Ruth Craggs
King's College London, Geography, Faculty Member
- Urban Geography, Historical Geography, British Empire, Hospitality, Critical Geopolitics, Cultural Historical Geography, and 19 moreDevelopment Geography, Commonwealth History, Decolonization (African History), Zambia, Geography, Colonialism, Imperialism, Sociology of Knowledge, Post-Colonialism, Empire, Collaboration, Archives, Travel Writing, Curatorial Practice (Art), Archival Research Methods, Exploration History, Domestic Space, Citizenship and Identity, and Human Geographyedit
"Whilst interdisciplinarity and collaboration has a long tradition in historical geography, the AHRC CDA scheme and ESRC CASE studentships have provided particular impetus for collaborative work in geography. In a funding climate in... more
"Whilst interdisciplinarity and collaboration has a long tradition in historical geography, the AHRC CDA scheme and ESRC CASE studentships have provided particular impetus for collaborative work in geography. In a funding climate in which impactful research is regarded as a priority, these schemes have been successful in promoting knowledge exchange between the academy and external partners and in providing students with an opportunity to develop new skills whilst completing outstanding scholarship. Historical geographers have been particularly successful in securing funding through these schemes and in developing innovative partnerships with a range of external organisations. For these organisations—who include museums, public bodies, and learned societies—the benefits of collaboration come from the new perspectives which students bring through extended research with collections, holdings, and institutions, the opportunity to work with academics in reaching new audiences, and the impetus which such relationships bring to re-envisioning organisations’ current practice and future development. Given the exciting and innovative nature of current and recent collaboration in historical geography, this volume reflects on the nature of the collaborative process—its politics, practicalities, and promise. The collection’s ten chapters explore what it means, both practically and intellectually, to work together in the production of geographical knowledge. By drawing together the reflections of students, academics, and partner organisations, this volume explores the benefits and challenges of working collaboratively. In addition to being a showcase for current collaborative undertakings, the volume also examines how productive relationships are developed and managed, how the competing demands of the academic and public sector are negotiated, and how geographical knowledges are communicated to, and informed by, partner organisations."
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Conferences are an ubiquitous and important part of political and academic life, acting as key sites of knowledge creation, public performance, legitimation and protest. Reviewing the current literature and drawing on our own work, this... more
Conferences are an ubiquitous and important part of political and academic life, acting as key sites of knowledge creation, public performance, legitimation and protest. Reviewing the current literature and drawing on our own work, this paper suggests that geographers are well-placed to provide insight into conferences through the concepts of visibility, performance and space. We explore the politics of academic, climate and geopolitical conferences, focusing on their production of epistemic communities and their role as sites for the performance of ideological positions and identities. We then explore international summits as protest spaces. We draw attention to a number of scales in our analysis, suggesting the need to attend to the global, national, local and micro-scale of conferences to ask what space and location contribute to conference outcomes and how conferences in turn act back on the landscapes in which they are embedded. We conclude with four reasons why we believe that conferences provide a fruitful – and important – focus for research in geography.
Research Interests:
Hospitality is an important part of geopolitical practice. This paper focuses on the welcome given to Commonwealth dignitaries in London, UK in the 1950s and 1960s, and at an intergovernmental conference in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1979, in... more
Hospitality is an important part of geopolitical practice. This paper focuses on the welcome given to Commonwealth dignitaries in London, UK in the 1950s and 1960s, and at an intergovernmental conference in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1979, in order to highlight the centrality of hospitality to post-colonial international diplomacy. These examples illuminate four key contributions that a focus on hospitality can make to our understandings of geopolitics more broadly. First, they point to the role of the welcome, hospitality and the host in staging political relations, and to the value of attending to hospitality that is conditional and instrumental in our research. Second, they highlight the need to go beyond the current focus on violence
and exclusion in critical geopolitics, by illuminating the role of welcoming performances in a range of geopolitical contexts. Third, they elucidate a different set of spaces – bars, clubs, hotels and tourist sites – that form an integral, but often overlooked, component of political practice. Fourth, drawing on a broad range of literatures, including those around commercial relations, the paper proposes that hospitality – in contrast to dominant conceptualisations as either ethico-political position or embodied, economic and instrumental practice – is better understood as always moving and shifting between these poles. These contributions advance the field of critical geopolitics by highlighting international relations as performance:
a conceptualisation that makes space for diplomatic labour, the construction of atmosphere, and the often uneven power relations that such performances embody.
and exclusion in critical geopolitics, by illuminating the role of welcoming performances in a range of geopolitical contexts. Third, they elucidate a different set of spaces – bars, clubs, hotels and tourist sites – that form an integral, but often overlooked, component of political practice. Fourth, drawing on a broad range of literatures, including those around commercial relations, the paper proposes that hospitality – in contrast to dominant conceptualisations as either ethico-political position or embodied, economic and instrumental practice – is better understood as always moving and shifting between these poles. These contributions advance the field of critical geopolitics by highlighting international relations as performance:
a conceptualisation that makes space for diplomatic labour, the construction of atmosphere, and the often uneven power relations that such performances embody.
