Abstract
Summary In recent decades the interdisciplinary study of elite gift exchange in various geographical and temporal contexts has transformed historians’ understanding of colonial diplomacy. By combining analysis of textual, visual and material sources with theoretical approaches to material culture and gift exchange from anthropology, scholars have increasingly come to examine colonial diplomacy not only through the high-politics and text-based operations of bureaucrats in imperial metropoles, but also as a material and cultural project operating through the local and personal. This essay uses the published account of John Hanning Speke (1863) and his descriptions of ‘gift exchanges’ in present-day Uganda to understand the materiality of early British diplomacy there. As Speke was the first Briton to reach Uganda, it examines how gift exchanges impacted the logistics and outcomes of his visit. Re-examining his text this way reveals the importance of material knowledge, performance and exchange in early cross-cultural encounters in the region.
Highlights
In 1860 the British explorers, John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant, arrived on the shores of Zanzibar to embark on a journey into the interior of via free access eastern Africa.1 Funded by the Royal Geographical Society, the official aim of their trip was to confirm the source of the White Nile and make other scientific recordings
This essay uses the published account of John Hanning Speke (1863) and his descriptions of ‘gift exchanges’ in present-day Uganda to understand the materiality of early British diplomacy there
The appendix to Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile lists the ‘property’ that Speke used on the expedition
Summary
In recent decades the interdisciplinary study of elite gift exchange in various geographical and temporal contexts has transformed historians’ understanding of colonial diplomacy. By combining analysis of textual, visual and material sources with theoretical approaches to material culture and gift exchange from anthropology, scholars have increasingly come to examine colonial diplomacy through the high-politics and text-based operations of bureaucrats in imperial metropoles, and as a material and cultural project operating through the local and personal. This essay uses the published account of John Hanning Speke (1863) and his descriptions of ‘gift exchanges’ in present-day Uganda to understand the materiality of early British diplomacy there. Re-examining his text this way reveals the importance of material knowledge, performance and exchange in early cross-cultural encounters in the region. Keywords diplomacy – imperialism – Uganda – Africa – gift-giving – material culture
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