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This study describes the public and cultural impact of research undertaken by Prof Suzanne Schwarz upon ongoing processes of national recovery in post-conflict Sierra Leone. It describes its impact on public policy in relation to the preservation of national heritage and, in particular, to the conservation and digitisation of internationally-renowned archival collections documenting formation of the world's first post-slave society. Schwarz played a pivotal role in the training of archival staff in Sierra Leone and, through her work with Paul E. Lovejoy (Distinguished Research Professor and Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, York University, Toronto), achieved long-term public access, in Sierra Leone, to rare and valuable evidence located in Britain, America and Canada. Schwarz's and Lovejoy's international conference in Freetown in 2012 was the first major gathering of historians from around the world since the civil war. Streamed live on national television and radio and attended by government officials and members of the public, it placed the modern history of Sierra Leone in historical perspective, and contributed to processes of truth and reconciliation at the heart of furthering domestic and international understanding.
Between 2006 and 2010 Brian Kelly directed a major research project on US slave emancipation involving strategic collaborations with civil society, public discourse and non-HE curriculum design partners in the United States. Pursuing an expansive approach to broad dissemination on the web, in print and through a series of well-staged conferences and educators' workshops, this project has engaged hundreds of teachers, heritage and cultural workers, and curriculum experts in secondary education. Drawing these diverse constituencies into the collaborative production of high-quality, web-based teaching resources, project partners have played a leading role in reshaping history pedagogy on a critical topic as the US enters a long run of public commemorations marking the Civil War and its aftermath.
This case study concerns advances in public understanding of Wales's involvement with the Atlantic slave system between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries associated with the research of Chris Evans. The research has enhanced cultural capital within Wales (and more widely) on this issue, expanded the range and quality of evidence available for public debate, and influenced the memorialisation of Atlantic slavery within Wales.
Sugar, Slavery and Society engages public audiences in some of the most enduring issues in American history. Based on extensive international collaboration with educators and publicists, the project deepens public understanding of slavery and emancipation. More specifically, it helps to shape how the controversial issues of slavery and emancipation are taught in secondary schools and represented by the heritage industry. In partnership with health-care providers, the project also advances public engagement with historical questions of public health. The project has a strong online presence that further facilitates public engagement with the ethical and historical issues it raises.
Professor Catherine Hall and her team have instigated a high-profile public debate about British slave-ownership and its long-term influence on British society, economy, politics and culture. The team's research results have been shared with a wide audience through an intense programme of public engagement, including a number of exhibitions, and extensive media coverage in the UK and abroad, as well as indirectly through an acclaimed work of popular fiction. Above all, their research has been made publicly available via an online Encyclopaedia of British Slave-ownership which has encouraged non-academic users to pursue their own research and make active contributions to the project.
This case study rests on research in the transatlantic slave trade and abolition in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries undertaken by Professor Suzanne Schwarz. The impacts are threefold. Firstly, the research contributes to community memory and identity through impact on public discourse in an area with significant and arguably "unresolved" cultural legacy. Secondly, it has direct and indirect pedagogical impact through sustained engagement in CPD, teacher and school-related activities in partnership with National Museums Liverpool (NML), in the sensitive and contested parts of History and Citizenship areas of National Curriculum and finally, the pedagogical partnership with NML itself has reciprocal impact in relation to the professional activities of museum staff.
Universities UK named Bales' work as one of `100 Discoveries in UK Universities that have Changed the World.' Bales, they said, `brought about a new awareness, new laws and new programmes for the liberation and rehabilitation of slaves around the world.' That recognition noted his illumination of modern slavery. Since coming to Hull in 2007, Bales' research has focussed on analysing and challenging contemporary slavery, an impact seen in an expanding global anti-slavery movement, new laws, and new research approaches. It is work based largely on his work in three key areas: conceptual/empirical tools; policies and legislation; and corporate supply chain responsibility.
Professor Zoe Trodd has contributed to changes in antislavery policy debate and practice at local, national and international levels—from lawyers' societies and school teachers, to national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the European Parliament—through a series of publications, consultations, public talks, and contributions to teaching and digital resources about contemporary slavery and abolitionism. Drawing on her own research, as well as research into historic forms of slave resistance and literary abolitionism by two other professors in the UoA, she has intervened in contemporary abolitionism by advising the government bodies, NGOs and community organisations working to liberate slaves, pass antislavery legislation and remove slavery from industries' supply chains.
Research by Dr S. Karly Kehoe at the Scottish Catholic Archives and the Highland Archive Centre (HAC) led to the discovery of source materials relating to connections between Scottish Highlanders and plantation slavery. Extensive archival work supported an exhibition at the HAC and a resource pack which currently supports teachers delivering the 'Atlantic Slave Trade' topic in the National 4/5 Curriculum for Excellence (History). The pack supports the 'Mandatory Content & Illustrative Areas' section and covers the 4 core areas for study: the Triangular Trade; Britain and the Caribbean; the Captive's Experience and Slave Resistance; the Abolitionist Campaigns.
Allain's research on the legal definition of slavery has transformed the concept of slavery from being seen primarily as a historical phenomenon to being a tool of relevance in dealing with contemporary exploitive practices. As a result, courts, particularly the Australian Supreme Court (known as the High Court of Australia), have applied the law of slavery where previously they did not; and leading NGOs now use Allain's work as the basis of their understanding of slavery in their lobbying efforts, in mobilizing public opinion, and in providing direct services to affected people. Furthermore, Allain's research is the foundation upon which an initiative, which has raised in excess of $2 billion to address contemporary slavery, is based. This private/public funding initiative which is designed to `eradicate slavery in one generation' is utilising Allain's research as the baseline as to what constitutes contemporary slavery for its funding allocation for governments and NGOs in their anti-slavery work.