Scientific Committee

 

NAME

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS

EXPERTISE

COUNTRY

Professor Benigna Zimba

  • Associate Professor, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo
  • Senior historian of Mozambique slave trade and slavery
  • Former Vice-President of UNESCO Slave Route Project
  • Conceptor of the Intercontinental Slavery Museum for the Truth and Justice Commission      

Slave Trade and Slavery in South Eastern Africa; 
Women and Gender;
Global Slave Diaspora in the Indian Ocean;
Gender and Human Rights in Africa.

Mozambique

Professor Myriam Cottias

  • Director of CIRESC, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
  • President of UNESCO Slave Route Project
  • Former President of the Comité pour la mémoire et l’histoire de l’esclavage.        

Slavery in the Caribbean ;
French Empire and Slavery

France

Professor Edward Alpers

  • Historian of Mozambique and East African slave trade and History of African Diaspora in Indian Ocean
  • Research Professor at the University of California.

Political economy of international trade in pre-colonial eastern Africa East; African Slave Trade;

African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean;

USA

Professor Richard Allen

  • Senior historian of slave trade, slavery and indenture.
  • Professor in the History department at Framingham State University.

Slave trade in the Indian Ocean;
Free Coloured Population in  Mauritius;
Post emancipation period

USA

Professor Preben Kaarsholm

  • Historian of Makua Diaspora and Danish Slave Trade in Indian Ocea    

Makua Diaspora;
Danish Slave Trade in Indian Ocean

Denmark

Professor Rosabelle Boswell

  • Professor of Ocean Cultures and Heritage at Nelson Mandela University
  • Social Anthropologist specialized on cultural identity gender, cultural heritage.
  • Has made significant contribution to the Truth and Justice Commission Report.

Diversity management, cultural heritage, and the role of gender in development

Mauritius and South Africa

Associate Professor Sophie White

  • Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
  • Historian of Slavery, Race and Material Culture.
  • Her book “Enslaved Voices” was the winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for most outstanding book on slavery published in 2019

Gender, Race and Slavery; African-American and Native-American Studies;
French Colonial America
Material Culture

Mauritius and USA

Emeritus Professor Nigel Worden

  • British South African Historian of Cape slavery and Dutch slave trade in the Indian Ocean
  • Professor of History, University of Cape Town

Cape slavery and its aftermath; Comparative slavery in the Indian
Ocean (especially Mascarenes and Southeast Asia); Public history and heritage; Cape and Southeast Asian historical links, especially during the VOC (Dutch East India Company) period.

UK and South Africa

Doudou Diène

  • Ph.D. in Public Law from the University of Paris;
  • Former Chair of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and presently a Board Member;
  • Member of the Scientific Committee of UNESCO Slave Route Project,
  • United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
  • Former Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Côte d’Ivoire
  • Chairman of the United Nations commission of inquiry on Burundi since February 2018.

Slavery, Racism and Intolerance;
Contemporary Forms of Racism and Discrimination;
Human Rights

Senegal

Professor Prosper Eve

  • Senior historian of slavery in Reunion Island
  • Professor of History at Université de la Réunion
  • Member of the Scientific Committee of the Fondation pour la Memoire de l’esclavage.

Economic and social history;
Slavery in the Mascarenes;
Post-emancipation period.

Reunion Island

Dr Thomas Vernet, France

  • Lecturer at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
  • Historian of East African French Slave trade with Mascarenes.

Slave Trade and Slavery in East Africa towards the Mascarene Islands;
Social history of modern Africa.

France