Diana Jeater
Professor in African History.
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BA (Hons), DPhil (Oxon); FRHistS
Room number: 2CK13a
Telephone number: +44 (0) 117 32 84384
Email: Diana.Jeater@uwe.ac.uk
Current Post
Professor in African History.
Research Interests
I have spent the past twenty years researching Zimbabwean history. I am particularly interested in cultural aspects of that history, focusing on the interactions between African communities and the white immigrants during the first forty years of white occupation.
This interest has led me to investigate gender, sexuality, legal systems, witchcraft, ethnography and translation. I have just completed a book that combines all these interests under the umbrella title, Law, Language & Science: The invention of the ‘native mind’ in Southern Rhodesia, published by Heinemann/Greenwood in December 2006.
I am interested in all aspects of research on Zimbabwe. I am keen to encourage post-graduate work on Zimbabwe, and I am always happy to make contact with new or established researchers in the field, particularly those working in Africa. Researchers are particularly invited who may wish to make use of the Rhodesian Army Association archive.
'Wars of Liberation, Wars of Decolonisation: The Rhodesian Army Archive Project'
I am currently managing a £420,000 Resources Enhancement project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to create a catalogue and searchable database for the extensive archive of the Rhodesian Army Association. This collection is housed in uncatalogued boxes at the Empire & Commonwealth Museum in Bristol. The project is due for completion in 2009.
There is an irregular newsletter describing the progress of the cataloguing project.
Return of the Empire: private expatriate archives in UK Museums and Libraries
Alongside this project, we have also been awarded funding from the AHRC’s Research Workshops - Museums & Galleries programme for a workshop series entitled ' Return of the Empire: private expatriate archives in UK Museums and Libraries'.
We will be organising two workshops related to issues raised by the cataloguing project. We have had to deal with broader questions about how to deal with expatriate material, and about responsibilities towards depositors of such material; towards potential researchers; and towards the countries of origin. The workshops will bring together all those with an interest in such collections and their care.
- Workshop 1: Large Research Archives in Museums. Sept 8th 2007
- Workshop 2: Expatriate archives in Museums. 19th April 2008
‘Why did you fight?’: The Rhodesia Forces Oral History Project
The AHRC has also agreed to fund a two-year oral history project, to accompany the archive project. Dr Sue Onslow, from the LSE, London, will be working with me on this project, which is due to start on 1st March 2008.
We aim to interview up to 120 former members of the Rhodesian forces and the British South Africa Police. We will be depositing the oral material alongside the paper archive. In addition, we will be investigating the construction of Rhodesian identity, during and after the war, by asking veterans about their reasons for fighting against the nationalist forces.
Current teaching
I offer history modules at Level 2, Level 3, Special Subject and MA.
At Level 2, I offer a survey module on 'Themes in African History'. This covers history from an African, rather than an imperial, perspective. It will soon emerge as a text-book for Palgrave entitled African History: A thematic approach.
At Level 3, my teaching becomes more focused.
For those with a general interest in the place of African culture in the modern world, I offer 'Africa and the Black Diaspora: a cultural history'. This looks at the spread of African culture across the Atlantic in the 18th and 19th centuries, starting with a detailed examination of a selection of 18th century African cultures, and then looking at transformations and continuities, including jazz and blues music, voodoo and santeria, and creole languages.
My special subject, 'Adultery, Sexuality and Witchcraft in Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1930', draws heavily on my research work. Students read a wide range of primary sources, and are well-placed to move on to post-graduate work in Zimbabwean history. Student dissertation topics have included studies of witchcraft accusations, media coverage of sexual assault cases in the 1910s and 1920s, the role of chiefs within the BSACo administration, administrators' understandings of 'native law and custom', and a detailed studied of the life of the Welsh missionary, Bowen-Rees.
My MA option, when available, covers key texts in African history. It examines the canon in detail, providing a reading-group environment in which to tackle the essential texts in the field. It provides a solid foundation for doctoral research, as well as being a challenging and interesting module in its own right.
I am interested in theories of teaching, as well as in teaching African history. Consequently, you will also find me teaching Level 1 modules, where we focus on developing essential skills for tertiary level study, and teaching the core Level 2 history module on the Theory and Practice of History.
Other professional activities
Editorial Board Journal of Southern African Studies. A UK-based journal, internationally recognised as the leading journal in the field.
