Joseph Hodge
My research contributes to three broadly defined and related areas of scholarship: the history of ‘development’ both as a set of ideas and state practices in the British colonial empire and post-colonial nations of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean; the history of science and experts in the former British colonies, particularly in the area of ecology and agriculture; and comparative environmental history (conservation practices, land use management, and agricultural development) both in Britain and the colonies, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. A major theme of much of my work has been to examine the legacies of the late colonial period and to highlight their relevancy for development and environmental policies and practices today. In my book, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism, I examine the way that development as a framework of ideas and institutional practices emerged out of the strategic engagement between science and the state at the climax of the British Empire. The most striking feature of British colonialism in the 20th century, I argue, was the increasing use of science and expertise, joined with the new bureaucratic capacities of the state, to develop the natural and human resources of the empire. In the wake of the Great Depression, the possibility of planned, rational state intervention helped reinvigorate the imperial mission, inspiring a far-reaching process of policy reform that was given further urgency by the onset of the Second World War. The new initiative generated an immense need for new kinds of knowledge and organization, making late British colonial imperialism, in many ways, an imperialism of science, technology and the authority of experts.
I am currently working on a new project that is really a sequel to Triumph of the Expert. When I was researching the book, I spent a lot of time going through the manuscripts and personal papers of colonial officials housed at Rhodes House in Oxford as part of the Oxford Colonial/Development Records Project. As I did, I noticed that many colonial officers who were hired between 1945 and 1960, mentioned that they ended up going on to work for various international organizations like the UN or the World Bank, or else for the British overseas donor agencies and consultancy firms after they retired. The study thus seeks to chart their subsequent, post-colonial careers as a way of exploring the transition from late colonialism to the early post-colonial era. So far I have made contact with nearly 100 former colonial officials, mostly technical officers from agriculture, forestry and other related fields, who have agreed to participated in the project, and I have managed to carry out oral history interviews with more than 30 of them. I have also begun archival research in Africa, England, and Washington, D.C., and hope to eventually produce a second book manuscript.
Phone: 304 293-9327
Address: 220 Woodburn Hall, P.O. Box 6303,Department of History,
West Virginia University,
Morgantown, WV 26506-6303
I am currently working on a new project that is really a sequel to Triumph of the Expert. When I was researching the book, I spent a lot of time going through the manuscripts and personal papers of colonial officials housed at Rhodes House in Oxford as part of the Oxford Colonial/Development Records Project. As I did, I noticed that many colonial officers who were hired between 1945 and 1960, mentioned that they ended up going on to work for various international organizations like the UN or the World Bank, or else for the British overseas donor agencies and consultancy firms after they retired. The study thus seeks to chart their subsequent, post-colonial careers as a way of exploring the transition from late colonialism to the early post-colonial era. So far I have made contact with nearly 100 former colonial officials, mostly technical officers from agriculture, forestry and other related fields, who have agreed to participated in the project, and I have managed to carry out oral history interviews with more than 30 of them. I have also begun archival research in Africa, England, and Washington, D.C., and hope to eventually produce a second book manuscript.
Phone: 304 293-9327
Address: 220 Woodburn Hall, P.O. Box 6303,Department of History,
West Virginia University,
Morgantown, WV 26506-6303
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Books by Joseph Hodge
Combining historiographical accounts with analyses from social science and cultural studies perspectives, the book investigates a carefully selected range of economic, social and political contexts, from agriculture to mass media. With its focus on the conceptual side of development and its broad geographical scope, the book offers new and uncommon perspectives. An extensive introduction contextualises the individual chapters and makes the book an up-to-date point of entry into the subject of colonial development, not only for a specialist readership, but also fro students of history, development and postcolonial studies. Written by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America, the book is a uniquely international dialogue on this vital chapter of twentieth-century transnational history.
Combining historiographical accounts with analyses from other academic viewpoints, this book investigates a range of contexts, from agriculture to mass media. With its focus on the conceptual side of development and its broad geographical scope, it offers new and unique perspectives. An extensive introduction contextualises the individual chapters and makes the book an up-to-date point of entry into the subject of colonial development, not only for a specialist readership, but also for students of history, development and postcolonial studies.
Written by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America, Developing Africa is a uniquely international dialogue on this vital chapter of twentieth-century transnational history.
Papers by Joseph Hodge
Combining historiographical accounts with analyses from social science and cultural studies perspectives, the book investigates a carefully selected range of economic, social and political contexts, from agriculture to mass media. With its focus on the conceptual side of development and its broad geographical scope, the book offers new and uncommon perspectives. An extensive introduction contextualises the individual chapters and makes the book an up-to-date point of entry into the subject of colonial development, not only for a specialist readership, but also fro students of history, development and postcolonial studies. Written by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America, the book is a uniquely international dialogue on this vital chapter of twentieth-century transnational history.
