Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

Profile

My PhD thesis, provisionally entitled France in Anglophone Africa: French Policy and Perceptions from Decolonisation to the Postcolonial Era, builds on work already completed at undergraduate and master’s level which analysed French policy in the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), as well as French participation in Rhodesia following the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965. This PhD will expand upon these studies to produce a substantial piece of research concerning French policy and perceptions of Anglophone Africa in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The main case study of my research is Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).

A critical and systematic analysis of France’s involvement in British Africa is currently conspicuous only by its absence from the existing scholarship on France’s African policy, Anglo-French relations and the history of the African continent in the twentieth century. The aim of my research is to fill this gap in the historiography and formulate a chronological and analytical framework for French participation in Anglophone Africa. Within a broader Cold War context, I am examining how French policy in Anglophone Africa was formulated and what motivated France to intervene in regions outside of its traditional sphere of African interest. Crucial to this research is an examination into how France perceived the decolonisation process in British Africa. Finally I am analysing how French policy and perceptions of Anglophone Africa influenced France’s involvement in Francophone Africa. As such, this research challenges the view that the end of European rule in Africa stemmed solely from the former ruler of an individual territory, offering instead a transnational perspective of the decolonisation process in Africa.

Qualifications

• MSc in the History of Empires, London School of Economics and Political Science, September 2009 – September 2010, Distinction 
• PGCert in Higher Education (Associate Level), London School of Economics and Political Science, October 2011 – July 2012, Pass
• PGDip in Social Research Methods, University of Portsmouth, September 2010 – July 2011, Distinction
• BA (Hons) in History, London School of Economics and Political Science, September 2006 – September 2009, 2:1

Research Clusters

• Francophone Studies

Discipline Areas

• History
• Area Studies
• International Relations 

Research CV

Current Research Projects
PhD thesis: France in Anglophone Africa: French Policy and Perceptions from Decolonisation to the Postcolonial Era.

Book Chapters

• ‘A transnational decolonisation: Britain, France and the Rhodesian problem, 1965-1969’, in Chafer, T. & Keese, A. (eds). Francophone Africa at 50, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013 (forthcoming)
• ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est le même chose?: Continuity, rupture and the Franco-Rhodesian mind-set under the Fourth and Fifth Republics’, in Barclay, F. (ed.) Dis(continuities): Memory and Commemoration in Contemporary France, University of Wales Press, 2013 (forthcoming)

Book Reviews

• B. Charbonneau, France and the New Imperialism: Security Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2008), Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 30 (1), 2012. 

Grants Received

• Postgraduate Travel Grant of £205 from the Royal Historical Society to fund a research trip to the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence in September 2012 to complete primary source analysis for doctoral research, May 2012 
• Award of £250 from the Centre for European and International Studies Research, University of Portsmouth, March 2012, in respect of the ‘Doing research on and in Algeria: methodologies, research agendas, practical issues’ postgraduate workshop, University of Portsmouth, 2 May 2012
• Award of £388 from the Society for the Study of French History, March 2012, in respect of the ‘Doing research on and in Algeria: methodologies, research agendas, practical issues’ postgraduate workshop, University of Portsmouth, 2 May 2012
• Award of £200 from the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France, March 2012, in respect of the ‘Doing research on and in Algeria: methodologies, research agendas, practical issues’ postgraduate workshop, University of Portsmouth, 2 May 2012 
• Postgraduate Travel Grant of £750 from the Society for the Study of French History to fund two research trips to the Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et Européennes in Paris and the Archives Diplomatiques in Nantes in July and September 2011 to complete primary source analysis for doctoral research, May 2011
• University of Portsmouth Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Full PhD Bursary, September 2010 – August 2013
• Postgraduate Travel Grant of £450 from the Society for the Study of French History to fund a research trip to the Archives Nationales, Paris in the Summer of 2010 to aid completion of a masters level dissertation entitled ‘Britain, France and the Rhodesian Problem, 1964-1969’, May 2010 
• Runner-up prize in the Society for the Study of French History’s annual competition for final year dissertations on French history in British and Irish universities for dissertation entitled 'Britain, France and the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970', November 2009.