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Holly’s thesis examines Jamaican and Black British understandings of and reactions to British immigration and citizenship legislation from the lead-up to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 to the passage of the British Nationality Act of 1981. Building off of previous understandings of race, citizenship and ‘belonging’ to Britain, her work adds a transnational dimension by turning the focus away from the intentions of the British political class and towards the impacts such legislation had on the people it sought to affect. This includes Jamaicans across different social and political classes in the aftermath of independence and the Jamaicans who migrated to and settled in Britain as well as their Black British descendents, many of whom saw their place as members of an ostensibly ‘multi-racial’ Commonwealth and as part of a British nation continually undermined.
Apart from her PhD studies, Holly is a research assistant at the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery (CSLBS), where she has worked on a range of public digital history projects and affiliated research collaborations. She is also a contributor to Traces quarterly newsletter.
Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, Holly holds a BA with Honours in History from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada), completed in 2019, and an MA with Distinction in History from UCL, completed in 2021.
PhD
Supervisor: Matthew Smith (primary) and Kate Quinn (secondary)
Working Title: Race, Citizenship and Commonwealth in Jamaican Migration to Britain, 1961-1981
Expected Completion Date: 2027
Research Projects
- Valuable Lives (CSLBS; research assistantship funded by the Next Economy Trust) - 2024
- New World Royalists (CSLBS) - 2023-2025
- Global Threads (in collaboration with the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, funded by UCL Grand Challenges) - 2021
Teaching
HIST 0007 Writing History - 2024
Publications
- Traces, CSLBS Newsletter Autumn 2024
Public Engagement
- Speaker, International Slavery Remembrance Day at Royal Museums Greenwich - 2024
- Speaker, Refugee Tales - 2024
Prizes and Scholarships
- SFU Undergraduate Open Scholarship
- SFU 2019-2020 Student Community Engagement Award
- BC Provincial Scholarship
- BC District Scholarship
