Author Archives: Emma Kluge

About Emma Kluge

Emma Kluge is a Max Weber postdoctoral fellow at the European University Institute. Her research investigates the intersection between anticolonial activism and institutions of global governance. She earned her PhD from the University of Sydney in 2021 with a dissertation on the West Papuan campaign for decolonization at the United Nations in the 1960s. In 2020, she published an article with the International History Review, “West Papua and the International History of Decolonization, 1961–69.”

A New Agenda for the Global South: West Papua, the United Nations, and the Politics of Decolonization

Abstract: This article examines the West Papuan campaign for independence in the lead up to the agreement signed between Indonesia and the Netherlands in 1962, leading to the recolonization of West Papua. West Papuan leaders argued for decolonization separate from Indonesia, based on their interpretations of United Nations principles and claims to a distinct ethnic identity. However, West Papuan claims were rejected because their understanding of self-determination clashed with international norms as well as Cold War and Afro-Asian political imperatives. This case study reveals the Continue reading → Continue reading →