Dr Henry Dee

British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award – Research Associate (History)

email: Henry.Dee@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns: He/him/his

Biography

I am a historian of empire, labour and migration in the early 20^th century. My current research focuses on African and Asian trade unions and the politics of free movement in the British empire during the 1920s and 1930s. Building on previous research into the life and times of Central African-born Clements Kadalie and the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa (ICU), I am now working on a comparative study between the ICU and the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), investigating how both trade unions championed socialist internationalism and challenged heightening worker repression and anti-immigrant restrictions during the early 20th century.

Before coming to Glasgow, I worked at the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, 2020-2021, and studied for a PhD on the life of Clements Kadalie at the University of Edinburgh, 2015-2020. Together with David Johnson, I have edited a volume of ICU primary sources, 'I See You': The Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa, 1919-1930, which makes hundreds of speeches, articles, letters and memories of ICU leaders and rank-and-file members available for the first time.

I have previously taught on the global history of colonial fascism and the history of empire and violence at Queen Mary University London (2020), as well as the history of African Christianity at the University of Edinburgh (2019).

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2016

Number of items: 15.

2024

Dee, H. (2024) Alfred Labinjoh: Edinburgh doctor, Nigerian pan-Africanist. Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 54(3), pp. 241-247. (doi: 10.1177/14782715241283136) (PMID:39311000)

Dee, H. (2024) The freedom to love, move and organize. Safundi, (doi: 10.1080/17533171.2024.2314809) (Early Online Publication)

2023

Dee, H. (2023) Harri Englund, Visions for Racial Equality: David Clement Scott and the Struggle for Justice in Nineteenth-Century Malawi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (hb £75 – 978 1 316 51400 9). 2022, xvi + 317 pp. Africa, 93(5), pp. 699-700. (doi: 10.1017/S0001972023000815)[Book Review]

Dee, H. (2023) Organising the unorganised: ICU internationalism and the transnational unionisation of migrant workers. In: Johnson, D., Nieftagodien, N. and van der Walt, L. (eds.) Labour Struggles in Southern Africa, 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU). HSRC Press: Johannesburg. ISBN 9780796926418

2022

Allmann, E., Cunningham, T., Dee, H., Helmi, M., McGurk, H., Moreno Lozano, C., Ruwona, N., Ventre, L. and Xie, D. (2022) Decolonising university histories: reflections on research into African, Asian and Caribbean Students at Edinburgh. In: Bond, E. and Morris, M. (eds.) Scotland's Transnational Heritage: Legacies of Empire and Slavery. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh. ISBN 9781474493505

Dee, H. (2022) Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the transformation of Communism in Southern Africa, 1917–31. In: Featherstone, D., Høgsbjerg, C. and Rice, A. (eds.) Revolutionary Lives of the Red and Black Atlantic Since 1917. Manchester University Press: Manchester, pp. 145-171. ISBN 9781526144782

Johnson, D. and Dee, H. (Eds.) (2022) ‘I See You’: The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa, 1919-1930. HiPSA: Cape Town.

2021

Dee, H. (2021) Clements Musa Kadalie and the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa. In: Spear, T. (ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press: Oxford. ISBN 9780190277734 (doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1102)

Dee, H. (2021) A history of border jumping between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 47(3), pp. 507-509. (doi: 10.1080/03057070.2021.1918488)[Book Review]

2020

Dee, H. (2020) Central African immigrants, imperial citizenship and the politics of free movement in interwar South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 46(2), pp. 319-337. (doi: 10.1080/03057070.2020.1689005)

2019

Dee, H. (2019) ‘I am a bad native’: masculinity and marriage in the biographies of Clements Kadalie. African Studies, 78(2), pp. 183-204. (doi: 10.1080/00020184.2019.1569429)

2018

Dee, H. (2018) Agnes Yewande Savage. In: Ewan, E., Pipes, R., Rendall, J. and Reynolds, S. (eds.) The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, p. 377. ISBN 9781474436274

Mitchell, H. (2018) Late colonial crises and their post-colonial legacies in Malawi. Journal of Southern African Studies, 44(3), pp. 529-530. (doi: 10.1080/03057070.2018.1452390)[Book Review]

Dee, H. (2018) Nyasa leaders, Christianity and African internationalism in 1920s Johannesburg. South African Historical Journal, 70(2), pp. 383-406. (doi: 10.1080/02582473.2018.1465114)