Joseph Higgins – University of Southampton

Joseph Higgins is a Ph.D. History candidate at the University of Southampton and also studied his BA in Philosophy & History, MA in History, and a PGCE at Southampton. His research focuses on the use of federations as a means of decolonising the British Empire, with a specific emphasis on the Federation of South Arabia.

Building on the growing interest in the late-imperial ‘federal moment’, he seeks to assess the Federation as an intellectual and historical phenomenon in its own right. His thesis analyses how British colonial officials, individually and collectively, developed the idea of a South Arabian federal state and how this idea interacted with their understanding of, and forces of, imperialism, decolonisation and nationalism.

It further seeks to assess the impact of the federal idea on the course of events leading up to the British evacuation in 1967. He is extremely grateful to receive the British—Yemeni Society Academic Grant which allowed him to conduct a range of interviews with British former officials and Protectorate Rulers in addition to extensive archival research across the UK.