Abstract
Organizers of the British Empire Exhibition fulfilled the wishes of the British Empire League by breaking ground in the extent to which they attempted to involve the dominions in preparations, in effect extending a mythology of “local” participation dating from the 1851 Great Exhibition to the empire. As the exhibition grew in scope, local preparations were extended to India and colonial territories in tropical Africa. Though much latitude was available to individual colonial governors, exhibition authorities could count on support from a chain of command that, however imperfectly it might work in practice, formally began in the India Office and the Colonial Office and extended to British officials in India and the colonies. In India and British West Africa colonial subjects already acquainted with British practices of exhibiting could draw on memories of past events as they responded to new pressures coming from London. Elite colonized Indians and West Africans were less inclined to accept the “naturalness” of imperial ideologies than fairgoers in Britain and were more likely to express criticism of imperial propaganda. Loyalist West Africans and Indians had often viewed past exhibitions as opportunities for articulating their own concerns in tandem with those of organizers, and though British officials and their allies controlled the organization of the British Empire Exhibition, the exhibition nevertheless opened new avenues for colonized subjects to try to influence the way in which imperial authorities would represent their territories in London.
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Notes
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© 2013 Daniel Stephen
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Stephen, D. (2013). Building the Exhibition in India and British West Africa. In: The Empire of Progress. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137325129_3
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