Decolonisation Interrupted
West Papua, the UN, and the Limits of Self-Determination
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Publishing:30th Nov '26
£40.00
This title is due to be published on 30th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Explores Pacific debates over self-determination through West Papuan activism, Black solidarity, and the limits of UN-led decolonisation.
Bringing the Pacific into the global history of decolonisation, Emma Kluge tells the story of West Papua's thwarted bid for independence from Indonesia in the 1960s. Situating West Papua at the heart of global debates over self-determination, she argues that Pacific examples reveal decolonisation's limits for many peoples.Bringing the Pacific into the global history of decolonisation, Decolonisation Interrupted tells the story of West Papua's thwarted bid for independence from Indonesia in the 1960s. Emma Kluge reconstructs a transnational campaign that stretched from local villages and border camps to the corridors of the United Nations, where Indonesian statesmen used their influence to ensure that the claim was denied. Centring West Papuan leaders, petitions, and refugee testimonies, Kluge shows how activists mobilised Melanesian and Black identities, sought African allies, and navigated Afro-Asian statecraft, only to find their claims sacrificed to territorial integrity and Cold War–era state-building. She situates West Papua at the heart of global debates over self-determination, decolonisation procedures, and international institutions, arguing that Pacific cases reveal the limits of decolonisation for many peoples. Emma Kluge is Lecturer in Colonial and Environmental History at the University of Exeter.
'Emma Kluge powerfully integrates the Pacific into global histories of decolonisation. Focusing on the West Papuan struggle for independence, and the entanglements between Indigenous, Black international, and UN histories, Kluge rethinks standard chronologies of decolonisation, showing why some peoples became sovereign while others did not.' Elisabeth Leake, Tufts University
'In this compelling and intimate history of the campaigns of West Papuans for sovereignty, Emma Kluge complicates the often-romantic story scholars have been telling about the rise of the 'Third World.' She shows how the aspirations of actors in the Pacific were left out of the process of decolonisation and subverted by the territorial ambitions of new nation-states.' Su Lin Lewis, University of Bristol
'A deeply researched model of transnational scholarship, Decolonisation Interrupted rightfully places West Papua's struggle for independence into the broader streams of Pacific and international history. Kluge shows that West Papuans and their supporters, though seemingly marginal, were in fact central to UN debates about the meaning of decolonisation and self-determination.' Bradley Simpson, University of Connecticut
'Using an immersive source base built from interviews with and petitions by West Papuans, Emma Kluge illuminates the global history of the denial of West Papuan independence. In the process, she expands the chronology, geography, and meaning of decolonisation in striking ways that foreground Pacific struggles, Indigenous politics, and the international institutions that shaped the postcolonial world.' Lydia Walker, The Ohio State University
ISBN: 9781009872904
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
320 pages