proposes instead a more capacious formulation capable of including elective, hyphenated forms of belonging. It suggests that there are advantages in thinking of the British Empire less in the possessive sense - the empire that belonged to Britain - and more in the adjectival mode as a mode of description capable of taking into account self-declared affinities and values.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth HistoryISSN
0308-6534Publisher
RoutledgeExternal DOI
Issue
1Volume
37Page range
1 - 27Pages
27.0Department affiliated with
- History Publications
Notes
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth HistoryFull text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-02-06Usage metrics
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