Memory and materiality in British-colonial detention camps in Kenya

肯尼亚英国殖民地拘留营的记忆和物质性

• 批准号: 2577097
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2577097
• 关键词: Memory; materiality; British; colonial; detention

The Mau Mau rebellion was an anti-colonial struggle in British-colonial Kenya from 1952-60. It was an asymmetrical conflict primarily fought between members of the Kikuyu ethnic group and Kenyan troops under British command, ending in a military victory forBritish forces. During the conflict, tens of thousands of Kikuyu and others were detained without trial in a network of British-run detention camps, where they suffered torture, starvation, sexual violence, forced labour, and extra-judicial killings. Following the end of the conflict, many of the over 100 detention camps were dismantled, and thousands of files were destroyed or concealed. The realities of the camps are now largely restricted to the memories of the few, aging survivors: there is thus an urgency to document, investigate, and confront this past before it slips from living memory. Several camps with surviving material remnants now operate as schools. In this process of transformation, confinement cells have been repurposed as dormitories and storage rooms, yet the structures persist in their material witnessing to the conflict. Traces of internment can be found in detainee-made bricks stamped with the camp name; the barbed wire that lines the eaves of storage buildings; the crumbling brick kiln left in the school grounds; the shallow trench, once a deep boundary ditch surrounding another camp, where banana trees now grow; and the mass graves that lie outside the school walls. My proposed project examines the remains of these detention camps as lived heritage sites with fraught relationships to contemporary Kenyan society. The project will take an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together archaeological survey methods with a community-based heritage mapping project, within a broader theoretical framework grounded in critical memory studies and postcolonial theory. This project will contribute novel data and methods to the historical archaeology of internment, but it also aims to expand and enrich the public understanding of colonial and anti-colonial heritage in Kenya and beyond, helping to confront the historical injustices of empire. The project considers not only the significance of this heritage to contemporary Kenyan and British experiences, but in a wider sense the role of heritage and archaeology in confronting colonial legacies, which institutions and universitiesworldwide are beginning to engage in.

茅茅叛乱（英语：Mau Mau rebellion）是1952年至1960年英国殖民肯尼亚的一场反殖民斗争。这是一场不对称的冲突，主要发生在基库尤族和英国指挥下的肯尼亚军队之间，最终英国军队取得了军事胜利。在冲突期间，成千上万的基库尤人和其他人未经审判被关押在英国人管理的拘留营网络中，在那里他们遭受酷刑、饥饿、性暴力、强迫劳动和法外处决。冲突结束后，100多个拘留营中的许多被拆除，数千份档案被销毁或隐藏。集中营的现实现在主要局限于少数年迈的幸存者的记忆：因此，迫切需要记录、调查和面对这段过去，以免它从人们的记忆中消失。几个有残存物资的营地现在用作学校。在这一转变过程中，禁闭室被重新用作宿舍和储藏室，但这些结构仍然是冲突的物质见证。拘留的痕迹可以在以下几个地方找到：用甄别器制作的印有营地名称的砖块;仓库屋檐上的铁丝网;学校场地上的砖窑;曾经是另一个营地的深沟，现在种植香蕉树的浅沟;以及位于学校围墙外的万人坑。我提议的项目研究这些拘留营的遗迹，作为与当代肯尼亚社会充满关系的生活遗产。该项目将采取跨学科的方法，在以批判性记忆研究和后殖民理论为基础的更广泛的理论框架内，将考古调查方法与基于社区的遗产测绘项目结合起来。该项目将为拘禁的历史考古学提供新的数据和方法，但它也旨在扩大和丰富公众对肯尼亚及其他地区殖民和反殖民遗产的理解，帮助应对帝国的历史不公正。该项目不仅考虑了这一遗产对当代肯尼亚和英国经验的重要性，而且从更广泛的意义上考虑了遗产和考古学在应对殖民遗产方面的作用，世界各地的机构和大学都开始参与其中。