Research Outline

My research focuses on maritime, legal, and environmental history within the context of British colonialism between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, including the subjects of piracy, fishing, trade, and coastal communities.

My first book, Suppressing Piracy in the Early Eighteenth Century: Pirates, Merchants, and British Imperial Authority was published by Boydell Press in 2021 and focuses on British attempts to suppress piracy in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the early eighteenth century.

My current research focuses on the development and impact of fisheries governance in Africa under British colonial rule in the twentieth century with a particular focus on the interplay of law, science, and technology in shaping fisheries management outcomes.

This builds on two projects that I was engaged on between 2019 and 2024:

• One Ocean Hub, a GCRF-funded transdisciplinary project focusing on integrated and inclusive oceanic governance. My work explored the impact of colonialism on contemporary legal structures and coastal management of resources, particularly in Ghana.
• Lessons from Lake Malawi, an AHRC-funded project, examining the parallel development of two distinctive fisheries management regimes in Lake Malawi in the mid-twentieth century; one imposed by the British colonial government and the other by Chief Msosa, who implemented a new chief-regulated fishery in Mbenje Island. This provided a unique opportunity to explore the principles, ideologies, and ongoing legacies of these management regimes.

Across this research, I am interested in how marine governance was viewed, applied, and contested in localities and how this, in turn, not only influenced and transformed local engagement and attitudes to marine spaces, but also influenced the approaches of imperial polities towards coastal jurisdiction.

Knowledge Exchange, Dissemination Activities, and Professional Memberships

I have organised workshops and presented on the legacies of colonialism within ocean governance with institutions including the Centre for the Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (UNDOALOS), and Scottish Government COP26 Programme. I have also collaborated with small-scale fishers from Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, and South Africa as part of knowledge exchange activities centred on elevating small-scale fishers’ voices within national, regional, and international governance circles.

I have also provided expertise and been interviewed for documentaries on piracy for National Geographic, Netflix, BBC Radio Scotland, and various popular podcast series.

I am a co-founder of The Problem of Piracy Network, a trustee of the British Commission for Maritime History, a board member of the Centre for Port and Maritime History, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Supervision

I supervise all aspects of maritime, environmental, and legal histories of empire. Current and recent students include:

• Rowena Hutton, “The Committee System in the Scottish Parliament during the Williamite era of 1689-1702,” Ph.D.
• Ian Maclellan, “The environmental history of poaching and game management in early modern Scotland,” Ph.D.
• Linda Mensah, “Reclaiming the Golden Wastelands: A case of mine decommissioning regimes and sustainable mining communities in Ghana,” Ph.D. Awarded 2023.
• Olivia Ross, “Animals and the Atlantic Slave Trade: The role of animals in the commercial, diplomatic, and maritime networks connecting Britain, West Africa, and the Americas, 1660-1752,” Ph.D.
• Rebecca Wilkieson, “Maritime Scotland and the Transatlantic Slave Trade: An analysis of the development of Scotland’s maritime infrastructure through its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, c. 1690-1750,” Ph.D.
• Lysa Wini, “The ‘Imola e asi’ (People of the Sea): The influence of the British Empire on the ‘Imola e asi’ during the Protectorate era and the traces of imperial legislation on current ocean-related laws in Solomon Islands,” Ph.D.

Key Publications:

Books

• Suppressing Piracy in the Early Eighteenth Century: Pirates, Merchants and British Imperial Authority in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans (Boydell Press, 2021) 
• The Problem of Piracy in the Early Modern World: Maritime Predation, Empire, and the Construction of Authority at Sea, co-editor with John C. Coakley and C. Nathan Kwan (University of Amsterdam Press, 2024)

Articles & Chapters

• “Reflections on the Past, Present, and Potential Futures of Knowledge Hierarchies in Ocean Biodiversity Governance Research,” co-author with Holly J. Niner et al., Frontiers in Marine Science, 11 (2024) (DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1347494)
• “European colonisation, law, and Indigenous marine dispossession: historical perspectives on the construction and entrenchment of unequal marine governance,” Maritime Studies, 20 (2021): 387-407 (DOI: 10.1007/s40152-021-00233-2)
• “From the Caribbean to Craignish: Imperial Authority and Piratical Voyages in the Early-Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Commons,” Itinerario, 42:3 (2018): 430-460 (DOI: 10.1017/S016511531800061X).

See Research Outputs below for full list.

I am interested in any aspects of maritime, environmental, and legal histories of empire from the early modern to the late colonial period, including:

• Maritime law and jurisdiction
• Customary law, legal pluralism, and maritime activity
• Seafarers, coastal communities, and colonisation
• Piracy and privateering
• Fishing and fishing communities
• Histories of waterbodies (inc. oceans, lakes, and rivers)
• Atlantic and Indian Ocean history
• Caribbean history
• Trade and commercial networks
• Slavery and the slave trade
• Scotland and empire
• Imperial governance and authority
• Inter-imperial connections and conflict

My teaching focuses on maritime activity, colonisation, and empire-building, particularly in the early modern period.

I currently teach the following classes -

• The ‘Westward Enterprise’: Piracy, Trade, and the Emergence of the British Atlantic Empire, 1500-1730 (Year 3 / Hons)
• Scotland and the Americas in the Seventeenth Century (Hons)
• Enemies of All Mankind? The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Legacy of Atlantic Piracy, 1660-1726 (Hons special subject)
• Plantations by Land and Sea, 1590-1720: British Imperial Projects in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, c. 1590-1720 (MSc/PG Diploma in Historical Studies)
• Palaeography (MSc/PG Diploma in Historical Studies)