Stories from our archives that speak of Africa and the global African Diaspora
Inspired by the Hub for African Thought, run by Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa
Introduction
This page brings together our activities to help raise the profile of the material in our collections relating to Africa and the African Diaspora. It includes resource guides, case studies of visitor's research, videos, blogs and more.
Resources guide
Introduction
Learn about key resources related to the countries of Africa (both resources by and from people and communities in Africa, as well as about Africa), and also the African Diaspora. This list will grow over time as our research continues.
Here you'll find key archive and special collections from the Women’s Library and LSE Library, as well as publications and recommended free online resources.
Past students and staff
Many students and staff from African countries have come to study and work at LSE. Their LSE files can provide interesting information about the time they spent here. Files include items such as application forms, details of studies and passport-style photos.
Find out more about past students and staff:
Using Wikidata, Helen Williams put together lists of existing Wikipedia pages that include people listed as citizens of African countries who studied at LSE and who were employed by LSE (and for those who have Wikipedia pages that also have a profile image, here are students and staff).
Browse the digitised LSE Calendars, Registers, and Director’s Report online. LSE Register has a list of students from 1895-1932; the Calendars list students and staff (earlier years are more comprehensive). The Register includes some biographical information such as school attended prior to LSE so you can identify where students lived prior to university.
If you discover the name of a staff member or student, get in touch with us and we can investigate if there is a file. We provide digitised copies of files free of charge. Note that for people under the age of 100 we require evidence they are deceased in order to give access to their file. Contact us if you are unsure how to provide this.
Archives and Special Collections
Our archives and special collections are searchable on the archives catalogue and open to all. Once you’ve identified relevant files, you can book a seat in the Reading Room to come and view them. Some general tips to bear in mind when searching the catalogue:
Historic collecting practices have shaped which perspectives and narratives exist within archives.
The collections we hold relating to Africa and the African diaspora are most often about African communities rather than from them, and some reflect the role which LSE had in the British colonial project. It is important to question how people, systems, and beliefs have been represented in these records.
Archives are typically catalogued using terms that appear in the original documents, meaning that you may need to search for outdated words and phrases commonly used at the time the material was created. For example search for "Basutoland" rather than "Lesotho" if looking for records before independence (1966). You may find Carissa Chew’s Cultural Heritage Terminology Network glossary useful.
It is important to bear in mind that when you search the archives catalogue, you are not searching the full text of what appears in the documents themselves, but rather a summary of the document that an archivist has written.
Coming up with a list of people, places, organisations, and events that are related to what you are interested in can be a useful strategy to discover material.
Official / Government publications
Find official publications produced by governments and statistical agencies on Library Search. Locate items such as census records by entering a countries name and then using the facet under "location" to select "Government Publications".
Please bear in mind that this search will surface any item that is published in Africa, so will include items that happen to be published in Africa yet don’t necessarily have any direct relationship to African thinkers.
Open access resources
LSE Press publishes open access books and journals in the social sciences. Recent books by LSE Press that investigate Africa's economy, institutions and development include:
How Africa Trades (2023) edited by David Luke. Winner of the BCA African Business Book of the Year Award, 2024.
This list was collated by one of our librarians and contains open access online resources relating to Africa. For subscription resources available to LSE students and staff, please contact your librarian.
African journals online. AJOL is a Not for Profit organisation based in South Africa, overseen by a Board of Africans in Higher Education, research publishing, and university librarianship.
African Index Medicus. The World Health Organization, in collaboration with the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA), has produced an international index to African health literature and information sources.
Connecting Africa. Connecting-Africa is a gateway to African research information produced worldwide. It provides access to 94519 publications from 100 repositories. All publications originate from these repositories.
Watch Dr Natalya Vince explore how the entanglements of women’s lives and colonialism can be found in the Women’s Library archives.
Watch LSE Library curator Daniel introduce Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and who featured in our 2023 exhibition.
In July 1985, the Third UN International Conference on Women was held in Nairobi in Kenya and marked the end of the UN Decade for Women. A parallel Forum ran alongside the Conference which was chaired by the diplomat and public health advocate Nita Barrow from Barbados. It was a huge event with 6,000 women attending the Conference and 14,000 women attending the Forum.
