Personal profile
Biography
I am a social and cultural historian focusing on British Caribbean slavery and its legacies. My primary research interests lie in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century British Atlantic world, the transatlantic slave trade, resistance and empire. I have published widely on resistance by the enslaved, the British abolition campaigns, emancipation and their racialised afterlives, including slaverys financial legacies, the politics and ethics of contemporary cultural memory and questions of reparative justice. Critically engaging historical constructions of `race and representations of `the past in relation to the politics of the present is central to my academic research, to my teaching and to my social engagement practice. My internationally recognised research has been funded by the AHRC and the Leverhulme Trust. I am currently completing a book project about the ways in which colonial labour relations were reconfigured in Caribbean slave societies after the 1807 abolition of the British slave trade. By focusing on archival traces of the lives of so-called indentured Re-captive Africans, the study analyses how the ending of enslavement can be understood from below and in relation to the global and imperial continuum of coerced labour forms.I am engaged in a collaborative multi-scaler research project (with Cathy Bergin) exploring the idea of reparative history. The project focuses on howclaims on the past are shaped by the contemporary politics of race, and the particular ways in which those claims tend to occlude the centrality of the black radical tradition. The project explores how we might conceptualise and trace the historical legacies of transatlantic enslavement both within the history of capitalism and as challenges to dominant liberal paradigms of `freedom.The project critically engages the politics and practices of history-making as well as occluded, erased and hidden transnationaldiasporic histories. Outputs for the project thus far include two conferences, an edited special journal issue ( Race amp; Class , 57, 3 (2016)), and an ongoing local history project, a target=_blank rel=nofollow href=https:www.brighton.ac.ukabout-usnews-and-eventsnews201901-23-tracing-brightons-forgotten-slave-owners.aspxTracing Brightons Connections to Transatlantic Enslavement . I am also interestedin contemporary representations of enslavement and its legacies in Black Atlantic literary and cultural contexts, in the history and politics of postcolonial and cultural theory and in related critical engagement and practice including the project of decolonising the curriculum.I completed a BA (Hons.) degree in English Literature and an MA in Culture and Social Change at the University of Southampton before studying for a D.Phil. at the University of Sussex. MY AHRB funded doctoral thesis focused on the British anti-slavery campaigns, the Enlightenment culture of sentiment and the slave narrative. Prior to the University of Galway, I held academic posts at the University of Brighton, University of Sussex and the University of Winchester. I was a Visiting Fellow at the Gilder Lehman Centre for the Study of Slavery, Abolition and Resistance, Yale University, in Spring 2018 and awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship during 2019-2020 for my research project, `Indenturing Re-Captured Africans in the Caribbean, 1807-1828.
Teaching Interests
Race and Ethnicity, Atlantic History, Caribbean Slavery, Black AtlanticDiaspora History, Cultural Memory
Education/Academic qualification
BA., MA., D.Phil
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
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SDG 15 Life on Land
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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‘Liberating’ Africans and the Abolition of the Slave Trade: A Review of LiberatedAfricans.org
Rupprecht, A., 2024, In: Slavery and Abolition. 45, 3, p. 683-689 7 p.Research output: Contribution to a Journal (Peer & Non Peer) › Review article › peer-review
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`Writing Reparative Histories of Connection: The 1831 Tortola Slave Conspiracy in the Atlantic World
Rupprecht, A., 1 Jan 2022, Fugitive Movements: Commemorating the Denmark Vesey Affair Black Radical Antislavery in the Atlantic World. University of South Carolina PressResearch output: Chapter in Book or Conference Publication/Proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
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Podcast: Slavery and the City: Episode two: London Guildhall and the Zong massacre
Rupprecht, A., 1 Jan 2022Research output: Other contribution (Published) › Other contribution
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Lubaina Himid, 'Memorial to Zong', Exhibition Lancaster Maritime Museum: Anita Rupprecht, Two short film contributions for virtual exhibition
Rupprecht, A., 1 May 2021, -.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
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Middle Passage
Rupprecht, A., 1 Dec 2021, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (ORE). Oxford University PressResearch output: Chapter in Book or Conference Publication/Proceeding › Chapter › peer-review