Network Members

Gwyn Campbell

Professor and Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean World; Madagascar
• Time Periods: 0-2000 CE
• Themes: Histories of the Indian Ocean World; Africa; Madagascar; Economic History; Environmental History; Slavery

Philip Gooding

Postdoctoral Researcher, Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University

Website

• Regions: East Africa
• Time Periods: 1700-1900 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Bondage; the Environment; Climate History

Hideaki Suzuki

Associate Professor, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan

Website

• Regions: East Africa; the Indian Ocean, Arabia; the Persian Gulf
• Time Periods: 1000-2000 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Slave Trade; Environment

Daren Ray

Assistant Professor, Brigham Young University

Website

• Regions: East Africa; Oman; Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: 0-1900 CE
• Themes: Kinship; Law; Islam; Slavery

Joan Razafimaharo

Architect, Trano Architecture

Website

• Regions: Madagascar; Comoros, Les Mascareignes; Mozambique
• Time Periods: 1800 CE-Present
• Themes: Architecture; Urban Planning; Sustainability; Women’s Empowerment; Environment

Anna Arabindan Kesson

Associate Professor, Princeton University

Website

• Regions: South Asia; Caribbean, South and East Africa; Atlantic/Indian/Pacific Ocean interactions
• Time Periods: 1700-2000 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Indentured Labour; Visual Culture; Medicine; Trade Networks

Jakob Burnham

PhD Candidate, Georgetown University

Website

• Regions: South Asia; French Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: 1600-1800 CE
• Themes: Urban History; Gender and Sexuality; Slavery and Labour

Anas S.

Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Kerala , India

• Regions: South Asia; Malabar
• Time Periods: Medieval
• Themes: Environment

Saada Wahab

Lecturer, The State University of Zanzibar

• Regions: East Africa
• Time Periods: 1800-2000 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Slave Trade

Akshay Sarathi

Lecturer, Texas A&M University

Website

• Regions: Swahili Coast; Western Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: Pre-modern; Ancient; Medieval
• Themes: Subsistence; Trade and Exchange; Globalization

James C. Armstrong

Independent Scholar

• Regions: Southwestern Indian Ocean; Madagascar; Cape of Good Hope
• Time Periods: 1600-1800 CE
• Themes: Slave Trade; Cape Exiles

Kelsey McFaul

Graduate Student, UC Santa Cruz

• Regions: Western Indian Ocean; East Africa; Horn of Africa
• Time Periods: 1900 CE-Present
• Themes: Literature; the Novel; Histories of Enslavement and Migration; Environment and Climate; Archipelagic Thinking; Memory; Comparative Oceanic Thinking

Yadhav Deerpaul

PhD Student, Iowa State University

• Regions: Islands of Indian Ocean World
• Time Periods: 1800 CE-Present
• Themes: Environmental and Technological History

Christine Whyte

Lecturer, University of Glasgow

• Regions: Seychelles; Kenya; South Africa; Mauritius
• Time Periods: 1800-1900 CE
• Themes: Children and Childhood; Abolition of Slavery

Beatrice Nicolini

Full Professor, Catholic University, Milan, Italy

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean; East Africa; Arabian Peninsula
• Time Periods: 1800-2000 CE
• Themes: History; Slave Trade; Islam; British Colonial History

Junaid ur Rehman

PhD Student, Columbia University

• Regions: Indian Ocean; Western Ghats; Deccan; South Asia
• Time Periods: Pre-modern; Modern; Colonial
• Themes: Islam; Slavery; Coffee Plantations; Environmental History; History of Science

Guangtian Ha

Assistant Professor of Religion, Haverford College

• Regions: China; Southeast Asia; South Asia; Middle East; Africa
• Time Periods: Medieval to Early Modern
• Themes: Slavery and Seafaring across the Indian Ocean

Neil van der Linden

Independent Researcher and Musicologist

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean Coasts
• Time Periods: 0-2000 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Music Rituals

Pedro Machado

Associate Professor of History, Indiana University, Bloomington

Website

• Regions: East and Southeast Africa; Island Africa; South Asia; Southeast Asia; Australia
• Time Periods: 1700-2000 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Forms of Unfreedom; Object Histories; Commodities; Commercial Networks; Economic Life; Marine Environmental Histories

James Francis Warren

Emeritus Professor, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University

• Regions: Southeast Asia; Africa
• Time Periods: 1600-2000 CE
• Themes: Forms of Slavery; Slave Raiding; the Lives of Slaves; Historiography of Slavery in Comparative Global Context; Cultural Ecology of Slavery; Slavery and Natural Disasters

