'Children as an 'Imperial Investment'': British child migration to colonial Southern Rhodesia

The study examines a child migration scheme which aimed at permanently resettling white British children to colonial Rhodesia during 1946-62. The selected children were expected, through education, to rise to privileged positions and thus help to maintain the colonial racial hierarchy. This ethnographic study examines how the former migrants, through intersubjective memory work, make sense of the project's ambitions and legacies in their lives. The data is formed by interviews, participant observation and archival material, collected in the UK, in Southern Africa and Australia. Child migration has been a topical issue in Britain since the Prime Minister's public apology to the former migrants in 2010, in line with reconciliatory political processes around the world. Yet there has been little academic research on the Rhodesian scheme, which makes this research significant and timely.