BIO: International Historian of Global North-South Relations
Frank Gerits is Assistant Professor of International History at Utrecht University and Research Fellow at the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
He studies the international relations between the Global North and Global South. He focuses on the equitable distribution of the costs of climate change and the different ideological understandings of existential risk, such as climate change, pandemics or extinction around the globe.
He received his PhD from the European University Institute in 2014 and has held positions at New York University (2015), the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein South Africa (2016) and the University of Amsterdam (2017). His first book, The Ideological Scramble for Africa: How the Pursuit of Anticolonial Modernity Shaped a Postcolonial Order, 1945-1966 was published by Cornell University Press in 2023. Fred Cooper deemed it a “revealing portrait of conflicting visions of what "liberation" from colonial empire might entail.”
He publishes in international journals with high impact factors and a solid reputation in the field of international history such as the American Historical Review, Diplomatic History, Cold War History, the International History Review. He also co-edited a volume entitled, Visions of African Unity in 2020.
His involvement in the public debate is diverse and wide ranging, with op-eds in Dutch periodicals such as NRC, Belgian newspapers like De Morgen, De Standaard, Het Belang van Limburg and U.S. newspapers like The Washington Post. He appears on Radio show at VPRO and TV on AlJazeera, the Newzroom 405, a South African news show. Articles were published in online magazines like Aeon, The Conversation and Africa is a Country.
RESEARCH PROFILE: Climate Justice, Existential Risk and the International History of Global North-South Relations
Frank Gerits works on the international history of the Global South and the international history of Climate Justice and Existential Risk.
Collaborative research is important. Together with Rachel Gillett he created the UU Decolonisation Group in 2017 (which is now part of the UU Centre for Global Challenges). In 2024 he established “The Political Environment, a research collective on the politics of the environment in past and present” at Utrecht University as well as “The Network on Anticolonial Thought”, which brings together scholars throughout the Netherlands working on anticolonial ideas and its impact on politics, economics and culture. He is also creating a consortium with The Existential Risk Observatory, a Dutch foundation committed to spreading public awarness about the risks for extinction.
“Extinction is only coming for some of us”
Rather than seeing climate change and existential risk as technical problems with technocratic solutions, Frank Gerits’ work shows how these fears and the policies they engender are deeply ideological, reflecting the worldview of different peoples around the globe. Phrases like a “common humanity” or “spaceship earth” hide social, global and economic inequalities at the basis of international attempts to manage the environment, atomic annihilation or pandemics. Ideology covers up that extinction is only coming for some of us.
His interest in ideology and the international history of colonialism and decolonization stems from his first book, The Ideological Scramble for Africa (Cornell University Press) which is based on extensive research carried out in archives and universities across China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ghana, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Zambia, and Nigeria.
RESEARCH PROJECTS: Grants from South Africa, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Italy.
‘African Non-Alignment and Environmental Justice’
I am currently involved as a co-applicant in the research project “A Non-Aligned Space of Cooperation: History, Legacy, Entanglements", the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies of the University of Padova, Italy, July 2024-May 2026. (SPS/06 STORIA DELLE RELAZIONI INTERNAZIONALI, IUS/13 DIRITTO INTERNAZIONALE).
August 2023-July 2024 (completed)
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) – THE NETHERLANDS – PI
Grant type: NWO Open Competition Project/NWO Open Competition Project (Individual sabbatical year) I Project title: ‘Moral Empire: Belgium and the Global South, 1830-2020’. [Dossier number: 406.XS.01.067]
January 2020- January 2023 (completed)
Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom (AHRC) – THE UNITED KINGDOM – CO-APPLICANT
Grant type: Development Grant (collaborative project with Christopher Vaughan, Alden Young and P J O'Reilly) I Project title: “Regionalism in East Africa c. 1900 to the present” with (January 2020-January 2023). [Ref. AH/T003138/1] Subproject: ‘The Relation between the EU and the East African Federation’
January 2016- January 2018 (completed)
The National Research Foundation of South Africa – SOUTH AFRICA – PI
Grant type: Scarce Skills-Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowship (individual fellowship)
Project title: “The African Perception of the European Integration (1945-2000)”
EDUCATION AND TEACHING: Bridging Equity, Inclusion, and Research: An Education Rooted in International and Decolonization History
Gerits is committed to promoting an educational approach that combines equity, inclusion, and research, with a focus on international and decolonization history. As a lecturer, he teaches both BA and MA courses on these important subjects, encouraging students to engage with historical perspectives that challenge established narratives and emphasize global interconnectedness. He also co-advises 2 PhD students and finalized the supervision of 1 phd. project.
For more information about my awards, workshops and publications click here.