Research Interests:
Research in postcolonial geography has overlooked the period, practices and spaces of political decolonization in favour of studies of high imperialism and ongoing contemporary colonialism. Here, I suggest geographers should look more... more
Research in postcolonial geography has overlooked the period, practices and spaces of political decolonization in favour of studies of high imperialism and ongoing contemporary colonialism. Here, I suggest geographers should look more carefully at the mid-twentieth century era during which people, institutions and states negotiated, performed and experienced becoming postcolonial. I make this case by focusing on the modern Commonwealth which emerged from the end of the British Empire, and specifically, on two Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings in the 1970s. At this time the Commonwealth was an important site for rehearsing anticolonial, anti-
British and postcolonial political identities, for contesting British policies in Southern Africa and intervening in ongoing decolonization. The paper makes three broader contributions. First, it highlights the need to grasp the specificities of institutions arising from decolonization, and to take this period seriously as one that was experienced, at least by political elites, as one of dramatic
change, characterized by exciting opportunities as well as uncertainty and frustration. Second, it broadens conceptualizations of geopolitical space and action by drawing attention to international
conferences as geopolitical events through which political positions and identities were staged and performed. Third, it contributes to (and complicates) notions of the subaltern within postcolonial geopolitics.
British and postcolonial political identities, for contesting British policies in Southern Africa and intervening in ongoing decolonization. The paper makes three broader contributions. First, it highlights the need to grasp the specificities of institutions arising from decolonization, and to take this period seriously as one that was experienced, at least by political elites, as one of dramatic
change, characterized by exciting opportunities as well as uncertainty and frustration. Second, it broadens conceptualizations of geopolitical space and action by drawing attention to international
conferences as geopolitical events through which political positions and identities were staged and performed. Third, it contributes to (and complicates) notions of the subaltern within postcolonial geopolitics.
Research Interests:
In this paper we put forward the concept of architectural enthusiasm—a collective passion and shared emotional affiliation for buildings and architecture. Through this concept and empirical material based on participation in the... more
In this paper we put forward the concept of architectural enthusiasm—a collective passion and shared emotional affiliation for buildings and architecture. Through this concept and empirical material based on participation in the architectural tours of The Twentieth Century Society (a UK-based architectural conservation group), we contribute to recent work on the built environment and geographies of architecture in three ways: first, we reinforce the importance of emotion to people’s engagements with buildings, emphasising the shared and practised nature of these engagements; second, we highlight the role of architectural enthusiasts as agents with the potential to shape and transform the built environment; and third, we make connections between (seemingly) disparate engagements with buildings through a continuum of practice incorporating urbex, local history, architectural practice and training, and mass architectural tourism. Unveiling these continuities has important implications for future research into the built environment, highlighting the need to take emotion seriously in all sorts of professional as well as enthusiastic encounters with buildings, and unsettling the categories of amateur and expert within architectural practices.
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This article sets out the case for taking account of hotels in political geography. It argues that hotels, as key spaces of welcome, association, and entertainment between public and private, are important political sites. They provide... more
This article sets out the case for taking account of hotels in political geography. It argues that hotels, as key spaces of welcome, association, and entertainment between public and private, are important political sites. They provide space for the performance of political ideologies and identities, where political campaigns can be made visible, where political relations can be illuminated and translated for international audiences, and where the ‘little things’ (Thrift, 2000, 2004) that construct political geographies can be examined. Drawing on theoretical discussions of hospitality, as well as work in political
geography, it explores the politics of multi-racial hospitality in the hotels of Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, between 1958 and 1962 in order to understand late colonial politics in Southern Africa. Considering three individual hotels, the paper elaborates their role as keys spaces in the landscape of exclusive ‘European’ sociability; as crucial sites in the enactment of and resistance to the colour bar; and as vantage points on Southern Rhodesian racial politics for international guests. The papers shows that far from being peripheral to the ‘real’ politics of diplomacy and government, hotels and the hospitable practises within them can be seen as crucial elements in the construction of local, national and international politics.
geography, it explores the politics of multi-racial hospitality in the hotels of Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, between 1958 and 1962 in order to understand late colonial politics in Southern Africa. Considering three individual hotels, the paper elaborates their role as keys spaces in the landscape of exclusive ‘European’ sociability; as crucial sites in the enactment of and resistance to the colour bar; and as vantage points on Southern Rhodesian racial politics for international guests. The papers shows that far from being peripheral to the ‘real’ politics of diplomacy and government, hotels and the hospitable practises within them can be seen as crucial elements in the construction of local, national and international politics.
