Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies

The interdisciplinary field of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies analyzes the human consequences of colonial and other forms of domination throughout the history of the world, particularly on those dispossessed and marginalized by colonial and imperial expansion.

Researchers in the field analyse encounters between different cultures and identities, primarily in the context of  European overseas expansion from the fifteenth century onwards. By taking into account multiple experiences and perspectives in the study of global history and culture, a multifaceted view on both the history of colonialism and its legacies in the present world can be constructed.

Colonial and Postcolonial Studies takes a critical stance, not only against colonialism and its legacies as such, but also against how the history of colonialism and cultural encounters has been written in different parts of the world. The field also aims to highlight the occluded and subaltern aspects of colonialism, as well as the persistence of colonial forms of exploitation, oppression and violence in the contemporary world.

A particular source of inspiration for the field of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies as practiced at the Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences is Indigenous Studies, which focuses on the historical and contemporary experiences of Indigenous Nations around the world. In doing so, the field challenges mainstream research in history and other disciplines by adding novel perspectives and critical standpoints and by giving voice to holistic forms of knowledge and alternative ways of understanding and relating to the world.

Research at the Centre revolves around the concept of Concurrences as developed by Professor Gunlög Fur and her colleagues at Linnaeus University. Taking colonial encounters as the starting point of the investigation, Concurrences directs attention to the uneasy relationship that has existed between universalism and human diversity in an increasingly globalized world since the onset of European overseas expansion. It is in encounters that fundamental cultural differences become visible, both to the actors involved and to historians.

However, whereas colonial encounters in general have been studied from Eurocentric perspectives – with Europeans cast as active and non-Europeans as passive or reactive − a central purpose of the Concurrences framework is to promote a more balanced and empirically sound historiography of global encounters throughout modern history. Doing so means taking into account the multiple voices and hidden aspects of historical encounters, including events and interpretations of the world that were forgotten, ignored, purged, oppressed or eliminated from the official or dominant versions of history.

As a theoretical concept, Concurrences recognizes both confluence and competition, and insists that any understanding of the world take into account both entanglements and tensions between jurisdictions of equal weight. Concurrences suggests that different perspectives and locations are always, inescapably, entangled and that human beings constantly negotiate the different, and sometimes incompatible, demands arising out of these concurrent conditions.

The word 'concurrence' is not only synonymous with 'simultaneous' (Sw. samtidighet) which is a frequently employed concept in contemporary research. Both 'concurrence' and 'simultaneity' mean 'the temporal property of two things happening at the same time'. 'Concurrent', however, contains several other meanings that give it a slightly different, but significant, tinge. In addition to 'occurring or existing simultaneously' it can mean 'having equal authority or jurisdiction,' and 'tending to or intersecting at the same point.' In an archaic noun-form it means 'a rival or competitor' (Sw. konkurrent). While the English verb 'concur', at the root of both the noun 'concurrence' and the adjective 'concurrent', has the connotation of agreement and acceptance, the Swedish noun 'konkurrens' still denotes competition.

The term Concurrences thus contains in its reservoir of meanings both agreement and competition, entanglement and incompatibility as it slides uneasily across time and space. It signals contestations over interpretations and harbors different, diverging, and at times competing claims that will inflect studies of themes such as home, traveling, subjectivity-identity, voice, and space.

A focus on Concurrences, rather than simultaneity, challenges scholars to grapple with the universalizing perspectives contained in colonialist claims and modernizing imperatives, wherever they occur. Against this background, the researchers at the Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies aim to account for intersections, contentions, imbalances, and bridge-building as part of the manner in which human beings narrate and engage with their world(s).

For a more thorough discussion of the concept of Concurrences and some examples of its research applications, see Diana Brydon, Peter Forsgren & Gunlög Fur (eds.), Concurrent Imaginaries, Postcolonial Worlds: Toward Revised Histories (Leiden: Brill 2017).

Concurrences' Advisory board consists of leading scholars within postcolonial studies and studies of colonial encounters who represent a variety of academic disciplines:

• Professor Gurminder K Bhambra, University of Sussex
• Professor Elizabeth DeLoughrey, University of California
• Professor Helge Jordheim, University of Oslo
• Professor Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University
• Professor Pramod K. Nayar, University of Hyderabad
• Professor Ann Stoler, The New School for Social Research

• Year book LNUC Concurrences 2023.pdf
• Year book LNUC Concurrences 2022.pdf
• Year book LNUC Concurrences 2021.pdf
• Year book LNUC Concurrences 2020.pdf
• Year book LNUC Concurrences 2019.pdf
• Year book LNUC Concurrences 2018.pdf
• Year book LNUC Concurrences 2017.pdf

The Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies has a guest researcher program for scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences focusing on Colonial and Postcolonial Studies. The guest researcher program enables scholars from all over the world and at all career levels, from PhD candidates to full professors, to visit the Centre for a period of between one and three months. To date around forty scholars have visited the Centre as guest researchers. 

Guest researcher visits should aim to establish or develop existing joint research activities with one or several members of the Centre. Guest researchers are expected to participate in the activities of the Centre and its research clusters and to contribute to the academic environment of LNUC Concurrences during their visit. Priority will be given to guest researcher visits that are of strategic importance to LNUC Concurrences and are of high relevance to the research orientation of the Centre and its members.

Researchers who are interested in visiting LNUC Concurrences as guest researchers should preferably contact a member of the Centre with whom they collaborate, or would like to collaborate, and ask that member to sponsor an application for a guest researcher visit. Alternatively, an inquiry may be sent to Liv Nilsson Stutz. Sponsored applications for guest researcher visits can be submitted by a member of the Centre during one of the annual application rounds (October and March) and are normally processed within three months. 

