Stolen archives? Re-evaluating the British 'migrated' archives and decolonisation

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In 2009, five Kenyans - Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua, Paulo Nzili, Wambugu wa Nyingi, Jane Muthoni Mara, and Susan Ngondi - brought a case against the British government regarding horrific abuse they had suffered from British forces during the 1950s. Pressed by the Kenyans' legal team, British authorities in 2011 admitted holding a large collection of documents that had been covertly removed from Kenya, and other former colonies. What the British government called the 'migrated' archives included around 20,000 files from a total of 37 territories. The revelations shocked many researchers and archivists. When most of the documents were made available to researchers at the National Archives in London from 2012 to 2013, it became clear that transfers of power to newly independent countries from the 1940s to the 1980s were routinely accompanied by large-scale processes of sorting, removing, and destroying documents.Given the renewed focus on histories of empire and their legacies for the contemporary world, interest in the British 'migrated' archives is now greater than ever. They have been referenced in Natasha Brown's 2021 novel about black British experience 'Assembly', Richard Ovenden's 2020 popular history of the suppression of knowledge 'Burning the Books', and in several documentaries available online. Yet there has been relatively little academic research about the 'migrated' archives relative to their importance for histories of decolonisation.This project will offer a major reassessment of this collection ten years after it was first made accessible in London. It will produce the first book-length study of the 'migrated' archives affair. A scholarly work aimed at a popular audience, the book will re-evaluate what the 'migrated' archives show about decolonisation. Arguing that many of the 'migrated' files would be better thought of as 'stolen', it will explore why and how British authorities removed and destroyed colonial documents from the 1940s to the 1980s. The book will consider how white British officials sought to keep this secret from colonised people, even those who would soon become the new leaders of independent countries. It will also analyse how British authorities attempted to keep the archives secret after their removal to the UK, often trying to conceal them from people of colour from formerly colonised countries, but sometimes granting access to white British researchers.The project will diversify debates about the 'migrated' archives. The removal of these documents to Britain, and British authorities' efforts to keep them secret from people of colour, have made it difficult for researchers based in the Global South to access the 'migrated' files. This project will deliver an innovative programme of mentorship to early career researchers based in Nigeria, making available digital images of the 'migrated' files to support their own research, and bringing important new perspectives to bear on debates about these archives.The 'migrated' archives story is also rarely taught in British secondary schools, despite its importance in understanding decolonisation and its legacies for contemporary Britain. The project will facilitate the co-creation of new teaching resources for schools about the 'migrated' archives. A-level students will work as 'interns' on the project, collaborating with Northumbria University student mentors and school teachers to analyse 'migrated' documents. The project will co-create teaching resources that will generate new conversations among young people about decolonisation.Overall, this project offers a timely, wide-ranging reassessment of the 'migrated' archives that will stimulate both public debate and academic research about these important documents.