Project description
Data collection in the liberated African villages
In the early 19th century, many Liberated Africans were settled in English-style villages managed by missionaries in colonial the Gambia and Sierra Leone. These villages aimed to demonstrate the productivity of free Black labour compared to slave labour and became centres for data collection. When Liberated Africans took over management, they developed their own data collection methods. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the QFR project will examine data-driven social reform and race in West Africa following the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. It will explore how quantification in liberated African villages influenced ideas of race within the British Empire, British data collection methods, and colonial governance strategies in Britain and West Africa.
Objective
Quantifying Freedom: Data production and everyday life in the Liberated African village, 1807-1901, is a historical ethnography of Liberated African villages in colonial Sierra Leone and the Gambia under British rule. Upon being returned to the coast, many Liberated Africans were settled in English-styled villages managed by the Church Missionary (CMS) and Methodist Missionary Societies (MMS), with oversight from the colonial Liberated African Department. These villages initially formed the basis of an abolitionist social experiment: to attempt to prove the relative productivity of free black labor over slave labor, the civilizational capacities of Africans and alternatives to the slave trade. To this end, these villages were simultaneously sites of data creation and extraction in which clergy village ‘managers’ collected data on everything from church attendance to livestock numbers. After an initial wave of British and German missionary managers, Liberated Africans took over these positions and innovated their own data collection processes that responded to their questions and concerns. This project proposes to study data-driven social reform, race, and the expansion of the British Empire in West Africa in the aftermath of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. The objective is to both understand and formulate an account for the impact of the quantification in the Liberated African village on ideas of race within the British Empire, on histories and techniques of British data collection and strategies of colonial governance and social reform in West Africa and Britain. The objectives in terms of training and career advancement is to improve the researchers capacity to produce high-impact publications, to acquire more experience in collaborating with others in teaching and designing courses, public outreach , improvement in the researchers quantitative skills through engagement with quantitatively focused research groups and training programs at Cambridge.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology governance
- humanities history and archaeology history
- social sciences economics and business economics production economics productivity
- agricultural sciences animal and dairy science domestic animals animal husbandry
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
CB2 1TN CAMBRIDGE
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.