Research seminar: 'Students, Solidarity and Decolonisation: The 1956 Afro-Asian Students’ Conference'

This presentation discusses the relatively unknown first Afro-Asian Conference after the 1955 Bandung Conference: The Afro-Asian Students’ Conference (AASC). Held in Bandung in 1956, the AASC was an act of Asian and African students taking part in the reconfiguration of the world marked by nascent decolonisation and an expanding Cold War. The conference showed how students forged international solidarity to foster independence, decolonisation and peace, as well as formulated the concept of postcolonial education. One of the legacies of the AASC is that it became a gateway for young Algerian anti-colonial activists to build international networks with Indonesia to expand the campaign of Algerian independence in Southeast Asia.

Dr Wildan Sena Utama is a scholar of modern international and transnational history, with an interest in the history of the connections between Indonesia and the Afro-Asian world in the 20th century. He is a lecturer in global political history at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, and gained his PhD from the University of Bristol in 2023. His first book, Konferensi Asia-Afrika 1955: Asal Usul Intelektual dan Warisannya bagi Gerakan Global Antiimperialisme (Marjin Kiri, 2017), examines the global history of the Bandung Conference and its legacy in international politics. He was an associate researcher in Asia in the AHRC-funded collaborative research project Afro-Asian Networks in the Early of Cold War (2015-2018) and was also a member of the Socialist Internationalism in Afro-Asian World, 1950s-1960s (2021-2023) project.