Affective politics and colonial heritage, Rhodes Must Fall at UCT and Oxford

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the spatial entanglement of colonial heritage struggles through a study of the Rhodes Must Fall student movement at the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford. We aim to shed light over why statues still matter in analyzing colonial traces and legacies in urban spaces and how the decolonizing activism of the RMF movement mobilizes around the controversial heritage associated with Cecil Rhodes at both places – a heritage that encompasses statues, buildings, Rhodes scholarship and the Rhodes Trust funds. We include a comparative study of the Facebook use of RMF as it demonstrates significant differences between the two places in the development of the student movements as political activism. Investigating in more detail the heritage politics of RMF at UCT we fledge out what we call an affective politics using non-representational bodily strategies. We argue that in order for actual social movements to mobilize in current political controversies, they need to put affective tactics to use.

KEYWORDS:

• Colonial heritage
• social movements
• social media
• affective politics
• decolonization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For information on activist and artistic interventions centered on the Rhodes Statue prior to 2015 we have benefitted from Sarah Jenkins’ MA project on this topic. The authors would like to thank Sarah Jenkins for giving us permission to consult and cite this material.

2. Culture Jamming is a form of political protest and communication that revolts against increasing commercialization in public space. This can take the form of lightly altering easily recognizable advertising around global brands to change the whole meaning completely: Helleven (7-Eleven), Puke (Nike), logo (Lego) (www.adbusters.org).

3. For more on this project see the project webpage: (http://www.mcdonaldcentre.org.uk/news/ethics-colonial-history). In the ongoing controversy, an important intervention by a substantial group of Oxford scholars who protested against the methods employed in the project: https://theconversation.com/ethics-and-empire-an-open-letter-from-oxford-scholars-89333. Accessed 18 May 2018.

Additional information

Funding

This work forms part of the ECHOES project which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 770248.

Notes on contributors

Britta Timm Knudsen

Britta Timm Knudsen is Associate Professor of Culture, Media and Experience Economy at Aarhus University DK. Her research focuses on difficult heritage, memory culture and tourism. She has published extensively on difficult heritage sites and how they are experienced and co-produced by publics through different media: (2017) ‘Commemoration, heritage and affective ecology: the case of Utøya’ in Heritage, Affect and Emotion. (2012) ‘Deportation Day: Live History Lesson’, Museum International, 63, 249-250, (2012) ‘Online War memorials: Youtube as a democratic space of commemoration exemplified through video tributes to fallen Danish soldiers’ Memory Studies, (with Carsten Stage); (2011) ‘Thanatourism: Witnessing Difficult Pasts’ Tourist Studies, 11, 1. She is likewise a leading scholar in the field of affect theory and methodology and has published the monograph (2015) Global Media, Biopolitics and Affect: Politicizing Bodily Vulnerability. Routledge (co-author Stage, C) as well as (2015) Affective Methodologies, Palgrave (with Stage, C). Britta Timm Knudsen is WP-leader in the European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Citiesproject (ECHOES) funded by EUs 2020 Program (2018–2021) as well as part of the Innovation Fund Denmark project entitled Rethinking Tourism to a Coastal City – Designs for New Engagements(2016–2019) in which she works on wind as immaterial heritage.

Casper Andersen

Casper Andersen is Associate Professor of the History of Ideas at Aarhus University in Denmark. His research focuses on the history, theories and heritage of colonialism and decolonization in Africa. He has published extensively on British engineers as imperial agents including the monograph British Engineers and Africa(2011) and he has co-edited a five-volume collection on British Governance and Administration in Africa 1880–1939(2013). He is currently writing a book on science, history writing and African decolonization with a specific emphasis on the role of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Casper Andersen is member of the European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Citiesproject (ECHOES) funded by EUs Horizon 2020 Programme.