New Project Highlights African and Asian Perspectives in the Cold War

In the history of the Cold War, the Global South often appears only as a theatre of bloc politics between East and West. In recent research, voices from Africa and Asia have been noted, but little is known about their interconnections. To shed light on these, the collaborative project "Crafting Entanglements: Afro-Asian Pasts of the Global Cold War", starting in July of 2023, looks at student and women's networks, media entanglements through radio stations and film festivals, and the divided city of Berlin as a site of South-South connections.

The project focuses on the intertwined paths of Asian and African actors and how they were embedded in the global Cold War, but also how they shaped it. The aim is to contribute to a more inclusive historiography. The Leibniz Centre for Modern Oriental Studies (ZMO) is coordinating the network. The Leibniz Institute of Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF) is also involved. The research infrastructure group "Scientific Collections / Digital History" of the IRS will take on a sub-project with a focus on data management. The project "Crafting Entanglements" runs until 2026 and is funded by the Leibniz Competition in the funding line Cooperative Excellence.