Colonial Intimacies: Families and Family Life in the British Empire

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue in the journal Genealogy invites proposals for articles on any aspect of colonial family life in the British Empire.

The history of British colonialism has been enriched by perspectives attentive to family history. Interrogating issues of intimacy, identity and experience has revealed the quotidian nature of colonial impacts, as well as the effects of large-scale colonial processes of violence, exploitation and regulation. Colonialism’s impact has shaped the modern world, and family as a category of living, experience and analysis has been far from immune to this. From changes wrought on traditional family structures, through violent abuse and exploitation, to movement, resilience and agency, family was integral to Empire, conceptually, politically and actively.

This Special Issue seeks to connect histories of Empire attentive to family with family histories attentive to Empire. It is interested in papers of all kinds relating to families and colonialism, and it is particularly interested in the interface between history, genealogy and empire. How can family stories expand our understandings of colonialism? In what ways and through what mechanisms did Empire impact upon families and the idea of ‘The Family’? Does understanding the history of Empire provide us with fresh and exciting ways of understanding family as a concept, as well as families as lived experience?

As such, this Special Issue invites papers on any aspect of family and the British Empire in the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries.  Some potential areas of focus may include the following, although other submissions are welcome and encouraged:

• Methodologies, conceptualizations and pedagogic reflections on genealogy and its relationship with historical research through this topic.

Belongings

• Ancestry, heritage, lineage
• Identities
• Culture, belonging and community

Everyday Life

• Family stories, biography and memory
• Intimacy, sexuality, mixed racial and/or cultural families
• Everyday life, households, affectivity

Colonial Impact

• Colonialism’s impact on families; colonial control over families and family life; colonial families
• Migration, movement,
• Citizenship, identity, nationality

Childhood

• Education, socialization/organization, gender and identity
• Abuse, trauma, forced or free removal/movement
• Adoption, work/service, citizenship/belonging  

Papers which interact with, disrupt or reject these categorizations are all encouraged.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected]) or to the Genealogy editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

All articles published in this special issue are free of charge.

Dr. Emily J. Manktelow
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• family history
• British Empire
• intimacy
• affectivity
• childhood
• colonialism