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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.
Two of the UOA's research outputs — the Slave Voyages website (2008) and the Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (2010) — not only transformed knowledge and understanding of the movements of enslaved Africans, but also generated a wealth of documentary, visual and statistical material relating to this human trafficking business, c.1500-1867. These research findings are disseminated through media as diverse as searchable webpages, educational packs, artistic exhibitions, TV features, newspaper reports and theatre performances. The far-reaching impact of the research benefits schoolchildren, policy-makers, theatre-goers, arts communities and the general public across the globe.
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.
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.
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.
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island nation of approximately 500,000 people off western Africa. Following a history of European colonization, particularly in the context of slave trading, it achieved independence in 1975. Its economy is largely service- and tourism-oriented, making enhanced recognition of its heritage of paramount social and economic importance. At the invitation of the University Jean Piaget, Cape Verde, and working with the country's Ministério da Cultura, the University of Cambridge has conducted excavations since 2006 and trained local archaeologists since 2007. This work helped underpin the Ministry's successful bid, in 2008 to 2009, for Cape Verde's first World Heritage Site (WHS) - overturning a previous negative decision by the Bureau of the World Heritage Committee in 1992.
Research at UWE Bristol has transformed public awareness of Bristol's history and the impact of the Atlantic Slave trade in Britain, particularly in relation to the built environment, the evolution of racial attitudes and the continuing legacy of slavery. It raised consciousness about the connection between existing stately homes, public buildings and monuments and slavery generated wealth in Bristol, London and throughout Britain. It has stimulated and informed reinterpretations of English heritage and National trust properties and has been utilised in national website projects. Its findings also made explicit the link between Bristol's social and cultural institutions and slavery-generated wealth.
This research has also benefited the wider public by enabling the production of historically well informed teaching and tourist resources for Bristol. It has generated new museum exhibitions and informed the acquisitions policies of libraries and archives. It informed the content and interpretation, and acquisitions policies, of both national and local museum and stimulated the generation of websites, popular plays, artwork and literature.
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.
This case study presents the impact of research undertaken by Professor Clare Midgley that places nineteenth-century British women's activism within its imperial and global contexts. Impact has been achieved through advisory roles and public engagement activities with two community groups involved in projects to commemorate women, and a consultancy role with English Heritage. As a result, Midgley's research has both played a crucial role in initiating and shaping local projects to commemorate pioneering British feminists and abolitionists of local, national and global significance, whilst also influencing national policy on preserving and presenting historic sites associated with women's history.