Work Package 4
Databases Analysis: Systematic Inventory of the Existing Resources on the Slave Trade and Slavery
Objectives
The objectives of this work package are to conduct an inventory of the accumulated scientific capital that exists in the various slavery databases in which members of SLAFNET have been involved in the past decade. Numerous databases relating to slavery and slave trade in Africa, in the Western Indian Ocean and in the Atlantic already exist. It is crucial to develop tools for comprehensive data analysis and to develop common data management policies to exploit this data more fruitfully.
Concomitantly, it wishes to lay down the foundations of new databases specialized on Ethiopia, and of another one specialized on Mauritius will provide access to invaluable data for researchers and will develop local capacity building in those countries. In particular, they will allow to gather and automatically relate and debate data specific to these regions, like names of persons and places, life histories, linguistic variability, routes, prices, information on practices, nomenclature, terminologies, sample texts, etc. These new databases will build upon the assets and strengths of older databases, and will contribute to fill a void in the long history of slave routes in the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean.
Leader:Vijayalakshmi Teelock – University of Mauritius