Combining historiographical accounts with analyses from other academic viewpoints, this book investigates a range of contexts, from agriculture to mass media. With its focus on the conceptual side of development and its broad geographical scope, it offers new and unique perspectives. An extensive introduction contextualises the individual chapters and makes the book an up-to-date point of entry into the subject of colonial development, not only for a specialist readership, but also for students of history, development and postcolonial studies.
Written by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America, Developing Africa is a uniquely international dialogue on this vital chapter of twentieth-century transnational history.
(6-7 February 2020, Lisbon, Portugal)
Organization: Research project Worlds of (Under)Development: processes and legacies of the Portuguese colonial empire in a comparative perspective (1945-1975), Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Keynotes: Sandrine Kott (University of Geneva) and Joseph Hodge (West Virginia University)
Scientific Committee:
Joana Brites (University of Coimbra)
Cláudia Castelo (University of Coimbra)
Philip Havik (New University of Lisbon)
Joseph Hodge (West Virginia University)
Steven Jensen (Danish Institute for Human Rights)
Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo (University of Coimbra)
Alexander Keese (University of Geneva)
Sandrine Kott (University of Geneva)
Damiano Matasci (University of Geneva)
José Pedro Monteiro (University of Coimbra)
Description:
Prolonging and reinventing dynamics visible in the interwar period, one of the most salient processes associated with the aftermath of the Second World War was the internationalisation of arguments, debates, norms and policies dealing with social issues. The tentative definition and implementation of standards and policies aiming at human welfare, through the (re)distribution of and access to goods and resources, increasingly included international and transnational actors and expertise. The League of Nations had already promoted social policies in the fields of rural development, public health, labour, the protection of minorities, human trafficking and child welfare, but the range of topics being debated “internationally” would be greatly expanded after 1945. The emergence and consolidation of the United Nations, and its various specialised agencies, contributed to that process, creating platforms for cooperation and exchanges, and for disputes, between international (including imperial and colonial), transnational and national experts. The UN system fostered or expanded existing networks, which promoted the production, accumulation and circulation of different types of expertise. As a result, it standardised and perfected statistical tools while developing major doctrines of social engineering and specialised forms of local intervention in a global context. Thus, rethinking and planning societal change became a “hot topic”, and a subject of heightened competition during the Cold War. Heterogenous visions of “modernity” related to early Cold War dynamics had a direct bearing upon policies introduced by modernisingcolonial empires and post-colonial projects of state-building and found expression in the implementation of large-scale developmental schemes.
At a regional and global level, processes of cooperation and competition coexisted, in which multilateral agencies and networks played a major role. The importance of comparison was reinforced as a political tool by both colonial and post-colonial regimes. As accessible databases circulated, comparisons between social policies and their outcomes in the field of demography, education, labour, health, agriculture, nutrition, citizenship – and, more broadly, within the novel domain of human rights –, and other issues proliferated globally. Shaped by distinct ideological backgrounds and a great diversity of human and financial resources, the social dimensions of distinct political and economic goals and priorities gained major prominence through national, regional and global forums. Strongly embedded in developmental and modernising projects, these dimensions were to translate into a “geopolitics of welfarism” that would be gradually replaced by a market-based perspective following the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s.
This conference will explore these dynamics in a comparative perspective in different chronologies and geographical settings, focusing on different actors operating in diverse contexts, in order to reassess traditional periodisations (e.g. colonial-postcolonial), geopolitical divisions (e.g. East West, North-South), analytical frameworks (e.g. “local” versus “metropolitan” versus “international”), and to fruitfully explore the connections, and tensions, between international and national social programmes and policies.
Topics of interest may include:
• The social problem: concepts, arguments, and institutions
• The (geo)politics of social change
• Social policies, developmentalism and the welfare state
• International expert networks and the circulation of social knowledge
• Searching for the modern worker and consumer: labour, markets taxation
• Health-related policies: social medicine, nutrition and sanitation
• Defining citizenship and human rights: cases and accomplishments
• Educating difference: the role of the state, governmental and non-governmental associations, private enterprises and religious missions
• Fostering production: land, agriculture and rural development
• Administering mobility: migration, refugees
• Sustainable cities: urbanization and housing policies
• Gendering social policies: family planning, birth control, or labour recruitment
Conference Language: English
Contact Info:
Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo, Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra.
Email: mbjeronimo@ces.uc.pt