Niels Boender
@nielsboender.bsky.social
🇳🇱 Historian - Postdoc at the University of Edinburgh looking at socioeconomic rights in Kenya and Tanzania - previously at Warwick, looking at Mau Mau legacies
Reposted by Niels Boender
Join me this Thursday (2:30 pm East Africa, 11:30 am GMT) as I give a (online) talk to the University of Nairobi's Research Seminar on my work on Kenyan decolonisation and the settlement schemes which transferred much white-owned land at independence.
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
December 2, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Join me this Thursday (2:30 pm East Africa, 11:30 am GMT) as I give a (online) talk to the University of Nairobi's Research Seminar on my work on Kenyan decolonisation and the settlement schemes which transferred much white-owned land at independence.
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Join me this Thursday (2:30 pm East Africa, 11:30 am GMT) as I give a (online) talk to the University of Nairobi's Research Seminar on my work on Kenyan decolonisation and the settlement schemes which transferred much white-owned land at independence.
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
December 2, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Join me this Thursday (2:30 pm East Africa, 11:30 am GMT) as I give a (online) talk to the University of Nairobi's Research Seminar on my work on Kenyan decolonisation and the settlement schemes which transferred much white-owned land at independence.
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Very excited to announce the publication of my latest article— the last in a trilogy about local politics in Nyeri District in the years surrounding Kenyan independence.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
(1/4)
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
(1/4)
“Blackshirts” and “Blacklists”: The Politics of Late-Colonial Central Kenya, 1958–1963 | Itinerario | Cambridge Core
“Blackshirts” and “Blacklists”: The Politics of Late-Colonial Central Kenya, 1958–1963
www.cambridge.org
October 28, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Very excited to announce the publication of my latest article— the last in a trilogy about local politics in Nyeri District in the years surrounding Kenyan independence.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
(1/4)
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
(1/4)
Reposted by Niels Boender
Our Medium page has a new blog! Bernard Thomann of @ifrae.bsky.social and @inalco.fr in Paris has written for us about accusations of 'social dumping', international pressure, and the transformation of labour conditions in twentieth-century Japan. Subscribe to see more!
medium.com/@glosoc/soci...
medium.com/@glosoc/soci...
‘Social dumping’ and the economic transformation of twentieth-century Japan
Guest Blog by Bernard Thomann (Ifrae/Inalco, Paris, France)
medium.com
October 22, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Our Medium page has a new blog! Bernard Thomann of @ifrae.bsky.social and @inalco.fr in Paris has written for us about accusations of 'social dumping', international pressure, and the transformation of labour conditions in twentieth-century Japan. Subscribe to see more!
medium.com/@glosoc/soci...
medium.com/@glosoc/soci...
It's been incredible this week to see something that I, along with many others, have been working on for several years... "Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus" exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London. The exhibition represents a significant evolution... 1/6
October 19, 2025 at 2:49 PM
It's been incredible this week to see something that I, along with many others, have been working on for several years... "Emergency Exits: The Fight for Independence in Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus" exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London. The exhibition represents a significant evolution... 1/6
Reposted by Niels Boender
We are still continuing our effort to crowdsource items for our virtual exhibition on the global struggle for labour rights! We are also welcoming blog contributions for our Medium blog medium.com/@glosoc. Any personal stories, academic findings, or reflections on the theme are welcome!
October 19, 2025 at 1:47 PM
We are still continuing our effort to crowdsource items for our virtual exhibition on the global struggle for labour rights! We are also welcoming blog contributions for our Medium blog medium.com/@glosoc. Any personal stories, academic findings, or reflections on the theme are welcome!
Reposted by Niels Boender
One for the diary! If you're in Nairobi, do come along to
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
September 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
One for the diary! If you're in Nairobi, do come along to
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
One for the diary! If you're in Nairobi, do come along to
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
September 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
One for the diary! If you're in Nairobi, do come along to
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
the British Institute in East Africa to listen to me present some findings on the history of social security in the region. Alternatively, you can join online. 4 pm EAT on the 18th of September
Register here: biea.ac.uk/events/the-o...
Reposted by Niels Boender
Crowd-sourcing opportunity! At GLOSOC, we are putting together a virtual exhibition on Work and the Global History of Social Rights since the nineteenth century. The exhibition is targeted at school students and adults, and we need your help and suggestions for items to include!
