Dr Harriet Aldrich

Harriet is a postdoctoral fellow at the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy, within the Centre for Grand Strategy. Her research focuses on global and transnational dynamics in African and British history, particularly relating to exile and mobility.

Before joining Kings, she was funded by the AHRC to complete a doctorate in History at the University of Oxford, writing a thesis entitled ‘The Condition of Exile: Ghanaian Exile Networks and Competing Nationalisms, 1957-1993’. She has also attained an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge, and a BA in History from the University of Durham.

Harriet is committed to public engagement, collaborating with the outreach organisation Uncomfortable Oxford on walking tours, public lectures, and podcasts which explore inequality and its links to imperialism.

She has been a member of the editorial board of The Round Table since 2019, and was previously the recipient of the journal’s Harry Hodson Essay Prize.

Research Interests

Harriet’s research explores post-independence African history in a global context. Centring on experiences of exile and migration, her work seeks to integrate the experiences and political impact of transnational and exiled actors into the broader historical narratives from which they are often missing.

Her work examines how exiles shaped the politics of their home and host nations through the creation of mobile networks of dissent, as well as illuminating the impact of externality on the emotional and political lives of exiled individuals themselves.

Her current research explores how the presence and activism of exiled leaders and movements from the Global South disrupted the British political landscape from the 1960s to 2000.

Specific areas of interest include:

• Modern African History
• Twentieth Century British Foreign Policy
• Global and Transnational History
• Exile, Migration, and Mobility
• Competing Nationalisms
• Human Rights

Publications

Research Articles

• (2020) ‘Uganda, Southern Sudan and the Idi Amin Coup’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 46/6 doi: 10.1080/03086534.2020.1765530
• (2018) ‘The Commonwealth, Apartheid, and the Role of Micro-states’, The Round Table, 107/3 doi: 10.1080/00358533.2018.1476092
• In Progress: ‘Nkrumah and the CPP in Exile, 1966-69’,

Book Chapters

• (2020) ‘Racial Legacies: South African Apartheid and the Old Commonwealth’, In Dubow S., Drayton R. (eds.), Commonwealth History in the Twenty-First Century, (London: Palgrave Macmillan), pp.229-49 doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-41788-8