Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BIMAAR (Black Inter-American Mobility and Autobiography in the Age of Revolutions (1760-1860))
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-09-02 bis 2021-09-01
The project explored the ways autobiographies by Black authors from the Americas addressed different forms of mobility of Black people in the region during the Age of Revolutions and its immediate aftermath (1760-1860). During this era, several countries of the region gained their independence from European colonisers and Black slavery came under scrutiny and was abolished in large parts of the Americas. Simultaneously, a flourishing transatlantic print culture provided niches of access to Black people testifying to their lives and experiences in slavery and freedom to interested audiences. The objective of the project was to study how major types of transnational Black autobiography from the period address different forms of Black mobility in the Americas and the Atlantic World. In conclusion, the research has demonstrated how these texts testified to experiences of, and claims to, Black mobility and how they used literary means to achieve their sociopolitical goals. The project thereby has deepened public understanding of the Black Americas and their interactions with Africa and Europe during the Age of Revolutions and beyond.
The researcher completed the research on part I as well as most of parts II and III of the project. In her dissemination, communication and exploitation activities, she presented key strategies used by captured, enslaved and free (but often poor) Black people from the studied period to claim physical liberty as well as spatial and social mobility in the Americas and the Atlantic world through physical flight, self-education, entrepreneurship and missionary labour. She showed how Black autobiographers used specific narrative devices and blended familiar text types into new, hybrid genres that appealed to the potentially hostile white audiences dominating Western public discourses. Through these physical and narrative actions, the researcher demonstrated, the Black authors gained liberty, agency and authority usually denied Black people at the time.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the project in several ways. It forced the researcher to adapt to a situation of crisis. She also could not conduct any in-person archival research. All conferences scheduled for 2020 were cancelled, and only some events took place in 2021 in a digital format. The researcher could neither carry out in-person exploitation activities, especially a dramatic tableau educating young people about slavery. To mitigate the impact of the pandemic, the researcher mastered new digital tools to disseminate and communicate her work, teach classes and access digitized archival resources. She also received training in website design, administration and data protection to manage the project website during and beyond the funding period. Nonetheless, adapting to the pandemic situation slowed down her research, and she did not complete sections on Latin American slave narratives (for part II), Caribbean missionary memoirs (for part II) and entrepreneurs’ travelogues (for part III) of her project.
Work on the project has resulted in three research articles (one published, one under review, one to be submitted soon). The researcher also disseminated her results in four presentations at (online) conferences in the UK, Germany and the US. She further communicated her work in four public (online) lectures in the UK as well as through academic and general social media. She communicated and exploited her research through a project website and different teaching activities. The website provides general and academic audiences with information on all topics of the research and links to scholarly and educational resources. The researcher taught selected class sessions related to her project at UCLan and an online guest lecture for students in Bremen, Germany, for educational purposes. In addition to exploiting her research, her goal was to gain international teaching experience. To gain international recognition of her teaching aptitude, she completed a mentoring program at UCLan, attended several CPDs on digital and inclusive teaching and joined subject and faculty teaching networks. In 2021 she became a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (FHEA), an internationally acknowledged teaching qualification. These activities have increased the researcher’s employability in European higher education.
In 2020, the researcher was appointed a fellow of the Centre for the Study of International Slavery at Liverpool University and has extended her network of contacts to the centre’s affiliates. An American Studies scholar by training, she joined learned societies of Canadian Studies to expand her contacts and expertise in these fields. During much of 2021 she also served on the steering committee of UCLan’s Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile and directed its research stream “Black Atlantic Diasporas.” She was further elected treasurer of an international learned society. In January 2022 the researcher organised a conference related to her project and entitled “Black Mobilities in the Atlantic World.” This digital event attracted almost 100 academics, artists as well as members of civil society organisations, local government bodies and the general public from Europe, Africa and the Americas. These activities have strengthened the researcher’s managerial-organisational skills and expanded her academic networks and visibility, thus increasing her career prospects in European higher education.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the project in several ways. It forced the researcher to adapt to a situation of crisis. She also could not conduct any in-person archival research. All conferences scheduled for 2020 were cancelled, and only some events took place in 2021 in a digital format. The researcher could neither carry out in-person exploitation activities, especially a dramatic tableau educating young people about slavery. To mitigate the impact of the pandemic, the researcher mastered new digital tools to disseminate and communicate her work, teach classes and access digitized archival resources. She also received training in website design, administration and data protection to manage the project website during and beyond the funding period. Nonetheless, adapting to the pandemic situation slowed down her research, and she did not complete sections on Latin American slave narratives (for part II), Caribbean missionary memoirs (for part II) and entrepreneurs’ travelogues (for part III) of her project.
