Battle lines in Kenya – Analysis by Oxford University African Studies Professor, David Anderson

Listen to this Audio podcast from NPR’s program “The World”ResearchProfessor Anderson’s long-standing interest in the history and politics of eastern Africa is reflected in a range of current research projects. His work on the transnational political economy of khat was completed recently, and a monograph, The Khat Controversy, was published in May 2007. He continues to research and write on the theme of state violence and its consequences, to be seen in his latest essays on the Mau Mau war, on majimboist politics, and on vigilante movements and their links to political violence. Further essays on British atrocities, and the role of the British army, will appear shortly He is now developing a research project on Africa’s history and politics from the 1940s to the present, which will result in a general book on the history of the Cold War in Africa.Anderson also participates in a number of collaborations with other Africanist scholars here at Oxford. With David Turton and Marco Bassi, he is now working on a project on the history of environmental change in the Lower Omo Valley of southern Ethiopia. This project, funded through the AHRC ‘Environment & Landscape’ Programme, takes up themes Anderson first explored in his 2002 book, Eroding the Commons. He is also engaged, with his St Cross colleague Dr Sloan Mahone, in an AHRC-funded project on ‘Trauma and Personhood in Late Colonial Kenya’.TeachingDavid Anderson takes a leading role in the teaching of the Core Course on ‘Themes in History and the Social Sciences in Africa’, and offers an Optional Paper on ‘Violence and Historical Memory in Eastern Africa’. This Optional Paper, which is taught in collaboration with Dr Jocelyn Alexander (Linacre), is also popular with students from the MPhil and MSc degrees in Development Studies, Politics and Modern History.Professor Anderson is a very active supervisor of doctoral students. Most of these students are drawn from the disciplines of Politics and History, but others are based in Anthropology or Development Studies. Over the past three years his students have undertaken research in a wide range of African countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Sudan, Zambia, Malawi, Liberia, Nigeria, and South Africa.Publications & DisseminationDavid Anderson’s most recent book, The Khat Controversy, examines the global expansion of eastern Africa’s khat economy, featuring new research on the production, distribution chains, and consumption of this unusual commodity. The study is critical of the US prohibition of khat, and has generated much discussion of the political and commercial aspects of commodity control. The study also has much to say about the impact of prohibition upon market behaviour.Anderson’s Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire, published is 2005, is the first full history of the Mau Mau rebellion and its brutal suppression in 1950s Kenya. Widely reviewed around the world, the book has contributed to a wider debate on the character of British imperial rule in the twentieth century, as well as stirring up a great deal of controversy within Kenya. Anderson continues to write on matters connected with this study, and has in the past year been engaged in the making of a radio programme and a television documentary on the Mau Mau period.The BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Kenya’s Bloody Summer’, broadcast on 10 July 2006, provoked questions in Parliament about continued efforts by the Ministry of Defence to suppress information about events in Kenya during the 1950s. A subsequent BBC interview with Professor Anderson on 12 October focuses on legal action taken against the British government to secure compensation for a dozen Kenyans allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau uprising. Anderson’s research then featured in the Channel 4 documentary series Empire’s Children, which followed the story of Sir David Steel in tracing out the life of his father who had served as a senior clergyman in Kenya during the Mau Mau war (BBC Radio 4 Document).In July 2007 a third media broadcast featuring Anderson’s work, this time from his recent investigations into the history of the Cold War in Africa, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. This programme outlined the story of Nigeria’s independence elections and allegations that the British authorities may have corruptly influenced the outcome.

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