Scotland's Transnational Heritage: Legacies of Empire and Slavery

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The concept of how we rethink the way Scotland’s history is told, and consider the context of calls to decolonise institutions, is a huge undertaking; how do you approach a project so vast? Scotland’s Transnational Heritage: Legacies of Empire and Slavery (edited with M. Morris), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (2022). For Scotland, of course the question of nation and Scotland’s relationship with the United Kingdom is a key one. The twentieth century saw major challenges along the lines of social class, and gender, with searching critiques to do with how wealth is made and who makes history. All of this has contested and affected how Scotland’s heritage is presented and received. Scotland’s Transnational Heritage draws on the expertise of academics, museum professionals and creative practitioners working together to re-think the way that the transnational histories of Scotland are being told today. It outlines new historical examples of how Scottish trades and institutions benefitted from Empire. It gathers examples of contemporary case studies and innovative practices in storytelling that engage and inform. You have both written extensively via your respective roles – are there any topics that you’d be keen to explore next, whether an entirely new project or an offshoot that has arisen throughout your work on this project?

Disrupted Narratives: Illness, Silence and Identity in Svevo, Pressburger and Morandini, Oxford: Legenda/MHRA (2012). Irony as a Way of Life: Svevo, Kierkegaard and Psychoanalysis’, Philosophy and Literature 40:2 (2016). The essays aims to inspire heritage and museum staff and academics to create new approaches to these histories, both in Scotland and beyond. Thinking on Foot: New Italian Pilgrimages in the Work of Emily Jacir, Diana Matar and Hisham Matar’, Studies in Travel Writing 25:2 (2022). Emma’s research has been supported by funding from the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Carnegie Trust and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She has enjoyed fellowships at the British School at Rome, the School of Advanced Study (University of London), the Bogliasco Foundation, and the Wolfsonian FIU. In 2019 she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Languages and Literatures. Emma co-edits the ‘Transnational Italian Cultures’ book series for Liverpool University Press, and edits the Comparative Literature section of the open access digital journal Modern Languages Open. She holds the Research Portfolio for the Society for Italian Studies (2019-2024).

Book contents

AB - Scotland’s Transnational Heritage draws on the expertise of academics, museum professionals and creative practitioners working together to re-think the way that the transnational histories of Scotland are being told today. It emphasises Scotland’s role in networks of colonialism and outlines new historical examples of how Scottish trades and institutions benefitted from Empire. It gathers examples of contemporary case studies and innovative practices in storytelling that engage and inform. The book aims to inspire heritage and museum staff and academics to create new approaches to these histories, both in Scotland and beyond. Within the current context of calls to decolonise both the museum and the academy, this is a timely snapshot of the exciting and diverse work taking place in the field in Scotland today.

Dr Morris is Senior Lecturer at the University and researches the historical and cultural legacies of slavery. How do we re-think the way Scotland’s history is told today? In the current context of calls to decolonise both the museum and the academy, how do we tell the stories of Scotland’s role in networks of colonialism?We are incredibly excited to host a symposium on the collection of essays constitutive of Scotland's Transnational Heritage: Legacies of Empire, Trade and Slavery . To enlighten and engage on a variety of topics, from a broad range of expertise, are three contributors to the collection: Emma Bond, Professor of Italian and Comparative Studies at the University of Oxford; Michael Morris, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Dundee; and Lisa Williams, Honorary Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh and founder of the Edinburgh Caribbean Association. Afterword: Building Solidarity: Moving Towards the Repatriation of the House of Ni’isjoohl Totem Pole

By outlining the legacies of empire in Scotland, the authors offer practical methods for diversifying the stories we tell about Scotland’s history.Scotland’s Transnational Heritage was launched at an event at V&A Dundee last week when Curator Meredith More led a tour of the Scottish Design Gallery, highlighting artefacts that are now presented differently as well plans for future changes. A RESEARCHER from the University of Dundee has produced a new book exploring how to tell Scotland’s history in the context of calls to decolonise institutions and curricula. Indeed, this story which links the ‘west’ and ‘east’ is developed more in relation to ‘Paisley shawls’ manufactured from cotton and with designs owing much to imitation from Kashmir. Re-developments at Paisley Museum are looking to re-contextualise the role of cotton in the town’s boom years in relation to slavery and empire. The Transnational Scotland project brought together museum professionals, cultural practitioners and academics in a number of workshops over the course of a year. At our first meeting we were invited to discuss museum objects brought by the curators in attendance; one of these was a cop apron (a heavy-duty protective covering worn by women working in the jute factories) from the collections of Dundee Heritage Trust (Figure 11.1). Workshop participants with specialisms in industrial heritage, literature, museum collections and collecting, digital technology and more, entered into a wide-ranging conversation about the apron, considering its purpose and use, the material from which it was crafted (jute) and how it came to be in the museum’s collections. We talked about the people likely involved in the life of the object – who produced the raw materials, who sewed the apron, who transported it to Dundee (likely from Bengal), who sold it and who bought it. This single object opened up inherently transnational discussions of industrial labour, class, trade routes and empire.