The Jackson School of Global Affairs presents
Caitlan Barker, PhD candidate, History department, Michigan State University:
“Diplomacy of Intimacy: Cameroonian Women’s Anticolonial Diplomacy with China in the Era of Decolonization.”
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.