Diana Paton
Diana Paton is William Robertson Professor of History at Edinburgh University. Her books include No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780-1870 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World (Durham: Duke University Press 2005, co-edited with Pamela Scully), The Cultural Politics of Obeah: Religion, Colonialism and Modernity in the Caribbean World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Obeah and Other Powers: The Politics of Caribbean Religion and Healing (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012, coedited with Maarit Forde–read the introduction). Diana was the project Principal Investigator.
Carol Dixon
Carol Dixon is an education consultant and former geography teacher with research interests in African and Caribbean diaspora histories, cultural geography and museology. She is a regular contributor to heritage projects, exhibitions and event programmes developed by the education charity Windrush Foundation, and has published a variety of creative teaching and learning resources for use in schools, museums, art galleries and other formal and informal educational settings. Carol’s recently completed Ph.D thesis examined the ‘othering’ of Africa and its diasporas in Western museum practices, and featured analysis of extensive fieldwork undertaken in selected collections of ethnography, museum archives, and galleries of fine art located in Britain and France. Her essays, articles, exhibition reviews and comment pieces addressing issues of equality and diversity in cultural institutions have appeared in Race & Class, Museums Journal, Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Geography (the Journal of the Geographical Association, UK) and CAA.Reviews (College Art Association, USA). Carol wrote and developed the education pack for this project and contributed to the workshops. She blogs at Museum Geographies.
Gemma Romain
Gemma Romain is a historian specialising in Caribbean and Black British history, with a particular interest in modern Black histories and visual cultures, Queer Caribbean and Queer Black British histories, and African-Caribbean diasporic histories with a focus on Grenada and Jamaica. She has worked at The Equiano Centre, Department of Geography, University College London (UCL), on various projects with Caroline Bressey, an Honorary Fellow of The Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton.
Her current work on Black history in Britain focuses on Black queer histories in 1920s and 1930s London and the histories of African-Caribbean and African-American women living in 1920s and 1930s London. She is working with Diana Paton on the biography of an African-born healer Pierre (the subject of one of the case studies), a formerly enslaved man who was convicted of Obeah in Grenada in 1833 and sentenced to transportation to the prison hulks of England and then as a convict in Tasmania. Her book Race, Sexuality and Identity in Britain and Jamaica: The Biography of Patrick Nelson, 1916-1963 was published by Bloomsbury Academic in September 2017. Gemma wrote the case histories on this website and also worked on the Caribbean Religious Trials website.
Gail Babb is Producer for Participation and Learning at Talawa Theatre Company, Britain’s leading Black-led theatre company. She is a theatre practitioner who specialises in participatory arts work in a range of community, educational and social settings. Gail’s work as a facilitator and community theatre director includes creative curriculum projects in primary and secondary schools, professional development programmes for NHS staff and devising projects with children, young people and mental health service-users. Recent performance outcomes include site-specific pieces in museums and heritage centres, a derelict school and a tour to South Africa’s National Arts Festival. Gail designed and coordinated the theatre-in-education workshops for the Freedom to Believe project.
The project’s theatre-in-education workshops were delivered by Adisa Stephen-Ezeocha, Sapphire Joy, Anthony Ekundayo Lennon and Shanika Warren-Markland.
The education pack was written by Carol Dixon and designed by Julie Nelson Rhodes. Website development by Data Architects.