Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: UN Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism

DETAILS

• Full title: Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971
• Chair/Discussant: Panagiotis Karagkounis, HCRI PhD Candidate
• Date/Time: Wed 9th Oct 2024, 1pm – 2.30pm
• Location: Ellen Wilkinson Building, University of Manchester

TOPIC

This history of colonial legacies in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations from 1945 to 1971 reveals how UN peacekeeping staff reconfigured the functions of global governance and sites of diplomatic power in the post-war world.

Despite peacekeeping operations being criticised for their colonial underpinnings, our understanding of the ways in which colonial actors and ideas influenced peacekeeping practices on the ground has been limited and imprecise.

In this talk, Dr Margot Tudor will investigate the UN’s formative armed missions and uncover the officials that orchestrated a reinvention of colonial-era hierarchies for Global South populations on the front lines of post-colonial statehood. She will demonstrate how these officials exploited their field-based access to perpetuate racial prejudices, plot political interference, and foster protracted inter-communal divisions in post-colonial conflict contexts. Bringing together histories of humanitarianism, decolonisation, and the Cold War, Dr Tudor sheds new light on the mechanisms through which sovereignty was negotiated and renegotiated after 1945.

SPEAKER

Dr Margot Tudor, Lecturer in Foreign Policy and Security at City, University of London. Her PhD thesis (written at HCRI) was awarded the BISA Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize 2021, and her article, ‘Gatekeepers to Decolonisation’, won the ISA History Section’s Merze Tate Award in 2022.

Her book ‘Blue Helmet Bureaucrats’ can be read online here

ABOUT HCRI

Based at University of Manchester, we are a leading global centre for the study of humanitarianism and conflict response, global health, international disaster management and peacebuilding.

Our work is driven by a desire to inform and support policy and decision makers, to optimise collaborations between partner organisations, and to foster increased understanding and debate within the field.

Bringing together disciplines from medicine to the humanities, we research questions and issues related to what the United Nations calls the ‘triple nexus’ – humanitarian response, development and peace. Our aim is to facilitate improvements in crisis response on a global scale.

https://www.hcri.manchester.ac.uk/

Host or Publisher Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute