Historian • University of Oxford
My research centres on urban and social history, with a focus on the history of infrastructure and popular unrest. A recurring theme in my work is how colonial societies functioned, especially how ordinary people experienced colonialism and how they navigated, shaped, evaded and contested colonial rule in everyday life. I also explore the politics of memory, examining how the colonial past is remembered in both Africa and Europe. More recently, my interests have expanded to include the lives and experiences of Black people in Germany, particularly those who migrated from the (former) colonies. My primary regional focus is East Africa, especially Kenya, though my work spans the broader histories of both the German and British Empires. » more
I’ve just published a new encyclopedia entry on the occupation of Taveta (Kenya) during the First World War, the only territory of the British Empire that fell under German occupation in the war. Read more here: https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/taveta-occupation-of/
In this special issue, Avner Ofrath (FU Berlin) and I argue that studying neighborhoods offers valuable insights into the lived realities of colonial cities. The articles have recently been published online as “First View” with Urban History. The introduction is available open access here: “Uneasy Neighbours: Proximity, Sociability and Difference in the Colonial City, c. 1870–1940″.
Together with Saitabau Lulunken, I recently published a piece on the first Maasai group to travel to Europe. In 1896, the German Foreign Office brought 17 Maasai individuals from what is now Tanzania to Berlin to be exhibited at the First German Colonial Exhibition. Our work seeks to tell their story and trace their lives and legacies across Kenya and Tanzania.
