Emeritus Professor Robin Law was presented with the Distinguished Africanist Award for the year 2010 at the association’s biennial conference, held at the University of Oxford. The award is given to “people who have made exceptional contributions to the field of African studies".
Professor Law’s research has been in the field of pre-colonial West African history, including the region’s involvement in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. His scholarship was earlier recognised by election as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000, and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002. He also served for two periods as Co-Editor of the Journal of African History (1974-2 & 1991-5), the leading academic journal in the field, and was Chair of the British Academy’s Area Panel for Africa in 2005-2009.
He is the second Africanist historian from the University of Stirling to receive the honour in recent years, following the presentation to Dr John McCracken in 2008.
Professor Law, who lives in Bridge of Allan, said: “It seems remarkable and worthy of celebration that both of the Africanists in the (former) History Department at Stirling in the last generation were honoured in this way.”
Professor Richard Oram, Acting Head of the School of History and Politics, said: “Stirling has a small but active community of African historians, political studies specialists and environmental scientists. This success of two distinguished past (and still very research active) members of the School of History and Politics underscores our continuing academic commitment to the field of African history.”