Description:

The colloquium in international security studies begins its Fall 2024 series with a presentation by Caitlin Barker, a predoctoral fellow in the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. Barker will present “Diplomacy of Intimacy: Cameroonian Women’s Anticolonial Diplomacy with China in the Era of Decolonization.” The essay draws on research in Cameroon, France, China, and Taiwan to explore Cameroonian women nationalists’ diplomacy towards the PRC government in the late 1950s. Barker explores what she terms their “diplomacy of intimacy,” which highlighted the effects of colonialism on the bodies, fertility, and intimate relationships of Cameroonian women in order to create a shared affective experience of anticolonial solidarity.

Barker is a PhD candidate in the History department at Michigan State University. She is trained in modern African and Chinese history, and her dissertation is a diplomatic history from below of Cameroon’s relationship with China and Taiwan during the Cold War.

This event is open to the Yale community; lunch will be provided. This event is open to the Yale community, and lunch will be provided. Registered participants will receive the reading materials in advance.