Reparations for colonial soldiers in France, Great Britain and the United States. National movements and transnational dimensions.

• Applicant: Dr. Barbara Laubenthal
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2012 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 224560331

This comparative research project focuses on the reasons for the recent emergence of movements in France, Great Britain and the United States demanding reparations for colonial veterans. Despite their important contribution to the war effort, until the turn of the century colonial soldiers were largely ignored by European and US historiographers of the SecondWorld War and by national remembrance policies. Recently, however, former soldiers from Senegal, Nepal and the Philippines have successfully claimed material compensations and/or residence rights in the former colonial states. What factors have encouraged the parallel emergence of similar reparation movements in differing national contexts? Does the emergence of these successful reparation movements reflect the increasing influence of universal global norms and transnational actors on the political process in the nation state, or are these movements the results of national revisions of the colonial past and firmly rooted in national politics? The project will address these questions with three comparative country studies and with a mix of qualitative methods. Its aim is to present a new model of transnational politics of the past.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants