Research
Leona has worked as researcher on a number of successful interdisciplinary projects as a researcher within the University of Liverpool:
Knowledge production of ‘Cancer and Inequalities in Liverpool’ with SSPC and Public Health;
‘The Role of People and Place in Neighbourhood Identity: Belonging and Social Inclusion’ with SSPC and Geography;
‘Clothes, Chocolate and Children: Realising the Transparency Dividend’ in the Department of Politics.
Leona designed and delivered the research projects
'Exploring Safeguarding' with the Antislavery Knowledge Network (2019 - 2020) https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/politics/research/research-projects/akn/akn-safeguarding/ and
'Safeguarding in International Development Research Guidance' for UK Collaborative on Development Research (Research Director 2019-2020), with Professor Alex Balch, Department of Politics and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine ARISE HubUKCDR
PI for 'COVID-19 and Racialised Risk Narratives in South Africa, Ghana and Kenya' a collaborative exploration of risk messaging linked to racialisation during the first year of the pandemic COVID 19 Risk and Racialisation
PI for multiple policy focussed projects on modern slavery (including human trafficking) and the role of the financial sector, at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (2021-24) United Nations University Centre for Policy Research
Co-founder of Barriers to Black Academia initiative to address the severe under-representation of Black academics, especially in studies of slavery, as a form of reparative justice Barriers to Black Academia, Leona has worked with Centre for Studying International Slavery to create an international Barriers to Black Academia symposium (2021) Symposium and a knowledge partnership with Church of England Racial Justice Unit to develop resources for their truthtelling work on the church and slavery (2023-25) knowledge partnership
RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Anticolonial methodologies; harm in research; 'safeguarding'; 'modern slavery'; racialisation; children/young people; 'risk', 'risk prevention' and 'risk-work'