Business History through the looking glass of [De]colonisation: A BBS seminar mini-series

This mini-series aims at providing food for thought on increased awareness of history’s significance in shaping our thinking, in our research and teaching.

Throughout this seminar series we will be presenting the potential value of Business History’s contributions to our understanding of the pasts, presents and possible futures of colonising and decolonising. We will hear presentations by business, management and financial historians from within and beyond BBS, with all staff invited. The series will showcase the diverse, innovative, and often transdisciplinary historical research being undertaken across these fields and will present us with often unfamiliar “histories of the present” that can help us in developing and deepening our understandings of how decolonizing and recolonizing may play out in the coming decades. We also envision these presentations as providing food for thought on ways to incorporate insights from business, management and financial history into our teaching and curricula.

Previous events

21 May 2024: A decolonizing-recolonizing experience from Latin Americas on business history education? 

We were joined by Alexandre Faria for this event. Alex Faria is Associate Professor in Organization and Strategy Studies at the Brazilian School of Public Administration and Management of the Fundação Getulio Vargas (EBAPE-FGV), Rio de Janeiro-Brazil. He is also Associate Director and Module Director at the International Masters’ Program for Managers (IMPM), Visiting Researcher at Lancaster University Management School, Visiting Professor at the University of Paris-Dauphine, Researcher of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq-Brazil), and past Chair of Critical Management Studies Division at the Academy of Management. His scholarship within and outside existing systems of knowledge draws on critical management studies, decolonial studies, postcolonial studies, and management learning. He is a member of the Decolonizing Alliance and the Action Learning Lab:Alliance.

April 2024: History of the Present’: indigenous management knowledge

For the first seminar in this series, we were joined by Stephen Cummings, Professor of Management and Associate Dean (International and Accreditation) at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He focused his talk on his upcoming book, Indigenous Management: Knowledges and Frameworks, to be published by SAGE, where he highlighted, reflected on, and welcomed discussion on the issues he raised.