Jessica Hanser

Associate Professor, University of British Columbia

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean; China; Britain; India; Africa; Caribbean
• Time Periods: Medieval; Early Modern; Eighteenth Century
• Themes: British Empire; Imperialism; Slavery; Capitalism

Jacky Kosgei

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand

Website

• Regions: East African Coast; Kenyan Coast
• Time Periods: 16th Century; 1700-1800 CE; Present
• Themes: Oral History; Swahili Oral Poetry; Indigenous Knowledge; Oral Testimonies of Seafarers; Marine Conservation

Fazal Muhammed

MPhil Student, SSUS Kalady

• Regions: Indian Ocean and the Periphery
• Time Periods: 1250-1750 CE
• Themes: Trade; Slavery

Anwesha Das

Graduate Student, Emory University

• Regions: South Asia
• Time Periods: 1000-1600 CE
• Themes: Mobility across the Medieval Indian Ocean; Environmental Histories of Port Cities

Deepa Padmanaban

Freelance Journalist

Website

• Regions: India; Asia; Asia Pacific
• Time Periods: Contemporary
• Themes: Oceans; Environment; Slavery; Climate Change

Lindsay Bremner

Director of Research, School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster

Website

• Regions: Bay of Bengal
• Time Periods: Contemporary
• Themes: Environment; Urbanism; Monsoons

Dr. Raka Banerjee

Junior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi

• Regions: Andaman Island; Bay of Bengal
• Time Periods: 1900 CE-Present
• Themes: Gender; Island Settlement; Island Studies; Bengal Partition (1947)

Magdalena Moorthy Kloss

Researcher, Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Website

• Regions: Yemen; Arabian Peninsula; Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: Medieval; 1800 CE-Present
• Themes: Slavery; Post-slavery; Marginalization and Social Hierarchies; Gender; Race

Janie Cole

Adjunct Lecturer in Musicology, University of Cape Town

Website

• Regions: Ethiopia; East Africa; West India; Indian Ocean World
• Time Periods: 1400-1800 CE
• Themes: Music and Slavery in the Early Modern Indian Ocean World

Viacheslav Usov

Research Fellow, Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences

• Regions: South Asia; East Africa; Western Indian Ocean
• Themes: Indian Diaspora in Africa; Africans in India; India’s Policy in Africa

Ahmed Y. AlMaazmi

PhD Candidate, Princeton University

Website

• Regions: Oman; Balochistan; East Africa
• Time Periods: 1600-2000 CE
• Themes: Slavery Studies; Environmental History; Law and Society; Science History; Indian Ocean World

Anders Norge Lauridsen

PhD Student, University of Gothenburg

Website

• Regions: Madagascar
• Time Periods: 0 CE-Present (emphasis on 1600-1800 CE and Present)
• Themes: Tradition; Religion; Ritual; Slavery; Trade

Shaheera Pesnani

Art History Research Fellow, Indian Ocean Exchanges, and PA to the Director for the North, Historic England

• Regions: The Western Indian Ocean region (particularly the Makran Coastal Belt)
• Time Periods: 1500 CE-Present
• Themes: Slave Trading (particularly in relation to Baloch people); Built Environment; Climate Change

Kelly Brignac

Assistant Professor of History, Colby College

Website

• Regions: French Empire; Réunion; Mauritius; Madagascar; Mozambique; East Africa; Connections to French Atlantic
• Time Periods: 1800-1861 CE
• Themes: Forced Indenture of Africans; Labour; Slavery; Abolition; Bondage; Captivity; Empire

Naina Manjrekar

Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

• Regions: Coromandel; Gujarat and Konkan Coasts; Bay of Bengal; Southeast Asia; East African Littoral
• Time Periods: 1600-2000 CE
• Themes: Seafaring Labour; Slavery; Culture; Connected Histories; Transnational Archives

Gerald Daniel Louis

Independent Scholar

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean World
• Time Periods: 1700-1900 CE
• Themes: Indian Ocean World; Southeast Asia

Archisman Chaudhuri

Assistant Professor (Temporary), Rutgers University

• Regions: Indian Ocean; South Asia; South East Asia; Southern Africa; West Asia
• Time Periods: 1000 CE-Present
• Themes: Indian Ocean; Environmental History; History of Slavery; Droughts; Floods; Diseases; Trade; Empires; Little Ice Age; VOC; Mughal Empire

Smarika Nawani

Assistant Professor, Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, Delhi (India)

