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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.
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.
Three films by David Hickman identify and examine contemporary forms of modern slavery in Haiti, Pakistan and India, where the plight of the victims has gone unrecognised by governments and international agencies. The case for impact is made in relation to the international exposure of the films (broadcast by Al Jazeera in more than 100 countries), responses from the general public, their uptake among educators and students studying slavery and human rights and, most importantly, the impact on some of the victims of slavery who appear in the films, as well as for organisations that represent or campaign for them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rice's research in various aspects of slavery and the black Atlantic (1750-2010) has facilitated museums in the North West to use their internationally important collections to make innovative exhibitions; his research engages artists, performers, schoolchildren, community groups, civil servants and documentary filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. His work on Transatlantic black presences in the North was instrumental in the development of outputs that range from a commemorative public performance in Leeds (2009), through an exhibition catalogue in Manchester (2011), public debates with American broadcasters at the International Slavery Museum (2013) to lectures to Civil Servants (2012) about black presence beyond London.
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.