International Conference at Gakushuin University, Tokyo
4 & 5 September 2026
International Conference at Gakushuin University, Tokyo
4 & 5 September 2026
Warfare to Welfare: Decolonising Development and Inequality in a Postimperial World
Situating war, empire, and welfare in the same frame, the conference confronts the divisions that obscure their shared impact on postimperial societies. The programme highlights global and comparative perspectives with a decolonial lens, foregrounding the voices and experiences of those often excluded or marginalized from dominant narratives. Key themes include memory and healing, legacies of empire and the Second World War, developmentalism, indigeneity, migration, gendered labour, marginality and affluence. Contributions that interrogate these experiences within the metropole are situated alongside papers that focus on the decolonizing world and Global South.
Through a mix of keynotes, panels, roundtable sessions, and student and public-facing events, the conference seeks to foster dialogue across disciplines and regions, and particularly encourages dialogue across the Global South, comparing trajectories of development and welfare beyond Euro-American frameworks. Participants include both early career and senior scholars practicing across a range of disciplines, themes, and methods including but not limited to social history, cultural history, economic history, anthropology, ethnography, geography, architecture, and development studies. By bringing these histories into conversation, the conference aims to deepen our understanding of inequality, development, and the enduring legacies of war and empire across the postimperial world.
If you would like to receive a copy of the conference abstracts, please feel free to email urvikhaitan@fas.harvard.edu.
Knowledge Exchange Session on War and Peace
(50+45 mins, 15:00-16:45 JST, 07:30-08:45 UK, 02:00-03:45 EST)
Sandakan Death March: Documentary film screening
Presentations and discussion
Break (15 mins)
Keynote
(40 mins, 17:00-17:40 JST, 09:00-09:40 UK, 04:00-04:40 EST)
Cynthia Ong (Forever Sabah)
Break (15 mins)
Panel 1: Decolonising Institutions
(60+30 mins, 18:00-19:45 JST, 10:00-11:45 UK, 04:45-06:45 EST)
Shinobu Majima (Gakushuin University)
‘Delineating the Late-Colonial Households: food, farms, and the forgotten female economists in postwar Ghana and Jamaica’
Dongkyung Shin (Princeton University)
‘Colonial Universities and Postimperial Power: Britain and the Making of Higher Education Networks in Africa and the Caribbean’
Break (15 mins)
Philip Murphy (Institute of Historical Research)
‘The transition of the UK Security Service (MI5) from a warfare to a welfare state, 1945-1951’
Break (60 mins)
Panel 2: Development and Dialogues
(30 mins, 20:45-21:15 JST, 12:45-13:15 UK, 07:45-08:15 EST)
Gustavo Hessmann Dalaqua (Federal University of Amazonas)
‘Two Types of Anticolonial Developmentalism in the 1960s: Pedagogic vs. Dialogic’
Roundtable
(30 mins, 21:15-22:00 JST, 13:15-14:00 UK, 08:15-09:00 EST)
Brief commentary by Miles Larmer (University of Florida) and Ken Wilson (Forever Sabah)
followed by general discussion
Knowledge Exchange Session on War and Peace
(75+45 mins, 14:45-16:45 JST, 06:45-08:45 UK, 01:45-03:45 EST)
Unit 731 and Vaccination: Poetry film screening
The Atom Bomb: Mini presentations
Takao Matsumura (Keio University, Emeritus)
Break (15 mins)
Panel 3: Empires and Emotions
(60 mins, 17:00-18:00 JST, 09:00-10:00 UK, 04:00-05:00 EST)
Claire Langhamer (Institute of Historical Research)
'What does Empire mean to you?’ Mass Observing the world in 1942’
Lucy Noakes (Royal Historical Society/University of Essex)
‘Remembering War, Forgetting Empire? British Cultural Memory of the mid 20th century’
Break (15 mins)
Panel 4: Enumerating Gender
(60 mins, 18:15-19:15 JST, 10:15-11:15 UK, 05:15-06:15 EST)
Urvi Khaitan (Harvard University)
‘Missing Husbands: Gender and Statistics in the Service of Development’
Panarat Anamwathana (Thammasat University)
‘Occupational Segregation, Gender, and Welfare in Thailand, 1950–2023’
Break (15 mins)
Keynote
(40 mins, 19:30-20:10 JST, 11:30-12:10 UK, 06:30-07:40 EST)
Yasmin Khan (University of Oxford)
‘Nostalgic ties of affection’? Military labour and the British world after 1945’
Break (50 mins)
Panel 5: Global Crafts and Expertise
(60 mins, 21:00-22:00 JST, 13:00-14:00 UK, 08:00-09:00 EST)
Bidisha Dhar (Tripura University)
‘Exploring Welfare in The World Crafts Council Bangladesh Archives: 1970s-80s’
Ana Grondona (University of Buenos Aires)
‘Expert Anxieties and the Limits of a Global Lens: The 'Population Bomb' and its Latin American Discontents’
Closing remarks
Cover image: Rural Health Clinic located in Pak Chong village, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. Source: Wikimedia Commons.