Invoking Empire examines the histories of Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand during the transitional decades between 1860-1900, when each gained some degree of self-government yet still remained within the sovereignty of the British Empire.
It applies the conceptual framework of imperial citizenship to nine case studies of settlers and Indigenous peoples who lived through these decades to make two main arguments. It argues that colonial subjects adapted imperial citizenship to both support and challenge settler sovereignty, revealing the continuing importance of imperial authority in self-governing settler spaces. It also posits that imperial citizenship was rendered inoperable by a combination of factors in both Britian and the colonies, highlighting the contingency of settler colonialism on imperial governmental structures and challenging teleological assumptions that the rise of settler nation states was an inevitable result of settler self-government.
By:
Darren Reid (Postdoctoral fellow)
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 14mm
Weight: 494g
ISBN: 9781526181626
ISBN 10: 1526181622
Series: Studies in Imperialism
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 01 September 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction Part 1 Settler imperial citizenship within representative governments 1 Undermining imperial maladministration: British Columbia, 1869–1870 2 Influencing native policy through the British House of Commons: Natal, 1875–1880 3 Opposing a corrupt colonial legal system: Western Australia, 1886 Part 2 Settler imperial citizenship within responsible governments 4 Securing settler futurity against indigenous resistance: New Zealand, 1860–1861 5 Protestant freedom versus catholic tyranny: Quebec, 1875–1877 6 Mass petitioning as participatory imperial politics: Cape Colony, 1884–1885 Part 3 Indigenous imperial citizenship 7 Petitioning for African voting rights: Cape Colony, 1887 8 Indigenous credibility in the imperial metropole: New Zealand, 1882 9 Humanitarian interference in indigenous delegations: New Zealand, 1884 Conclusion Bibliography -- .
Darren Reid is a Postdoctoral Fellow in History at McGill University