September 8, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Crowd-sourcing opportunity! At GLOSOC, we are putting together a virtual exhibition on Work and the Global History of Social Rights since the nineteenth century. The exhibition is targeted at school students and adults, and we need your help and suggestions for items to include!
Reposted by Niels Boender
Very happy to see my latest article published with
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
Read the new OA article by @nielsboender.bsky.social on the African Independent Pentecostal Church, #decolonization, #land, and #reconciliation in #Kenya:
bit.ly/46hPEUo
bit.ly/46hPEUo
September 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Very happy to see my latest article published with
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
Very happy to see my latest article published with
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
Read the new OA article by @nielsboender.bsky.social on the African Independent Pentecostal Church, #decolonization, #land, and #reconciliation in #Kenya:
bit.ly/46hPEUo
bit.ly/46hPEUo
September 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Very happy to see my latest article published with
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
@thejah.bsky.social - the second in what will be a trilogy of articles on the legacy of Mau Mau and local politics in Central Kenya. In this article, I take a look at the African Independent Pentecostal Church, the religious arm...
Reposted by Niels Boender
Thrilled to say that my most recent article has been released. It appears in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, on the politics of chieftaincy in decolonising Central Kenya, where many ex-Mau Mau found their way into local politics. read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/arti...
Neo–Mau Mau and Ex-Loyalists | Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
August 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Thrilled to say that my most recent article has been released. It appears in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, on the politics of chieftaincy in decolonising Central Kenya, where many ex-Mau Mau found their way into local politics. read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/arti...
Thrilled to say that my most recent article has been released. It appears in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, on the politics of chieftaincy in decolonising Central Kenya, where many ex-Mau Mau found their way into local politics. read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/arti...
Neo–Mau Mau and Ex-Loyalists | Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
August 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Thrilled to say that my most recent article has been released. It appears in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, on the politics of chieftaincy in decolonising Central Kenya, where many ex-Mau Mau found their way into local politics. read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/arti...
Reposted by Niels Boender
Happy Labour Day! To mark the occasion, our project member @roryhanna.bsky.social has authored a blog on the 1955 protests by the labour movement in West Germany demanding a five-day week - with some very pertinent contemporary resonances!
medium.com/p/bc26223cafcf
medium.com/p/bc26223cafcf
May 1, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Happy Labour Day! To mark the occasion, our project member @roryhanna.bsky.social has authored a blog on the 1955 protests by the labour movement in West Germany demanding a five-day week - with some very pertinent contemporary resonances!
medium.com/p/bc26223cafcf
medium.com/p/bc26223cafcf
Reposted by Niels Boender
We are very happy to announce our exciting program for our first project workshop, 5-6 June, on "Writing Global Histories of Socio-Economic Rights"
See www.glosoc.org/events/ for a text version of the programme and for details to register for online and in-person attendance.
See www.glosoc.org/events/ for a text version of the programme and for details to register for online and in-person attendance.
April 10, 2025 at 4:14 PM
We are very happy to announce our exciting program for our first project workshop, 5-6 June, on "Writing Global Histories of Socio-Economic Rights"
See www.glosoc.org/events/ for a text version of the programme and for details to register for online and in-person attendance.
See www.glosoc.org/events/ for a text version of the programme and for details to register for online and in-person attendance.
Reposted by Niels Boender
Fascinating insights this morning from on postcolonial freedom fighters in 1960s Kenya, as part of the Global Geographies of Veteran History panel by @nielsboender.bsky.social
April 2, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Fascinating insights this morning from on postcolonial freedom fighters in 1960s Kenya, as part of the Global Geographies of Veteran History panel by @nielsboender.bsky.social
Thrilled to finally announce the release of our edited collection - Homecoming Veterans in Literature and Culture. I am incredibly grateful to the brilliant contributors who have established 'Homecoming' as an analytical lense for understanding veterans' return
www.routledge.com/Homecoming-V...
www.routledge.com/Homecoming-V...
March 28, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Thrilled to finally announce the release of our edited collection - Homecoming Veterans in Literature and Culture. I am incredibly grateful to the brilliant contributors who have established 'Homecoming' as an analytical lense for understanding veterans' return
www.routledge.com/Homecoming-V...
www.routledge.com/Homecoming-V...
Reposted by Niels Boender
SHoW's heading to Potsdam!
📢 Call for Papers – SHoW 2025
🗓 27–28 November 2025
📍University of Potsdam
📝 Abstracts due: 30 June
How do societies understand, justify, and remember war and violence? And how do cultures resist, represent, or misrepresent it?
All details can be found below! ⬇️
📢 Call for Papers – SHoW 2025
🗓 27–28 November 2025
📍University of Potsdam
📝 Abstracts due: 30 June
How do societies understand, justify, and remember war and violence? And how do cultures resist, represent, or misrepresent it?
All details can be found below! ⬇️
March 24, 2025 at 5:39 PM
SHoW's heading to Potsdam!
📢 Call for Papers – SHoW 2025
🗓 27–28 November 2025
📍University of Potsdam
📝 Abstracts due: 30 June
How do societies understand, justify, and remember war and violence? And how do cultures resist, represent, or misrepresent it?
All details can be found below! ⬇️
📢 Call for Papers – SHoW 2025
🗓 27–28 November 2025
📍University of Potsdam
📝 Abstracts due: 30 June
How do societies understand, justify, and remember war and violence? And how do cultures resist, represent, or misrepresent it?
All details can be found below! ⬇️
Give this blog a read - where I explore an interesting bit of correspondence between Julius Nyerere and the pro-Western International Confederation on Free Trade Unions on the future of trade unions in Africa.
We're happy to announce we've posted our next blog - authored by Project Post-doc @nielsboender.bsky.social - a spotlight from our archival research on Trade Unions, Labour Rights and Tanzania: medium.com/@glosoc/docu...
Document Highlight: When Julius Nyerere broke with Western Trade Unionism
[Author: Dr Niels Boender (University of Edinburgh)]
medium.com
March 5, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Give this blog a read - where I explore an interesting bit of correspondence between Julius Nyerere and the pro-Western International Confederation on Free Trade Unions on the future of trade unions in Africa.
If you're anywhere near Oxford this Thursday come along at 15:30 for my talk in the African Studies Seminar on reconciliation and repression in 1960s Kenya!
www.africanstudies.ox.ac.uk/event/resear...
www.africanstudies.ox.ac.uk/event/resear...
African Studies Seminar: Researching Reconciliation and Repression in 1960s Kenya
Niels Boender
www.africanstudies.ox.ac.uk
February 3, 2025 at 10:46 AM
If you're anywhere near Oxford this Thursday come along at 15:30 for my talk in the African Studies Seminar on reconciliation and repression in 1960s Kenya!
www.africanstudies.ox.ac.uk/event/resear...
www.africanstudies.ox.ac.uk/event/resear...
Reposted by Niels Boender
Call for Papers for our first event! Join us at our hybrid workshop - Writing Global Histories of Socio-Economic Rights at the University of Sheffield, 5-6 June 2025. Please send us a keyword, abstract, and bio at [email protected]. The deadline is 15 February. See more details below!
January 7, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Call for Papers for our first event! Join us at our hybrid workshop - Writing Global Histories of Socio-Economic Rights at the University of Sheffield, 5-6 June 2025. Please send us a keyword, abstract, and bio at [email protected]. The deadline is 15 February. See more details below!
Reposted by Niels Boender
We've published our first two blogs for our GLOSOC project. Find out about the diversity of approaches to social rights across both time and space in Europe and Africa. From Bismarck's Germany to the era of Structural Adjustment, we sketch the broad outlines of our project.
medium.com/@glosoc
medium.com/@glosoc
December 11, 2024 at 10:36 AM
We've published our first two blogs for our GLOSOC project. Find out about the diversity of approaches to social rights across both time and space in Europe and Africa. From Bismarck's Germany to the era of Structural Adjustment, we sketch the broad outlines of our project.
medium.com/@glosoc
medium.com/@glosoc
Had a really wonderful time at the @sochistorywar.bsky.social conference in Nicosia last week. Authentically a wonderful group of people - and in an incredibly fascinating (and relevant) location. Next year in Potsdam!
December 2, 2024 at 9:36 AM
Had a really wonderful time at the @sochistorywar.bsky.social conference in Nicosia last week. Authentically a wonderful group of people - and in an incredibly fascinating (and relevant) location. Next year in Potsdam!