Research Interests:
This paper considers London, an imperial capital, in an era of decolonization. Through a focus on the Commonwealth Institute, opened in 1962, and the Commonwealth Arts Festival, held in 1965, it discusses the place of narratives of the... more
This paper considers London, an imperial capital, in an era of decolonization. Through a focus on the Commonwealth Institute, opened in 1962, and the Commonwealth Arts Festival, held in 1965, it discusses the place of narratives of the 'modern' Commonwealth in the city. Architecture, display and performance come together to highlight the ways in which postwar narratives of the Commonwealth were produced, experienced and received in London. The paper underlines the optimistic discourses of multiracial cultural community articulated at the institute and festival, and the ways in which these emerged alongside, and in relation to, other more exclusionary stories of immigration and miscegenation in the capital. It concludes by noting the sidelining of these Commonwealth spaces and discourses in the city today.
Research Interests: Multiculturalism, Commonwealth History, Popular Culture, Colonialism, Architectural History, and 9 moreModernist Architecture (Architectural Modernism), Modern London, British Empire, Modern Architecture, Decolonisation (Colonialism), Empire, 19th & 20th century British Imperial & Commonwealth History, London, and Imperialism
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This article explores the Comex expeditions founded in 1965 to allow young people to understand Commonwealth ideals through travelling by road to India. Comex drew on optimistic narratives about the possibilities of the Commonwealth as an... more
This article explores the Comex expeditions founded in 1965 to allow young people to understand Commonwealth ideals through travelling by road to India. Comex drew on optimistic narratives about the possibilities of the Commonwealth as an antidote to the perceived problems of race and declining values in the modern world, attempting to produce enlightened Commonwealth citizens through the travel culture prescribed on route. The article argues that contact, hospitality, adventure and discipline were all central to the expeditions, feeding into and reproducing visions for the Commonwealth in the 1960s and drawing on other narratives of the road and post-colonial travel. By recalling episodes and events on these journeys, the paper highlights the creation and practice of a Comex Commonwealth citizenship through travel. It also provides insights into the reconstruction of expeditionary memories and identities through a variety of archival materials.
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Research Interests:
This paper explores the Library of the Royal Empire Society from its foundation in 1868 to the mid-twentieth century. It begins by considering the production of imaginative geographies of the British Empire not only by the materials in... more
This paper explores the Library of the Royal Empire Society from its foundation in 1868 to the mid-twentieth century. It begins by considering the production of imaginative geographies of the British Empire not only by the materials in the collection but also by practices and technologies of assembling, classifying, cataloguing and display which went on in the Library. The architecture, spaces and experience of being in the Library are considered as integral to these imaginative geographies and the role performed by the collection. The second part of the paper considers the ways in which the Library was imagined as a centre of calculation for imperial, economic and geopolitical concerns and some theoretical and methodological issues involved in understanding how and by whom the Library was used. The Royal Empire Society Library offers an insight into the interplay between imperialism and wider concerns about knowledge, vision, order and control, as well as highlighting the importance of recognising the specificity of different types of knowledge space.
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What were the distinctive cultures of decolonisation that emerged in the years between 1945 and 1970, and what can they uncover about the complexities of the ‘end of empire’ as a process? Cultures of Decolonisation brings together visual,... more
What were the distinctive cultures of decolonisation that emerged in the years between 1945 and 1970, and what can they uncover about the complexities of the ‘end of empire’ as a process? Cultures of Decolonisation brings together visual, literary and material cultures within one volume in order to explore this question. The volume reveals the diverse ways in which cultures were active in wider political, economic and social change, working as crucial gauges, microcosms, and agents of decolonisation.
Individual chapters focus on architecture, theatre, museums, heritage sites, fine art, and interior design alongside institutions such as artists’ groups, language agencies and the Royal Mint in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. Drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives, these contributions offer revealing case studies for those researching decolonisation at all levels across the humanities and social sciences.
The collection demonstrates the transnational character of cultures of decolonisation (and of decolonisation itself), and illustrates the value of comparison – between different sorts of cultural forms and different places – in understanding the nature of this dramatic and wide-reaching geopolitical change. Cultures of Decolonisation illustrates the value of engaging with the complexities of decolonisation as enacted and experienced by a broad range of actors beyond ‘flag independence’ and the realm of high politics. In the process it makes an important contribution to the theoretical, methodological and empirical diversification of the historiography of the end of empire.
This introductory chapter provides the context for Cultures of Decolonisation by offering a theoretical framework for analysing the ‘end of empire’. It sets out the value of using the lens of culture, broadly understood, to explore the processes of decolonisation. Here, we argue that cultural products and sites provide a productive arena for engaging with the complexities of decolonisation as lived beyond ‘flag independence’ and constitutional reform, and that object and spatial form are active agents in the discourses of independence, nationalism, decolonisation and neo-colonialism. Diverse cultures, shaped through and contributing to ideologies of modernism, development, internationalism, reframing notions of the universal and the specific, and engaging with questions of knowledge, epistemology and expertise, were crucial in the remaking of the geopolitical landscape in the mid-twentieth century. Material culture, social spaces, and creative arenas, from the museum to the internet chat room, Royal Mint and dictionary, are highlighted as sites for commentary and reflection, activism and articulation, and the celebration and negotiation of decolonisation. Having established the importance of image, object, text and practice in thinking through decolonisation, a series of claims about the nature of decolonisation are made: first, we argue for the need to redraw Eurocentric historiographies of decolonisation and highlight the activities and agency of decolonising and newly independent nations and individuals within and alongside analyses of metropolitan cultures of decolonisation. Second, we argue for the transnational and international nature of decolonisation, highlighting movements and networks – of people, ideas and things – between places and across borders, emphasising instances of solidarity and cross-fertilisation amongst individuals and communities, and the role that the cultural realm had in facilitating these exchanges beyond the high politics of empire. The role of the individual actor (working in tandem with the designed and natural world, and political and cultural frameworks) is particularly emphasised. In acknowledging the impact of the so-called periphery on decolonisation in this way, parallel assumptions about the origins of modernism and modernity are also contested. Finally, it is argued that we must pay attention to the shifting and non-linear temporalities of decolonisation. It is in the cultures of decolonisation that we can see more clearly the pre-histories, continuing legacies, resurgences, and contradictory trajectories of this phenomenon.
Individual chapters focus on architecture, theatre, museums, heritage sites, fine art, and interior design alongside institutions such as artists’ groups, language agencies and the Royal Mint in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. Drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives, these contributions offer revealing case studies for those researching decolonisation at all levels across the humanities and social sciences.
The collection demonstrates the transnational character of cultures of decolonisation (and of decolonisation itself), and illustrates the value of comparison – between different sorts of cultural forms and different places – in understanding the nature of this dramatic and wide-reaching geopolitical change. Cultures of Decolonisation illustrates the value of engaging with the complexities of decolonisation as enacted and experienced by a broad range of actors beyond ‘flag independence’ and the realm of high politics. In the process it makes an important contribution to the theoretical, methodological and empirical diversification of the historiography of the end of empire.
This introductory chapter provides the context for Cultures of Decolonisation by offering a theoretical framework for analysing the ‘end of empire’. It sets out the value of using the lens of culture, broadly understood, to explore the processes of decolonisation. Here, we argue that cultural products and sites provide a productive arena for engaging with the complexities of decolonisation as lived beyond ‘flag independence’ and constitutional reform, and that object and spatial form are active agents in the discourses of independence, nationalism, decolonisation and neo-colonialism. Diverse cultures, shaped through and contributing to ideologies of modernism, development, internationalism, reframing notions of the universal and the specific, and engaging with questions of knowledge, epistemology and expertise, were crucial in the remaking of the geopolitical landscape in the mid-twentieth century. Material culture, social spaces, and creative arenas, from the museum to the internet chat room, Royal Mint and dictionary, are highlighted as sites for commentary and reflection, activism and articulation, and the celebration and negotiation of decolonisation. Having established the importance of image, object, text and practice in thinking through decolonisation, a series of claims about the nature of decolonisation are made: first, we argue for the need to redraw Eurocentric historiographies of decolonisation and highlight the activities and agency of decolonising and newly independent nations and individuals within and alongside analyses of metropolitan cultures of decolonisation. Second, we argue for the transnational and international nature of decolonisation, highlighting movements and networks – of people, ideas and things – between places and across borders, emphasising instances of solidarity and cross-fertilisation amongst individuals and communities, and the role that the cultural realm had in facilitating these exchanges beyond the high politics of empire. The role of the individual actor (working in tandem with the designed and natural world, and political and cultural frameworks) is particularly emphasised. In acknowledging the impact of the so-called periphery on decolonisation in this way, parallel assumptions about the origins of modernism and modernity are also contested. Finally, it is argued that we must pay attention to the shifting and non-linear temporalities of decolonisation. It is in the cultures of decolonisation that we can see more clearly the pre-histories, continuing legacies, resurgences, and contradictory trajectories of this phenomenon.