Dr Alison Bennett

Profile details

 

Departmental Lecturer in Art History

Biography

Dr Alison Bennett completed her PhD in 2018 with an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award from UCL History and the British Museum. Prior to joining the University of Oxford, she held lecturing positions and research fellowships at the University of Manchester, Yale in London (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art), the University of Lincoln, and the University of East Anglia. She has also served in several public engagement and advisory roles, including for the Powell-Cotton Museum in Kent, the National Trust, and V&A.

Research interests

Alison's research focuses on the interconnections between material culture, art and the history of the British empire, particularly in eastern Africa. She has special interests in three broad topics: global commodities: materials and their visualization; the entangled material cultures of religion in Africa and Britain; and collecting, gifting and museums in the context of empire and decolonization. Her doctoral thesis offered the first critical analysis of Uganda’s political past from a material culture perspective, as well as the first major assessment of the collection and display of eastern African objects by museums across Britain. She is now transforming this into a manuscript. Her current project focuses on the global ivory trade.

Publications

Articles

  • ‘Ivory Warehouses Global Commodities, and Material Skill development: A Study of the Ivory Warehouse in the Port of London c. 1860–1968, Industrial History Review (November 2025)
  • ‘Objects of Conversion: Catholic Missionaries and the Miraculous Medal in East Africa’, History of Religion in Africa, 51:1–2 (2021), pp. 27–64
  • ‘British Material Diplomacy in Precolonial Uganda: The Gift Exchanges of John Hanning Speke, 1860–1863’, Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 16 (February 2021), pp. 166–174
  • ‘Collecting Uganda: Rethinking Colonial Politics through Objects’, History in Africa, 44 (2018), pp. 193-220

Blog posts

Publications in progress or preparation

Manuscripts

  • Material Cultures of Empire and Decolonisation: Gifting, Collecting, and Repatriation in Uganda c.1862–1962.

Book chapters

  • 'Forgotten Objects of Empire: A Washing Line and the Material Experiences of East African Porters in the Creation of Museum Collections' in Sarah Longair and John McAleer (eds.), Material Culture and the British Empire (UCL Press, 2026).