Ulrike is a professor of modern history at the University of Cologne. She has held visiting positions at Cambridge, the EUI Florence and Science Po Paris. Her research interests lie in comparative, colonial and global history. She has worked on the comparative history of European empires, particularly British and German colonies in Africa, issues of knowledge transfer between empires and postcolonial themes. More recently, she has dealt with questions of bonded labour and the histories of plantation.

Colonial labour migration in Africa – a detour from global migration narratives and detouring as practices of resistance

Ulrike is currently focusing on colonial labour migration in Africa. During her fellowship at global dis:connect, she will explore why the topic has received less attention than the dominant migration narratives of the 19th and 20th century. Secondly, she will investigate the concrete agency of African migrant workers who tried to be deviant and to use ‘detours’ to resist their integration into the capitalist market economy of the new colonial rulers in Africa at the end of the 19th century.