Chair, Britain Zimbabwe Society A membership organisation open to all friends of Zimbabwe. BZS serves as a network for contacts and information exchange, and brings together individuals and organisations with wide-ranging interests in development, education, health, trade and investment, travel and tourism, art, music and culture, community linking and simply staying in touch.
Expert adviser on Zimbabwe in asylum applications to the UK.
External doctoral examiner, University of Oxford; University of Western Australia.
Reader for Africa; Social History; Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Journal of African History; International Journal of African Historical Studies, Heinemann Publishers, University of California Press.
Evaluator for National Research Foundation, South Africa; Bristol Museums & Art Gallery, Arts & Humanities Research Council, UK; Economic and Social Research Council, UK; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; University of Virginia, USA; University of Alberta, Canada.
Delegate, African Scholarship Initiative, Zimbabwe International Book Fair.
Editor, History Courseware Consortium of the Teaching & Learning Technology Programme of the Higher Education Funding Councils, 'The Social Aspects of Industrialisation'.
Media
I used to work in the independent television sector, before jumping ship into academia in 1990.
At present I also find that I spend a lot of time talking to the media about the situation in Zimbabwe. However, I did take part in a Channel 4 documentary on inter-racial sex in the British Empire, which was much more fun!
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Publications
Law, Language & Science: the invention of the ‘native mind’ in Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1935, Heinemann, Portsmouth, USA, 2006
Marriage, Perversion and Power: the construction of moral discourse in Southern Rhodesia 1894-1930, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993.
Named an Outstanding Academic Book for 1994 by CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
"An intriguing title; a compelling book...reveals the complex interplay of shifting values, new economic structures, and gender definition in the Gwelo District of southern Rhodesia...A significant addition to the growing field of gender studies in Africa and also offers new insights into colonial society."--Choice
Articles
'The way you tell them: language, ideology and development in Southern
Rhodesia' in African Studies vol 55, January 1996
''Rethinking the "African Voice": Language interpretation in the Native Commissioner's and Magistrate's Courts, Melsetter District, Southern Rhodesia, 1896-1914', in Simon McGrath et al, eds, Rethinking African History, University of Edinburgh CAS, 1997, pp 379-402
'No place for a woman: Gwelo town, Southern Rhodesia 1894-1920' in Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 26 Number 1 , Mar 2000, pp29-42
'"Their idea of justice is so peculiar": Southern Rhodesia 1890-1910' in Peter Coss (ed): The Moral World of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
'Speaking Like A Native: vernacular languages and the state in Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1935' in Journal of African History, vol 42, 2001, pp.449-468
'The British Empire and African Women in the Twentieth Century' in Philip D. Morgan & Sean Hawkins, eds, Black Experience and the Empire, Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp228-256.
'Imagining Africans: Scholarship, Fantasy and Science in Colonial Administration, 1920s Southern Rhodesia', in International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol 38, no. 1, 2005, pp 1-26.
Selected conference papers
'Civilization and Standardisation: chiShona and the Standardisation of
African Languages', African Studies Association 43rd Annual Meeting, Nashville,
Tennessee, November 2000.
'It's all Greek to me: white perceptions of African culture in 1920s Southern Rhodesia', North Eastern Workshop on Southern Africa, Vermont, Canada, November 2000
' "I am willing to pay for the damage done": parallel systems of criminal law in white-occupied Southern Rhodesia, 1896-1923', conference on Crime in Eastern Africa: Past and Present Perspectives, organised by the British Institute in Eastern Africa/ Institut Francais de Recherche en Afrique, KWS Training Institute, Naivasha, Kenya, 8th -11th July, 2002
'Making it up as we go along? Using unreliable sources for fun and profit in the social history of Africa', University of Kansas seminar series on New Directions in African History: Perspectives and Methodologies, September 2002.
'Colonial Hegemony: An Archival Illusion?', African Studies Association 45th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., December 2002
'Afrikaner disaporas: treks to Eastern Zimbabwe', conference on Zimbabwean Diasporas, St Antony's College, Oxford, June 2003.
Shorter work
'In the beginning was whose word? An investigation into early vernacular
primers', The Zimbabwean Review, volume 1, number 2, July 1995.
'The Spirit of the Argument: science, tradition and rhetoric in Zimbabwe', Wavelength, UWE, number 20, May 1998
