MRG Seminar: Following the expatriate through the archive of (unfinished) decolonisation

Join us for this MRG Seminar in person with Dr Sarah Kunz (University of Essex). Dr Lucy Mayblin (University of Sheffield) will be the discussant and Dr Nabeela Ahmed (University of Sheffield) will chair the Session.

Who are expatriates? Are they different from other migrants? And why should we care about such distinctions? Sarah's book 'Expatriate' engages such questions as it follows the category ‘expatriate’ to explore its postcolonial history and politics; its making, contestation and lived experience. In this talk, Sarah Kunz will trace the category expatriate through its dispersed archive, from the mid-twentieth century era of political decolonisation to today’s heated debates about migration. She will explore what the category expatriate was taken to mean, and what work it did, during the transition to Kenyan independence, in the emergent academic field of International Human Resource Management, and for the oil major Royal Dutch Shell. From this archive, the expatriate emerges as a malleable and contested category, but consistently central to struggles over inequality, power, and social justice. Following the expatriate helps us understand not only the category itself but offers insights into the social histories it condenses - and shines a light on how decolonisation remains an unfinished project today.