Participant Info
- First Name
- Olivia
- Last Name
- Durand
- Country
- United Kingdom
- State
- oliviairenadurand@gmail.com
- Affiliation
- Freie Universität Berlin / University of Oxford
- Website URL
- https://linktr.ee/oliviadurand
- Keywords
- colonial history, settler colonialism, port cities, ukraine, black sea, louisiana, mississippi, russian empire, united states, odessa, odesa, new orleans, immigration, diaspora, unfree labour
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I am a global historian working in the field of comparative settler studies. My research partakes in the wider history of settler colonialism and diaspora studies in the long nineteenth century, by setting New Orleans and Odessa in the context of the wider historiography on colonial port-cities and continental empires. I write on diaspore, migration, and empire, both academically and in more public-facing venues:
I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Global History department of Freie Universität Berlin, and also a postdoctoral associate of the University of Oxford, from which I received a doctoral degree in History in 2021.
In addition to my main field of research, I am involved in public engagement with research, individually and in my role as the Research and Development Director for the UK-based social enterprise Uncomfortable Oxford (now Uncomfortable Cities).In complement to these activities, I am also on the steering committee of the ‘Colonial Ports and Global History‘ (CPAGH) interdisciplinary research network, as well as a senior researcher for the EU-funded Institute of Historical Justice and Reconciliation. I have been developing a EU-Funded Contested Histories Toolkit for Critical Tours and its associated video tutorials, with Euroclio and the Memory Studies Association.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
- Recent Publications
Selected Publication:
- ‘New Russia’ and the Legacies of Settler Colonialism in Southern Ukraine (Journal of Applied History)
- Why does the Commemoration of Slavery and its Victims remain so difficult in France? (Royal Historical Society – Writing Race Series)
- Putin’s invasion of Ukraine attacks its distinct history and reveals his imperial instincts (The Conversation UK)
- How Mardi Gras became America’s looking glass (Washington Post)
Full list: https://linktr.ee/oliviadurand
- ‘New Russia’ and the Legacies of Settler Colonialism in Southern Ukraine (Journal of Applied History)
- Media Coverage
- https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-report-ukraines-history-guidelines-oxford-historian
- Social Media
- @OliviaDurandIRL
- Country Focus
- Expertise by Geography
- British Isles, Caribbean, Eastern Europe, England, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 18th century, 19th century, Modern, 20th century
- Expertise by Topic
- American Civil War, American Founding Era, Capitalism, Colonialism, Emancipation, Environment, Migration & Immigration, Museums, Pedagogy, Public History, Race, Rebellion & Revolution, Slavery, Urban History