• Regions: Kathiawar and Makran Coast; Bay of Bengal; Archipelago Southeast Asia; Mozambique and Somali Coast; the Islands in the Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: 800-1700 CE
• Themes: Geography; Ecology; Material Culture and Society; Religion; Diaspora and Migrations; Cartography; Institutions

Gabrielle Robbins

PhD Candidate, MIT Anthropology

Website

• Regions: Madagascar
• Time Periods: Contemporary
• Themes: Slavery; Social Hierarchy; Agribusiness; Industrial Change

Abdelhakim Belhacel

PhD Candidate, Université Paris Nanterre, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne

Website

• Regions: Oman; Madagascar; Tanzania; Kenya; Somalia; Mozambique; Comoros; Réunion; Seychelles; Maurice; Iran; India
• Time Periods: 1770-1884 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Engagisme; Colonisation; Empires; Trade Networks; Diseases; Vaccination; Explorers; Connected History; Trans-imperial History; Diplomacy

Stefania Manfio

PhD Candidate, Stanford University

• Regions: Mascarene Islands; Madagascar; East Africa; South Africa
• Time Periods: 1700-1900 CE
• Themes: Shipwrecks; Slave Trade; Indenture; Archaeology; Trade Networks; Environment

Vololoniaina Bakoliarisoa Ratsimbazafy

Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Antananarivo

• Regions: Madagascar
• Time Periods: 1960 CE-Present
• Themes: Environment

Malarvizhi Jayanth

Research Fellow in Slavery and its Impacts, King’s College, University of Cambridge

Website

• Regions: Southern India
• Time Periods: 1700-1900 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Caste; Emancipation

Charuta Ghadyalpatil

Research Associate, Art Deco Mumbai Trust

• Regions: South Asia; Indian Peninsula; Arabian Sea; Bay of Bengal
• Time Periods: 1800 CE- Present
• Themes: History of Science; Migration; Environment; Constructions of Nature and Tropicality; Spatial Histories; Area Studies; Urban Growth

Malala Onisoa Rakotojaofeno

Postdoctoral Researcher/ Assistant Professor (Temporary), University of Antananarivo, Madagascar

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean; Madagascar; Eastern Africa
• Time Periods: 1900 CE- Present
• Themes: Economics; Environment; Agriculture; Sustainable Development

Maho Sebiane

Research Associate, Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage (UMR 8566 EHESS/CNRS)

Website

• Regions: Western Indian Ocean; East Africa; Persian Gulf
• Time Periods: 1600 CE- Present
• Themes: Anthropology of Music; Music History; Social and Cultural Anthropology; Music, Economy and Law in Islamicate

Chanelle Adams

Doctoral Assistant, University of Lausanne

Website

• Regions: Madagascar
• Time Periods: 1890 CE- Present
• Themes: Health; Botany

Kerry Ward

Associate Professor, Rice University

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: Ancient to Present
• Themes: Forced Labour; Slavery; Slave Trade; Human Trafficking; Anti-Slavery; Anti-Human Trafficking

Steven S George

PhD Scholar, Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia

• Regions: South Asia; Global South
• Time Periods: 1900 CE- Present
• Themes: Global South Literature; Digital Humanities; Oceanic Literature; Marginal Literature; Slave Literature

Ghamal Satya Mohammad

PhD Student, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University

Website

• Regions: Southeast Asia; Asia-Pacific; Asia; Europe
• Time Periods: 1700 CE- Present
• Themes: Natural Hazards; Environmental History; Slavery

Shazia Hafiz Ramji

PhD Student, Department of English, University of Calgary

Website

• Regions: East Africa; Canada; UK; South Asia; Indian and Atlantic Ocean intersections
• Time Periods: Long Eighteenth Century; Second World War
• Themes: Postcolonial East Africa; Post-45 Britain; Canada in the Era of Multicultural Policy; The Commonwealth and the Second World War; Intersection of Islam and Slavery in the Indian Ocean; Creative Writing; Historical Fiction

Ananthan V. Kurup

Post-graduate Student, Pondicherry University

• Regions:
• Time Periods: 1500-1900 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Slave Trade; Trade along Atlantic and Indian Oceans; Bondage Labour; Economic History of Slave Trade; Slavery along the Indian Ocean region by imperial powers in the South Asian region.

Dr. Paromita Patranobish

Independent Scholar

• Regions: South Asia; South-East Asia
• Time Periods: 1900 CE- Present
• Themes: Climate Fiction; Blue Humanities; Waste and Toxicity; Nonhuman Embodiment; Spectrality; Speculative Fiction

Akshita Hazarika

Post-graduate Student, University of Delhi

• Regions: South Asia
• Time Periods: 1800-2000 CE
• Themes: Labour; Environment; Ecological-Health Crisis and Motherhood on British Plantation Worlds; Impact of Climate Crisis on Women of these Plantation Worlds Today

Margot Luyckfasseel

Postdoctoral Researcher, Ghent University

• Regions: DR Congo
• Time Periods: 1800 CE- Present
• Themes: Aftermath of Slavery; Unfree Labor; Urban Elites; Gender

Wilson Jacob

Professor, Concordia University

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean World; Middle East; South Asia
• Time Periods: 1750-1945 CE
• Themes: Islam; Sufism; Imperialism; Sovereignty; Governmentality; Race; Environment

Marian Douglas-Ungaro

Founder of AFROAMERICAS;
U.S. Slavery Descendant, Multilingual Researcher

Website

• Regions: Americas; Africa, incl. Madagascar; UK/Europe; Middle East, Near East and Asia
• Time Periods: 1500 CE- Present
• Themes: UN Afrodecade: The African Slave Trades, and Slavery-Descendant Human Rights (2015-2024)

Valmiki Rama Krishna

Assistant Professor & Coordinator, Department of Studies and Research in Political Science, Tumkur University

• Regions:
• Time Periods: 2010 CE- Present
• Themes: Sustainable Development; Slavery; Bondage; Environment; Social and Inclusive Development

Harriet Zurndorfer

Affiliated Researcher, Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University

• Regions: China; Japan; Southeast Asia
• Time Periods: 1350-1800 CE
• Themes: Human Trafficking; Economic History of China; Gender History

Joseph Christensen

Lecturer in History, The University of Western Australia

Website

• Regions: Australia; Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: 1800-1900 CE
• Themes: Climate and Weather; Pearls and Pearling; Fish and Fisheries

Shawna Herzog

Assistant Professor, Washington State University

• Regions: Southeast Asia; Pacific
• Time Periods: 1700-1900 CE
• Themes: Imperialism; Colonialism; Commodity Networks

Saanika Patnaik

Doctoral Student, Ashoka University

• Regions: South Asian Port Cities
• Time Periods: Early Modern
• Themes: Production of Space and Community

Stephanie Mawson

Researcher, Instituto de Ciencias Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa

Website

• Regions: Philippines; Indonesia; Southeast Asia; Australia
• Time Periods: 1500-1700 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Labor; Resistance; Rebellion; Environment and Geography; Limitations of Empire

Jely A. Galang

Associate Professor, Department of History, University of the Philippines-Diliman

• Regions: Southeast and East Asia
• Time Periods: Late 18th century- 1900 CE
• Themes: Chinese contract laborers

Salvatory S. Nyanto

Senior Lecturer, University of Dar es Salaam

• Regions: East Africa
• Time Periods: 1878-1978 CE
• Themes: Slavery and Missionaries in Western Tanzania

Meenu Rabecca

PhD Candidate, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit

• Regions: Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: Early Modern
• Themes: Indian Ocean History

Stephen Rockel

Associate Professor, University of Toronto

• Regions: East Africa; Africa; Western Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: 1800 CE- early 20th century
• Themes: Labour; Slavery; Urbanization; Environment; Conflict

Sukhvinder Multani

Research Officer, Ajeenkya DY Patil University

• Regions:
• Time Periods:
• Themes: Indian Ocean Politics; International Relations

Gautam Joseph

Joint PhD Student at National University of Singapore and King’s College London

Website

• Regions: South India; Malaya/Singapore; Persian Gulf/Emirates
• Time Periods: 1850 CE- Present
• Themes: Indian Ocean Labour Migration; Postcolonial Literature; Climate Displacement

Malini Ranganathan

Associate Professor, American University, School of International Service, Washington, DC

Website

• Regions: Southern India; Malaya
• Time Periods: 1890s-1930s CE
• Themes: Caste; Tamils; Malaya; Migration; Indentured Labor Migration

Alexandra Taylor Sundarsingh

PhD Candidate, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Regions: South Asia; Southeast Asia; South Asian Diaspora
• Time Periods: 1750s-1950s CE
• Themes: Migration; Gender; Food; Indenture

Ruchie Mark Pototanon

PhD Candidate, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University

• Regions: Southeast Asia
• Time Periods: 1800 CE- Present
• Themes: Disasters; Typhoons; Floods

