Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
0.4
0.8
Journals
Genealogy
Special Issues
Colonial Intimacies: Families and Family Life in the British Empire
share announcement

Colonial Intimacies: Families and Family Life in the British Empire

A special issue of Genealogy (ISSN 2313-5778). This special issue belongs to the section "Family History".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2024) | Viewed by 2151

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Emily J. Manktelow

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK
Interests: colonialism; British Empire; gender; intimacy; race; imperial nostalgia

Special Issue Information

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 (emily.manktelow@rhul.ac.uk) or to the Genealogy editorial office (coraline.chen@mdpi.com). 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.

Keywords

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

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

15 pages, 221 KiB  
Article
Tracing an Archive: The Mackintosh Archive in Familial and Colonial Context
by Onni Gust
Genealogy 2025, 9(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9020034 - 26 Mar 2025
Viewed by 217
Abstract
This article focuses on the genealogy of the Mackintosh archive, showing how subjects are interpellated through archival networks that span imperial and metropolitan sites, linking people, ideas, knowledge and material resources. By tracing the Mackintosh archive across generations of family members embedded in [...] Read more.
This article focuses on the genealogy of the Mackintosh archive, showing how subjects are interpellated through archival networks that span imperial and metropolitan sites, linking people, ideas, knowledge and material resources. By tracing the Mackintosh archive across generations of family members embedded in British imperial society, it shows how archives call forth an individual—Sir James Mackintosh—as a symbol and a site of the interconnections between the patriarchal family, the male-dominated state and the production of cultural imaginaries of belonging. Tracing this archive, it argues that the ‘society’ to which James Mackintosh belonged is both reflected in, and constituted through, the letters and journals that comprise his archive. In form and content, they provide the material evidence for the interconnectedness of social, familial, intellectual and political lives. They function both as fantasies and representations of belonging to a social network—a community—and a constitutive part of the consolidation of that network. The letters and diaries that comprise the Mackintosh Archive bear witness to the formation of a literary elite at the turn of the nineteenth century and the mobility of that elite around European-imperial space. Thus, the Mackintosh Archive illustrates the point, made by an increasing number of imperial and global historians, that ideas and identities were forged through inter-connections across space. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Colonial Intimacies: Families and Family Life in the British Empire)
18 pages, 1019 KiB  
Article
Women’s Histories in a Digital World: An Exploration of Digital Archives, Family History, and Domestic Violence in Early Twentieth-Century Australia
by Rachel K. Bright
Genealogy 2024, 8(4), 140; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8040140 - 12 Nov 2024
Viewed by 1209
Abstract
In recent years, scholars have increasingly recognised the ways that colonialism, and related racism, embedded intergenerational trauma within families and communities. The role of domestic violence within families is widely accepted as important, but often treated separately. This article uses a case study [...] Read more.
In recent years, scholars have increasingly recognised the ways that colonialism, and related racism, embedded intergenerational trauma within families and communities. The role of domestic violence within families is widely accepted as important, but often treated separately. This article uses a case study from Western Australia, the life and death of Annie Grigo Dost, to explore the dynamics of both issues. Importantly, it also critiques the presentation of complex colonial family histories within a range of digital platforms, especially Ancestry.com. Such platforms obscure complex family dynamics, enforcing normative (often Westernised and highly gendered) digital frameworks for data, and consequently for stories about the past. This article offers an important critique of the ways that Ancestry.com in particular seems to actively sanitise family history, and the ways that they may be doing a disservice to their customers, who may want to acknowledge a more complex, critical family history. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Colonial Intimacies: Families and Family Life in the British Empire)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-2
Back to TopTop