slavery | The Harriet Tubman Institute

Carlito Oliveira Junior

rebsl — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:54:48 +0000

Carlito Lopes de Oliveira Junior is a PhD candidate in History at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) and holds a Master's degree in History from the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), where he was advised by Prof. Dr. Luiz Fernando Saraiva. His doctoral research, supervised by Prof. Dr. Anita Correia Lima de Almeida (UNIRIO), investigates the internal slave market in the Recôncavo da Guanabara (Estrela, Iguaçu, and Magé, 1850–1888), using fiscal records, parish registers, and historical cartography. He also holds a Master's degree in History from UFF, with a dissertation on the spatial, economic, and political formation of Vila de Estrela (1846–1892). He is Director of Historical-Cultural Heritage Preservation at the Prefeitura Municipal de Magé (Rio de Janeiro) and founder of the cultural platform @historiademage. He is a member of the YSI/INET Economic History Working Group and a TEDx Countdown 2024 speaker.

Keywords: Internal slave trade, Atlantic slavery, second slavery, Recôncavo da Guanabara, nineteenth-century Brazil, historical demography, African diaspora, economic history, Atlantic capitalism, slavery, abolition

Sheba Abena Wiafe

rebsl — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:57:47 +0000

Sheba Abena Wiafe is currently completing her PhD at �첥��Ƶ in the Social and Political Thought Program. Her research focuses on investigating the migratory movements of African women to Europe against the histories of the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trade through Black critical theoretical and psychoanalytic approaches. Her written work is forthcoming with The Black Lexicon edited volume, and she is currently guest editing a special issue of SAQ focusing on the intellectual interventions of Christina Sharpe’s first monograph Monstrous Intimacies.

Keywords: Black Critical Theory, Migration, Slavery, Psychonanalysis, Continental Africa

Omolola Afolabi

rebsl — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:17:50 +0000

Omolola Afolabi, an independent journalist residing in South-Western Nigeria, has written investigations in publications including The Nation Newspaper, The Cable, The International Centre for Investigative Reporting, HumAngle, and Sahara Reporters.

A grant recipient of the Pulitzer Centre and a fellow of the Centre for Journalism Innovation Development, the National Resource and Extractives Resource Fellowship, and the 2022 West Africa Climate Fellowship, she is also engaged in academic pursuits. Afolabi advocates for the rights of out-of-school children, persons with disabilities, and indigenous communities, in addition to addressing issues on climate and environmental protection.

She convened the inaugural Freedom in Nigeria Conference and the Africa No Filter dialogue on unbiased media, and has delivered training to journalists at Code for Africa and the Liberalist Centre Media Workshop. As a scholar at Harriet Tubman University, �첥��Ƶ, she aims to generate original narratives to stimulate significant discourse, policy formulation, and societal impact.

Keywords: Slavery, Heritage Sites, Preservation, Climate Change, Sand Mining, Collectuve Healing, Historical Site, Coastal Communities

Vanessa S. Oliveira

rebsl — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 18:49:43 +0000

Dr. Vanessa S. Oliveira is a specialist in African history and an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the Royal Military College of Canada. She teaches courses on early and modern Africa, European colonialism, research methodology, and women, gender and sexualities. Dr. Oliveira earned a PhD in history from �첥��Ƶ and was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Toronto before joining RMC. Her book Slave Trade and Abolition: Gender, Commerce, and Economic Transition in Luanda was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in January 2021. She is the editor (with Paul E. Lovejoy) of Slavery, Memory and Citizenship (Africa World Press, 2016) and has published several articles and book chapters in English and Portuguese on women merchants, intercultural marriages and slavery in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Dr. Oliveira has conducted fieldwork and archival research in Angola, Portugal, Brazil and Canada. Her research interests include women merchants, slavery, slave trade, and the transition to the so-called legitimate commerce in tropical commodities in Angola.

Keywords: Slavery, Slave trade, Women merchants, Tropical commodities

Juanita De Barros

rebsl — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 19:31:38 +0000

Juanita De Barros is a Professor in the Department of History at McMaster University and the director of the Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice. She is the former president of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She did her PhD at �첥��Ƶ and was a DuBois-Mandela-Rodney fellow at the Department of Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan. She is the co-editor of two book series: “Histories of Slavery and its Global Legacies” (Cambridge University Press) and “Confronting Atrocity: Human Rights and Restorative Justice” (McGill-Queens University Press). Her research concentrates on the history of health, gender, and reproductive rights in the Caribbean within the context of imperialism and post-slavery societies. She has written two books, numerous articles and book chapters and has co-edited four essay collections. has co-edited three essay collections and two journal special issues. Her most recent publications are Reproducing the British Caribbean: Sex, Gender, and Population Politics after Slavery and the essay collection, Public Health and the Imperial Project. Her current research project explores the intersection of health and the law in the context of child incarceration in state institutions in the early 20th century Caribbean.

Paul E. Lovejoy

rebsl — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 19:53:44 +0000

Distinguished Research Professor, Department of History, �첥��Ƶ, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Lovejoy is Founding Director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas at �첥��Ƶ, and has held the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History (2000-2015). He was a member of the UNESCO “Slave Route” Project (1996-2012) and continues as General Editor of The Harriet Tubman Series on the African Diaspora (Africa World Press). He was co-editor of the journal, African Economic History for 37 years and has published more than forty books, including Jihad in West Africa during the Age of Revolutions (1775-1850) (2016), Slavery in the Global Diaspora of Africa (2019), and most recently co-edited with Ali Moussa Iye and Nelly Schmidt, Slavery, Resistance and Abolitions: A Pluralist Perspective (2019), co-edited with Dale Tomich, The Atlantic and Africa: The Second Slavery and Beyond (2021), and co-edited with Kartikay Chadha, Henry B. Lovejoy and Erika Melek Delgado, Regenerated Identities: Documenting African Lives (2022). He has received numerous grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Research keywords: Social justice; economic history; slavery; migration; ethnicity