Work on the project has resulted in three research articles (one published, one under review, one to be submitted soon). The researcher also disseminated her results in four presentations at (online) conferences in the UK, Germany and the US. She further communicated her work in four public (online) lectures in the UK as well as through academic and general social media. She communicated and exploited her research through a project website and different teaching activities. The website provides general and academic audiences with information on all topics of the research and links to scholarly and educational resources. The researcher taught selected class sessions related to her project at UCLan and an online guest lecture for students in Bremen, Germany, for educational purposes. In addition to exploiting her research, her goal was to gain international teaching experience. To gain international recognition of her teaching aptitude, she completed a mentoring program at UCLan, attended several CPDs on digital and inclusive teaching and joined subject and faculty teaching networks. In 2021 she became a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (FHEA), an internationally acknowledged teaching qualification. These activities have increased the researcher’s employability in European higher education.
In 2020, the researcher was appointed a fellow of the Centre for the Study of International Slavery at Liverpool University and has extended her network of contacts to the centre’s affiliates. An American Studies scholar by training, she joined learned societies of Canadian Studies to expand her contacts and expertise in these fields. During much of 2021 she also served on the steering committee of UCLan’s Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile and directed its research stream “Black Atlantic Diasporas.” She was further elected treasurer of an international learned society. In January 2022 the researcher organised a conference related to her project and entitled “Black Mobilities in the Atlantic World.” This digital event attracted almost 100 academics, artists as well as members of civil society organisations, local government bodies and the general public from Europe, Africa and the Americas. These activities have strengthened the researcher’s managerial-organisational skills and expanded her academic networks and visibility, thus increasing her career prospects in European higher education.
The project contended that autobiography was a key vehicle of Black political, social and cultural expression in the Americas during the Age of Revolutions and its immediate aftermath (1760-1860). It showed how Black authors modified existing types of autobiography and created new ones to obtain individual and collective geographic and social mobility as well as mobilize audiences into action on behalf of Black populations. The project thus aimed to (re)assess Black people’s contributions to achieving personal agency, shaping public debate and informing socio-political movements. While it did not expect to exert a socio-economic impact, it has contributed to the scholarly knowledge about, and the public visibility of, the Black diaspora across languages and regions in the Americas and the Atlantic World.
The first part of the project progressed beyond the state of the art by offering the first comparative study of how Black-authored Indian captivity narratives mobilized different types of autobiography to claim Black mobility and agency. Section one of part II is innovative for exploring how two little-studied groups of Black transnational slave narratives critiqued slavery and racism to claim Black spatial and social mobility: US-Canadian texts did this by mobilizing American culture and Canadian locations, Caribbean narratives by addressing the impacts of water, especially the sea, on Black (im)mobilities. The third part of the project provided a comparative study of how two groups of Black missionaries, British Loyalists in Canada and US Americans active in the Caribbean, mobilized faith and the faithful to achieve Black mobilities within the Anglo-Protestant mission field. Part IV will progress beyond the state of the art by exploring how free Blacks used the autobiographical travelogue to advance Black mobility and agency.
The first part of the project progressed beyond the state of the art by offering the first comparative study of how Black-authored Indian captivity narratives mobilized different types of autobiography to claim Black mobility and agency. Section one of part II is innovative for exploring how two little-studied groups of Black transnational slave narratives critiqued slavery and racism to claim Black spatial and social mobility: US-Canadian texts did this by mobilizing American culture and Canadian locations, Caribbean narratives by addressing the impacts of water, especially the sea, on Black (im)mobilities. The third part of the project provided a comparative study of how two groups of Black missionaries, British Loyalists in Canada and US Americans active in the Caribbean, mobilized faith and the faithful to achieve Black mobilities within the Anglo-Protestant mission field. Part IV will progress beyond the state of the art by exploring how free Blacks used the autobiographical travelogue to advance Black mobility and agency.