The guest researcher positions are non-salaried and presupposes that the visiting researcher has a salary or bursary from his or her home institution. The Centre provides office space and access to the research activities of the Centre. The Centre can also provide basic accommodation and funds to cover travel and extra living expenses during the guest research visit.

For more information about the application procedure and conditions for guest researcher program, please contact the Centre’s Administration Officer.

The Centre for Trans-Himalayan Studies at Yunnan Minzu University

Centre for Applied Heritage

Platform Migration

2024

• Lucia Hogson, USA
• Lobke Minter, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
• Prabhat Kumar, Centre for the Study of Developing Societes, India and Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies, Heidelberg University, Germany
• Maria Framke, University of Erfurt, Germany
• Joanna Simonow, Heidelberg University, Germany
• Ariel Lopez, Asian Center, University of the Philippines (The Philippines)

2023

• Lucia Hodgson, USA
• Alexander Philips, Ashoka University, India
• Giovanna Gini, Queen Mary University of London, UK
• Elliot Blomqvist, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Nicole Crescenzi, The IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy
• Shabeena Kuttay, GDC Magam, Budgam, India
• Abellia Anggi Wardani, University of Indonesia, Indonesia
• Rasmus Christensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Isabelle Hesse, University of Sydney, Australia
• Monwabisi K. Ralarala, University of the Western Cape, South Africa

2022

• Preedee Hongsaton, Thammasat University, Thailand
• Ina Thegen, Aarhus university, Denmark
• Sanjukta Das Gupta, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
• Wumi Raji, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
• Svea Larsson, Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
• Anna Krämer, University of Cologne, Germany
• Lucia Hodgson, USA
• Om Dwevedi, Bennett University, India

2021

• Amrita Ghosh, Linnaeus University and SASNET, Sweden
• Preedee Hongsaton, Thammasat University, Thailand

2020

• Amrita Ghosh, Linnaeus University and SASNET, Sweden
• Forrest Hylton, National University of Colombia, Colombia
  
• Mikko Toivanen, European University Institute, Italy 

2019

• Hannah Durkin, Newcastle University, UK
• Aleksi Huhta, University of Turku, Finland
• Malica S Willie, The University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados
• Maria Lindebaeck Lindsoe, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha, Kazi Nazrul University, India
• Isabella Mundim, Federal Institute of Brasília, Brasilia
• Silje Dragsund Aase, VID, Stavanger, Norway

2018

• Bruce Buchan, Griffith University, Australia
• Stephen Pihlaja, Birmingham Newman University, UK
• Eleonor Marcussen, North South University, Bangladesh
• Kenneth Long, University of Saint Joseph, USA
• Niladri Chatterjee, North South University, Bangladesh
• Kathryn Seymour, Griffith University, Australia
• Mieke Bal, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Harjeet Badwall, York University, Canada
• Rebecca Duncan, University of Stirling, UK
• Fatuma Omer Ali, Marmara University, Turkey

2017

• Iain Chambers, University of Naples "L'Orientale", Italy
• Gabriella Elgenius, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Malin Gregersen, University of Bergen, Norway
• Ivan Sablin, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia
• Ana Grgic, University of the Arts, UK

2016

• Pineteh E.Angu, University of Pretoria, South Africa
• Jaqueline van Gent, University of Western Australia, Australia
• Raphael Hörmann, University of Central Lancashire, UK
• Dhiraj Nite, Ambedkar University, India
• Yvonne Reddick, University of Central Lancashire, UK
• Hilda Härgestam Strandberg, Umeå University, Sweden
• Malica S. Willie, The University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados

2015

• Bruce Buchan, Griffith University, Australia
• Paul Giffard-Foret, Sorbonne University, France
• Kristian Van Haesendonck, University of Antwerpen, Belgium
• Ingeborg Høvik, The Arctic University of Norway, Norway
• Radhika Krishnan, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
• Erica Lombard, University of Oxford, UK
• Mohammad Sakhnini, University of Exeter, UK
• Isabel Cristina Sá Valentim, University of Coimbra, Portugal

2014

• Alexander Bubb, University of Oxford, UK
• Ashleigh Harris, Uppsala University, Sweden
• Lucienne Loh, University of Liverpool, UK

2013

• Diana Brydon, University of Manitoba, Canada
• Wumi Raji, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria

Doctoral students working in the field of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies based at Linnaeus University are attached to the Centre while completing their doctoral thesis in one of the Humanities disciplines of the Centre (Archaeology, Comparative Literature, English Literature, History, or the Study of Religions). The PhD candidates take part in the Centre's regular activities, such as seminars and workshops, and benefit from a vibrant research environment. Some of the PhD candidates are part of the doctoral research training programme in Global Humanities, spanning the four disciplines of archaeology, comparative literature, history, and religious studies. The programme started in the autumn of 2022.

Admission to the PhD programs at Linnaeus University is in principle linked to a four-year employment as a PhD student. Positions are announced at the Linnaeus University employment website. In addition, PhD candidates wishing to pursue a PhD program at their own expense may, in extraordinary circumstances, be admitted to a PhD program at Linnaeus University and be affiliated with the Centre.

A MA-program in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies was launched in September 2020. The program is given in English by the Department of Cultural Sciences at Linnaeus University with teachers mainly drawn from the members of Centre for Concurrences.