Olivette Otele

Otele was born in Cameroon in 1970 and grew up in Paris, France.[7] She is of Cameroonian heritage.[8] Otele studied at the Sorbonne University, working on European colonial and post-colonial history.[9] She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in literature in 1998, and her Master of Arts degree in 2000.[9] She received her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2005 for a doctoral thesis entitled Mémoire et politique : l'enrichissement de Bristol par le commerce triangulaire, objet de polémique.[1] Her dissertation looked at the city of Bristol's role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.[1]

She describes her motivation for studying history as "this urge related to social justice. I wanted to understand the root of racism and discrimination – this idea of hating someone for something they are not responsible for, something that is incredibly random."[10] She believes the most important thing history has ever taught her is kindness.[11] Her greatest influence is the Congolese historian Elikia M'Bokolo.[12] She says the book that has had the greatest impact on her is Nations nègres et culture by Cheikh Anta Diop.[11] Otele speaks French, English, some German, and three Cameroonian languages, Ewondo, Eton and Bulu.[12]

After completing her doctoral studies, Otele was made an associate professor at Université Paris XIII.[13][14] She was appointed as a senior lecturer at Bath Spa University in 2013.[10] She has written about cultural and collective memory and the memorialisation of the past. She analyses the legacies of European colonisation in post-slavery societies. She has published academic articles about Afro-European identities, including "Frenchness", British identities in Wales, and what it meant to be British, Welsh and Black.[15]

In 2018, at the age of 48, Otele became the first black woman to be made Professor of History in the United Kingdom.[8] She acknowledged that her promotion to the professoriate took longer because she has caring responsibilities as a mother to two children and because she is a woman of colour.[16] The Race, Ethnicity & Equality Report published by the Royal Historical Society in October 2018 found that only 0.5 per cent of historians working in UK universities are black.[17] Until Otele's promotion there had never been a black woman Professor of History in the UK.[18] Otele hopes that her appointment will 'open the door for many hard-working women, especially black women in academia'.[19] On her promotion Otele commented that "any success that is used only to improve one's own life is a waste of possibilities. That is why being the first black female history professor does not mean anything to me if I'm not given and can't find means to bring others up."[7] Otele highlighted the difficulties she encountered in becoming a professor: "I've worked very hard and kept pushing and had a family...It's hard. I'm tired. It's bleak."[20] The Vice-Chancellor of Bath Spa University, Sue Rigby, described Otele as "world-class and internationally respected".[21] Otele announced her promotion from her active Twitter account.[22]

Otele has participated in several major research grants looking at the African diaspora.[23][24] She looks at the way the societies of Britain and France address citizenship.[9] She has studied the Atlantic slave trade.[9][25][26] Otele was the Principal Investigator for the project People of African Descent in the 21st Century: Knowledge and Cultural Production in Reluctant Sites of Memory, which received £24,022 in funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.[27] The project ran from May 2017 to November 2018.

Otele is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), and a board member of Historians Against Slavery.[13] She is an executive board member for The British Society for the Eighteenth-Century Studies, a member of the Association for Cultural Studies, and a member of the Centre international de recherches sur les esclavages.[21] She also sits on the board of the National Archives Trust and is on V&A Museum’s research committee.[3][28]

Otele has written for the BBC's HistoryExtra, The Conversation and Times Higher Education.[29] She has written and contributed to several books. Her book, Afro-Europeans: a Short History, is scheduled for publication in 2020 with Hurst Publishers.[30][31][32] Her second book, Post-Conflict Memorialization: Missing Memorials, Absent Bodies, is due in 2019 with Palgrave Macmillan.[33][34]

She has participated in programmes on BBC Radio 4.[35] and Dan Snow's History Hit podcast.[36] She is part of the John Blanke Project, a collaboration of artists and historians celebrating black Tudors.[37] Otele spoke at the 2018 Winchester History Weekend, How Africans Changed Early Modern Europe.[38] She considered outstanding Africans and Europeans who are not otherwise remembered in popular history books.[38]

It was announced in late October 2019 that Otele had been appointed as the first Professor of the History of Slavery at Bristol University.[2] She assumed her post in January 2020, and began a two-year research project to examine Bristol's connection to the transatlantic slave trade. It is anticipated her study will become "a landmark in the way Britain examines, acknowledges and teaches the history of enslavement."[39]

In June 2020 Otele was appointed as independent Chair of Bristol's Commission on Race Equality, which is an unpaid role.[4][40]

Otele was named on the BBC 100 Women 2018 List. She appears at number 69, alongside Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin, Nimco Ali, and Uma Devi Badi.[41]

Otele gave the keynote address at the Social History Society Annual Conference, University of Lincoln, 11 June 2019.[42] In May 2019 she was elected to Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society.[3]