Sithabile Mlotshwa

Artist, Sithabile Art Projects

Website

• Regions: Indian Ocean and the Pacific
• Time Periods: 1400-1900 CE
• Themes: History of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific; Colonisation; Slavery; Maritime Period

Kirti Durelle

PhD Student, UCL, Bartlett School of Architecture

• Regions: La Réunion
• Time Periods: 1700-1800 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Marronage; Race and Space; Landscape; Racial Capitalism; Architecture

Dr. Mark Balmforth

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto

Website

• Regions: Sri Lanka; India; Tamil-speaking Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: 1600-1900 CE
• Themes: Caste; Slavery; Education; Religion; Agriculture; Debt; Colonialism; Capitalism

Manorama Akung

Senior Lecturer, University of Mauritius

• Regions: Indian Ocean World
• Time Periods: 1700-2000 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Indenture; Politics and Institutional History; Economic History; Culture and Heritage; Environmental History; Children and Childhood; History of Science and Technology

Awet Teklehimanot Araya

Project Curator: Africa, The British Museum / University of Exeter

• Regions: Horn of Africa; East Africa; Indian Ocean; Persian Gulf
• Time Periods: 600-1900 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Diaspora; Islam; Maritime Networks; Ceramics; Archaeology

Alice Engelhard

PhD Student, LSE

• Regions: Indian Ocean; British Empire
• Time Periods: 1500 CE- Present
• Themes: Empire; People in Movement; Tourism; Slavery; Mobility; Diaspora; Knowledge

Shinzo Hayase

Professor, Waseda University, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Tokyo

Website

• Regions: Southeast Asia
• Time Periods: Modern
• Themes: Japanese immigrants in Southeast Asia

Dr. Arifah Arum Candra Hayuningsih

Lecturer, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia

• Regions: Pacific; Caribbean
• Time Periods: 1900 CE- Present
• Themes: Indentured Labour Diaspora; Slavery; Memories; Literature; Francophone

P. Sanal Mohan

Dr. K. Mathew Kurian Chair Professor, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India

• Regions: Kerala; Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: 1600-1930 CE
• Themes: Caste Slavery; Abolition; Christian Missions and Anti Slavery Mobilisation; State Policy; Modernity and Social Movements; Race and Caste; Political Economy; Global History of Slavery

Mamaye Idriss

Postdoctorat, Ined, Cessma (University of Paris Cité)

Website

• Regions: Mayotte; Comoros; La Reunion
• Time Periods: 1800-2000 CE
• Themes: Social and Political Mobilization; Gender Violence; Gender Issues

Felice Noelle Rodriguez

Visiting Professor, Ateneo de Zamboanga University

• Regions: Philippines; Malaysia; Indonesia
• Time Periods: 1500-1900 CE
• Themes: Slavery; Environment; Raiding; Indigenous Peoples

Jennifer Leetsch

Postdoctoral Researcher, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), Bonn University

Website

• Regions: South Asia; East Africa; Caribbean; Atlantic/Indian/Pacific Ocean Entanglements
• Time Periods: 1800 CE-Present
• Themes: Slavery; Indentured Labour; Environment and Ecology; Literary and Cultural Studies; Blue Humanities; Oceanic Studies; Water as Method; Trauma and Memory; Embodiment and Gender

Daniel Domingues

Associate Professor of History, Rice University

Website

• Regions: Mozambique; Gujarat; Malabar; Macau; Timor
• Time Periods: 1700-1900 CE
• Themes: Slave Trade

Philip D. Rotz

Independent Scholar

• Regions: Southeast Africa; Durban/eThekwini; IOW; ‘Humid subtropical’ settler societies
• Time Periods: 1850-1950 CE
• Themes: Vector-borne illnesses and their regional spread (especially those transmitted by the Aedes aegypti — dengue and chikungunya); Urban ecology; Port and municipal health responses; Pairing historical sources with population genomics

Somy Solomon

Research Associate, Kerala Council of Historical Research

• Regions: Africa; Asia; India; Indian Ocean
• Time Periods: Modern
• Themes: Slavery; Indian Ocean studies; Migration; Digital humanities; India- Africa connections; Coastal histories

Kunaljeet Roy

Independent Researcher

Website

• Regions: Bay of Bengal and Adjacent Indian Ocean Region of South and Southeast Asia
• Time Periods: 1600-1900 CE
• Themes: Colonialism; Slavery; Pirate Networks; Indentured Coolie Trade and Bonded Labour; Migration and Diaspora; India China and colonial Indian Ocean