Dr Josh Doble (BA (Hons), M.St, PhD, FHEA)

Honorary Fellow

Biography

Background

Before joining Edinburgh I was the Royal Historical Society Marshall Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research. During that fellowship I finished my AHRC- funded PhD at the University of Leeds, which focused on the history of settler colonialism within the context of decolonising territories in East and Central Africa; approached through the prism of emotions and intimacy. The thesis was based upon archival and ethnographic oral history research in Kenya and Zambia and examined the intimate relations between 'white settlers' and the African people and environment around them to question what decolonisation means in these pseudo-settler postcolonial territories.

I previously studied at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for my undergraduate and masters degrees.

Responsibilities & affiliations

Affiliated research centres

Edinburgh Centre for Global History, Centre of African Studies, Centre for the Study of Modern and Contemporary History

Undergraduate teaching

Body and Power in Colonial Africa

Politics and Power in Post-Colonial East Africa

Global Connections

Historical Skills and Methods 1 and 2

History Dissertation

The Historian's Toolkit

Postgraduate teaching

An Unhappy Valley: Mau Mau, culture and colonialism in Kenya's highlands ca.1895-ca.1964

Historical Research: Skills & Sources (campus and online)

Approaches to History

Research summary

My research interests centre on histories of animals, settler colonialism and postcolonial whiteness, largely centred on  decolonising territories in East and Central Africa. I approach these topics through oral histories, ethnographic methods and a theoretical focus on emotions, senses, memory and wellbeing.

Places: 

  • Africa

Themes: 

  • Comparative & Global History
  • Imperialism
  • Medicine, Science & Technology
  • Migration
  • Society

Periods: 

  • Twentieth Century & After

Current research interests

My doctoral research drew upon archival and ethnographic oral history sources in Kenya and Zambia to examine the intimate relations between white settlers and the African people and environment around them to question what decolonisation means in these pseudo-settler postcolonial territories. This research is being drawn up into a book focused upon the emotive and sensory dynamics of postcolonial whiteness in Africa, and the complex relationships which 'white settlers' have with Africans, the African state and the African environment.

Project activity

I am currently preparing my next research project on the history of two distinct dog breeds in southern Africa; the Rhodesian Ridgeback and Boerboel. The project traces the movement of dogs, ideologies and notions of human/animal health from decolonising southern Africa to the US and the UK to question the uncomfortable relationship between dog breeding, health and racial politics.

Doble, Josh, ‘Can Dogs Be Racist? The Colonial Legacies of Racialized Dogs in Kenya and Zambia’, History Workshop Journal, 89 (2020), 68–89

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