Research
Multiple, linked research projects
My earliest research was in German labour and gender history and the history of youth and social policy. My most recent work has has three strands: Romani Studies, with particular reference to the history of German Sinti and Roma and their experiences in the Holocaust; Black people in German history; and middle-class culture, gender and finance in 18th-century Germany. In 18th-century studies, I have moved from unearthing the origins of life insurance to exploring what Germans knew about stocks and shares in the early days of global capitalism to studying the entanglement of Germans in the Atlantic slave economy. Since 2019 I have been engaged in collaborative research on Romani economic activity and migration in the context of two funded projects: BESTROM: Cultural Exchanges and the Romani Contribution to European Public Spaces and RomMig: Romani Migration between Germany and Britain (1880s-1914): Spaces of Informal Business, Media Spectacle, and Racial Policing.
My research in Romani, Black and Holocaust studies is linked with a personal commitment to outreach and knowledge exchange, which has involved the development of a Travelling Exhibition on the Nazi Persecution of Sinti and Roma and advisory roles with the Wiener Holocaust Library, the Imperial War Museum London and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It also involves me in collaborations with colleagues in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the US and South Korea.
Research groups
Research grants
Romani Migration between Germany and Britain (1880s-1914): Spaces of Informal Business, Media Spectacle, and Racial Policing
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
February 2022 - May 2026
Fairs and markets: economic contact zones in Germany
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
May 2019 - May 2022
Legacies of the Roma Genocide since 1945
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
June 2017 - December 2019
Bringing History and Policy into Dialogue in Romani Studies
COUNCIL OF EUROPE (FRANCE)
October 2014
Resituating Romani Studies: Piloting Archive Research at the Gypsy Lore Society Collections
COUNCIL OF EUROPE (FRANCE)
April 2013 - June 2013
Germany - France - Moscow - Africa: Survival, politics and identity among German Cameroonians, ca. 1910-1960.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
September 2005 - February 2010