Upcoming ISRF Book Launches: Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique & The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain
Join us on 27th February in Lisbon to celebrate Sandra Araújo's 'Spying on Muslims in Colonial Mozambique, 1964-74', and 7th March in Edinburgh for Jay Wiggan's 'The Politics of Unemployment Policy'.
Colonial powers use a range of techniques to control their colonial populations. These include mixtures of violence and the exploitation of religious and other social divisions. How did Portugal improvise with these colonial practices to rule Mozambique? What were the effects?
Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa | 5pm WET/GMT | In-Person & Online
In this in-depth and compelling study, Sandra Araújo uses archival and oral sources to uncover a full-fledged intelligence agency and explore Portugal’s counterinsurgent spying on Muslim communities during Mozambique’s liberation struggle.
She pays particular attention to Portuguese intelligence gathering practices, the social realities this imposed on Muslims residents during the war, and to popular responses to Portuguese efforts to turn them against FRELIMO’s efforts to free Mozambique from colonial rule. Araújo’s book contributes to a new understanding of colonial security strategies in Mozambique during the liberation war, and sheds new light on the history of colonial counterinsurgency more broadly.
Please join us for Sandra Araújo’s presentation and the discussion of her book.
Sandra Araújo is a Junior Researcher at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa. For the duration of her ISRF First Book Fellowship, she was a visiting researcher at the Global History and Culture Centre at the University of Warwick.
Sandra will be joined by Mustafah Dhada, Professor of History at California State University, Bakersfield; and Martin Thomas, Professor of History at the University of Exeter. A Q&A will follow, moderated by Chris Newfield, ISRF Director of Research.
Join us from 5pm WET/GMT on Thursday 27th February 2025 at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, and also online. Register Now.
In the 1970s, British unemployment policy shifted its focus from full employment to activating individual members of the labour force. How was this shift accomplished by policymakers? How has it impacted the nature of work, the power relations between labour and capital, and the logics of capital accumulation? And how was it shaped by, and has in its turn reshaped, class struggle in Britain?
Chrystal Macmillan Building, University of Edinburgh | 1pm GMT | In-Person
In his searching new study, The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain(Policy Press, 2024), Jay Wiggan surveys the last fifty years of labour activation strategies. Adopting a materialist lens, the book positions successive market-friendly welfare reforms as an attempt by capital to curtail the autonomy and bargaining power of labour. This has irrevocably altered the terrain, shape, and logics of class struggle, diminishing the organisational capacity of both the workforce and unemployed people while enshrining the authority of capital.
Please join us as we celebrate and discuss this important new book.
Dr Jay Wiggan is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. He was an ISRF Early Career Fellow 2016-17. The Politics of Unemployment Policy in Britain is his first book.
Jay will be joined by Professor Chris Grover, Professor of Social Policy at Lancaster University and author of Social Security and Wage Poverty (2016); and Dr Anne Daguerre, Reader at the University of Brighton and author of Obama’s Welfare Legacy (2017). A Q&A will follow, moderated by Dr Lars Cornelissen, ISRF Academic Editor.