Alison Bennett

Alison Bennett is a Hallsworth Research Fellow in History at the University of Manchester, specializing in British imperial history with focus on eastern Africa. She holds a PhD from University College London and has held postdoctoral positions at the Paul Mellon Centre and Smithsonian Institution.

Her research examines colonial politics through material and visual culture, particularly ethnographic collecting practices and the transnational ivory trade. Current work traces commodity chains of African ivory objects across Indian and Atlantic Ocean trade routes from the 18th-20th centuries using museum collections and archival sources.