The mid-twentieth century was a period of transition: from warfare to welfare regimes and from the dissolution of empire to the birth of postcolonial states. It was also a time of reckoning: the legacies of decades, even centuries, of violence, extraction, and forced mobilization were brought into stark relief. Across the world, the new welfare regimes and development agendas that emerged were projects in which the legacies of war and empire were imbricated. 

‘Warfare to Welfare: Decolonising Development and Inequality in a Postimperial World’ brings together scholars working on Asia, Britain, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean to interrogate these linkages and how they continue to produce and shape social, economic, and political inequalities in the present. 

A hybrid conference will be held at Gakushuin University, Tokyo on September 4 & 5, 2026.