Participant Info

First Name
Mattie
Last Name
Webb
Country
United States
State
CA California
Affiliation
University of California, Santa Barbara
Website URL
https://www.history.ucsb.edu/graduate-student/mattie/
Keywords
U.S. Foreign Policy, Diplomatic History, South Africa, Southern Africa, Anti-Apartheid Movement, African-American History, Labor, Black Power, Business History, Race and Ethnicity, Africa, Oral History
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
other credentials

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I study U.S. in the World, African history, social movements, race, and labor relations. My dissertation combines social and diplomatic approaches to history and looks at the impact and awareness of the Sullivan Principles, a U.S. code of conduct for multinational corporations operating in South Africa during the apartheid era. My dissertation, titled “Diplomacy at Work: The South African Worker and the Sullivan Principles on the Shop Floor, 1972-1987” draws on archival sources and oral histories from the United States and South Africa. As a public historian, I am also spearheading an ongoing oral history project based at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

My work is generously supported by the U.S. Fulbright Program (IIE), National Security Education Program, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Emory University Stuart A. Rose Library, UCSB Center for Cold War Studies and International History, and the UCSB History Associates. 

I hold a master’s degree in Global Studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where I wrote my thesis on economic sanctions as a tool to promote regime change, with a specific focus on the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. I received my BA summa cum laude in History from North Carolina State University in 2014. 

 

Recent Publications

“People before profit? Ford, General Motors & the spirit of the Sullivan Principles in Apartheid South Africa (1976-84),” Ethnic Studies Review, peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of California Press, published December 2021, http://doi.org/10.1525/esr.2021.44.3.64

“Beyond Desegregation: Waging a Battle Against Apartheid in the South African Workplace,” Scottish Centre for Global History Blog, December 2020.

“Corporates and investors need to engage with the US to halt its slide into autocratization,” (co-authored with Raj Thamotheram) Responsible Investor (October 2020).

“The Sullivan Principles at Work: The Conflicted Activism of Rev. Leon Howard Sullivan,” Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library Scholar Blog (August 7, 2019).

Media Coverage
Country Focus
United States, South Africa
Expertise by Geography
Africa, Atlantic, North America, United States
Expertise by Chronology
Modern, 20th century, 21st century
Expertise by Topic
Capitalism, Colonialism, Diplomacy, Economic History, Government, Human Rights, Labor, Pedagogy, Politics, Public History, Race, Sports, Women