The Roots Revived: Memory, Legacy, Heritage and Tourism conference will take place at Craiglockhart Campus on 17 October 2024.

The conference provides a platform for exploring the complex dynamics of difficult and dissonant heritage within the broader context of memory, legacy, heritage, and tourism. Recognising the lasting impact of historical traumas, contested narratives, and marginalised voices, this conference seeks to promote dialogue, understanding, and reconciliation. The conference also seeks to explore the ethical, social, and cultural complexities involved in commemorating and engaging with painful histories.

This interdisciplinary conference aims to bring together academics, practitioners, and enthusiasts from a range of backgrounds to engage in meaningful discussions and knowledge exchange.   

Call for Abstracts

This conference welcomes abstract submissions for concurrent oral sessions and poster presentations. Reviewers will base their decisions solely on the abstract. The abstract should briefly summarise the research or work, including the objectives, methods, results, and conclusions. It should also clearly state the significance and potential impact of the findings. A well-constructed abstract, characterised by clarity, conciseness, and coherence, enhances the likelihood of acceptance. Originality and significance are essential for paper acceptance.

Submitted abstracts should be between 250 and 300 words, presented as a single paragraph with 1.5 spacing. Please avoid including tables, figures, or references.

Please submit your abstract to rootsrevived@napier.ac.uk no later than 9 September 2024 and indicate in your message whether you prefer to do an oral presentation or a poster presentation. Make sure to include all necessary information such as title, author(s) names and affiliations, contact details, and a short biographical statement (no more than 100 words).

For any inquiries, please contact rootsrevived@napier.ac.uk

Keynotes speakers 

Sir Geoff Palmer - Professor Sir Geoff (Godfrey) Palmer was born in Jamaica in 1940. He migrated to London in 1955. He sits on the Boards of Community Organisations and has received Honorary Degrees from various Academic Institutions. His awards include an OBE (2003) and a Knighthood (2014) for his scientific research, charity and human rights work. He was the fifth recipient and the first European resident to gain a distinguished research award from the American Society of Brewing Chemist, regarded as the ‘Nobel Prize’ of the industry. His work on the history of the enslavement of African people as British slaves has led him to work on slavery projects with Glasgow University and to chair projects set up by Edinburgh City Council, the Scottish Government on Museums and the University of Edinburgh. In 2022, Leicester University gave him its Diversity and Inclusion award and named a building after him. He has published books on race relations and cereal science and technology. He is the first Honorary Consul for Jamaica in Scotland and the Freeman of Midlothian. In addition to receiving other important community awards, American brewers in 2020 created the Sir Geoff Palmer Scholarship award. In 2021, he gained the Pride of Scotland’s Life Time Award, was elected Honorary Keeper of the Quaich by the distilling industry and received the rare Edinburgh Award in 2022. In 2023, as one of the ten members of the Windrush Pioneering Generation of His Majesty King Charles, his portrait was painted as part of the Royal Collection Trust.

Dr Marcella Daye - Dr Marcella Daye is an academic researcher at the University of Northampton with a PhD in Tourism Marketing and an MSc with Distinction in Tourism Planning and Development from the University of Surrey. Marcella’s focal academic research interests are in place branding and destination image, and she sits on the editorial boards of the peer-reviewed journals, Annals of Tourism Research and Tourism Planning and Development. A scholar-activist for Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Marcella is Co/Chair for the race equality network at the University of Northampton, known as the Global Ethnic Majority (GEM).) In 2022, she was commissioned as a consultant on the EU EXPERIENCE project to examine barriers to ethnic minority participation in domestic tourism in the UK.   

Nelson Cummins - Nelson Cummins is the Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire at Glasgow Museums. In the role he is responsible for exploring how the histories and legacies of transatlantic slavery and the British Empire impact Glasgow Museums and the wider city of Glasgow. Nelson was one of the project leads on Glasgow-City of Empire, a permanent display opened in November that examines the legacies of colonialism and how they have shaped Glasgow. 

Advanced registration at this Conference is essential. Find out more about registration & fees here >