Kerry Ward is a former editor of the Journal of World History. She co-edited, with Ross E. Dunn and Laura J. Mitchell, The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers (University of California Press, 2016). This anthology is the state of the field edited collection for academics, teachers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.

Ward's first book, Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company (Cambridge University Press, 2009) examines the evolution of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from a merchant enterprise to an empire through the lens of its evolving legal system. It focuses on the complex intersections of forced migration in the forms of slavery, penal transportation, and political exile. The VOC developed multiple nodes and networks across the Indian Ocean that constituted an empire characterized by partial sovereignties. The VOCs imperial headquarters in Batavia (modern Jakarta) was the main node in these networks that linked the Cape of Good Hope on the tip of Southern Africa to the coastal regions of South Asia, Sri Lanka, the Strait of Malacca region, and the Indonesian archipelago.

Ward is currently working on two areas of research that emerge from her expertise: first, human trafficking and the intersection with museums, and second, the long trajectory of Indian Ocean history.

Exhibiting Modern Slavery: Anti-human trafficking in American Museums explores how museums have engaged with the issue of human trafficking through exhibitions, online media, organizations to educate their public about this crucial social issue. The intersection of museums with anti-human trafficking awareness, advocacy, and activism demonstrates how museums interpret social issues through their own missions and collections – and through the partnerships they enter into with organizations and individuals. Museums have become crucial institutions in exposing the public to contemporary social issues.

The American Civil War in the Indian Ocean: Global Dimensions of a National Conflict analyzes the conduct and impact of the Civil War in an entirely new perspective. It expands our understanding of the origins of American globalization in the nineteenth century. Moving
beyond established area studies of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, this project contributes to our understanding of the Indian Ocean as a region. It uses the Confederate commerce raiding cruises in the region to shine a spotlight on sites in South Africa, Singapore,
India, and Australia where the Confederate ships affected much more than US trade, diplomacy, and maritime networks.

Dr. Ward regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate thematic courses in world history. She teaches in the African Studies Minor program, the Museums and Cultural Heritage minor program, and courses in the minor in Poverty, Justice and Human Capabilities. She offers courses on modern slavery and human trafficking, museums in world history, South African history, and Indian Ocean history. She is interested in working with graduate students who want to integrate world history into their primary research and teaching fields.

Selected Publications:

• Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
• Ross E. Dunn, Laura J. Mitchell, and Kerry Ward, The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers (University of California Press, 2016).
• "Maritime Bondage: Comparing Past and Present," in Elizabeth Swanson and James Brewer Stewart eds., Human Bondage and Abolition: New Histories of Past and Present Slaveries (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
• "Gender and Coerced Labor," (with Pamela Scully), in David Eltis, Stanley L. Engerman, Deymour Drescher, and David Richardson eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery, Vol 4: 1804-2016. (Cambridge University Press, 2017).