Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
100
result(s) for
"Hopper, Matthew S."
Sort by:
Slaves of one master : globalization and slavery in Arabia in the age of empire
Matthew S. Hopper's wide-ranging history of the African diaspora and slavery in Arabia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries examines the interconnected themes of enslavement, globalization, and empire, and challenges previously held conventions regarding Middle Eastern slavery and British imperialism. Linking the personal stories of enslaved Africans to the impersonal global commodity chains their labor enabled, this provocative and deeply researched study contradicts the conventional historiography that regards the Indian Ocean slave trade as fundamentally different from its Atlantic counterpart and disputes the triumphalist antislavery narrative that attributes the end of the East African-Persian Gulf slave trade to the efforts of the British Royal Navy.
Book
Reflections on the Ethics of Research with the Registers of Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean
This paper examines ethical issues related to the use of the registers of liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean for historical research. The registers provide rich details about the physical appearance (height, age, facial scarification, brands, tattoos) and origins (language, ethnicity or “caste”, mother's name, father's name) of liberated Africans. They also reveal aspects about their treatment at the hands of colonial officials, including the individuals to whom the Africans were indentured, the work they performed, and the new names that were assigned to them. Such details make these registers invaluable sources for historians, but they also present ethical challenges. In the Indian Ocean world, some descendants may take pride in their liberated African ancestors, and claims to liberated African ancestors can have important implications for claims to land and status, yet others may prefer that information be lost to what Pier Larson called “the countervailing forces of historical amnesia” [Larson 1999]. Containing intimate personal information that may permit investigation into both the origins and the descendants of enslaved Africans, registers may also be considered sources of biometric data. As such, should they be subject to the ethical standards applied to biometric data in the sciences? This paper explores a model for the ethical use of historical biometric (DNA) data from Australia as an example of what historians might consider emulating when making use of registers of liberated Africans in the digital humanities.
Journal Article
Redefining African Regions for Linking Open-Source Data
In recent years, an increasing number of online archival databases of primary sources related to the history of the African diaspora and slavery have become freely and readily accessible for scholarly and public consumption. This proliferation of digital projects and databases presents a number of challenges related to aggregating data geographically according to the movement of people in and out of Africa across time and space. As a requirement to linking data of open-source digital projects, it has become necessary to delimit the entire continent of precolonial Africa during the era of the slave trade into broad regions and sub-regions that can allow the grouping of data effectively and meaningfully. Au cours de ces dernières années, un nombre croissant de bases de données d’archives en ligne contenant des sources liées à l’histoire de la diaspora africaine et de l’esclavage est devenu librement et facilement accessible pour les universitaires et le grand public. Cette prolifération de projets et de bases de données numériques pose un certain nombre de problèmes liés à l’agrégation géographique de données traitant de la circulation des personnes en Afrique et en dehors du continent à travers le temps et l’espace. Pour relier les données de ces projets numériques au code source ouvert, il est devenu nécessaire de diviser tout le continent africain à l’époque de la traite des esclaves en de vastes régions et sous-régions permettant le regroupement des données de manière efficace et significative.
Journal Article
Defining Regions of Pre-Colonial Africa: A Controlled Vocabulary for Linking Open-Source Data in Digital History Projects
Regionalizing pre-colonial Africa aids in the collection and interpretation of primary sources as data for further analysis. This article includes a map with six broad regions and 34 sub-regions, which form a controlled vocabulary within which researchers may geographically organize and classify disparate pieces of information related to Africa’s past. In computational terms, the proposed African regions serve as data containers in order to consolidate, link, and disseminate research among a growing trend in digital humanities projects related to the history of the African diasporas before c. 1900. Our naming of regions aims to avoid terminologies derived from European slave traders, colonialism, and modern-day countries.
Journal Article
Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition
While the British were able to accomplish abolition in the trans-Atlantic world by the end of the nineteenth century, their efforts paradoxically caused a great increase in legal and illegal slave trading in the western Indian Ocean. Bringing together essays from leading authorities in the field of slavery studies, this comprehensive work offers an original and creative study of slavery and abolition in the Indian Ocean world during this period. Among the topics discussed are the relationship between British imperialism and slavery; Islamic law and slavery; and the bureaucracy of slave trading.
eBook
Embedded System Design of Low-Power Wearable Bioelectronic Devices
The miniaturization of electronics in modern times has enabled the possibility of creating a “continuity of care” using small wearable bioelectronic devices. Using wearable devices, such as the Fitbit or Garmin fitness trackers, allows for the exchange of data between devices which can be used to improve the accuracy of data analysis and thus patient health. In this thesis work, three wearable bioelectronic devices are proposed: an EOG-based eye-gaze tracking assistive technology device for the physically disabled to control a computer cursor, a battery-operated miniaturized polysomnograph that can store and transmit data wirelessly to sleep technicians and a trauma-detecting personal locator beacon. The first two system designs are outlined and simulated, followed by the testing of a prototype while the third system is a proposed design that will be reduced to practice at a later date. With continued development needed in the signal processing algorithms, the eye-gaze tracking computer mouse demonstrated capability and repeatable results. The wearable sleep sensor system also demonstrated capability and provided data with high signal-to-noise ratios on most channels before any filtering, allowing for comparable signal quality to conventional polysomnography devices.
Dissertation
Slaves of One Master
At the turn of the twentieth century, a six-year-old boy named Ismail bin Mubarak was kidnapped from his hometown of Mkokotoni in Zanzibar and carried away to Arabia. Ismail’s kidnapper took him to Batinah, a stretch of the coast of northern Oman, where he sold him to a man from Hamriya (near Dubai). Five years and two owners later, Ismail found himself the slave of Salim bin Sultan of Sharjah, who sent him to the pearl banks to dive each season. In March 1931, when Ismail was nearly forty years old and had spent two decades of grueling work as
Book Chapter
Laser Ablation of the Pia Mater for Insertion of High-Density Microelectrode Arrays in a Translational Sheep Model
Abstract The safe insertion of high density intracortical electrode arrays has been a long-standing practical challenge for neural interface engineering and applications such as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Here we describe a surgical procedure, inspired by laser corneal ablation, that can be used in large mammals to thin the pia mater, the innermost meningeal layer encapsulating the brain. This procedure allows for microelectrode arrays to be inserted into the cortex with less force, thus reducing deformation of underlying tissue during placement of the microelectrodes. We demonstrate that controlled pia removal over a small area of cortex allows for insertion of high-density electrode arrays and subsequent acute recordings of spiking neuron activity in sheep cortex. We also show histological and electrophysiological evidence that laser removal of the pia does not acutely affect neuronal viability in the region. This approach suggests a promising new path for clinical BCI with high-density microelectrode arrays. Competing Interest Statement All authors are current or former compensated employees of Paradromics, Inc., a brain-computer interface company.
Paper