The Sainsbury Research Unit (SRU), based in the Sainsbury Centre at UEA, is a centre for the study of the arts and material culture of Africa, the Pacific region and the Americas.
It has six permanent academic faculty supported by library and administrative staff. Visiting fellows, research associates and postdoctoral researchers working on special projects also contribute to the academic life of the SRU.
It has its own teaching and study facilities and a specialist research library known as the Robert Sainsbury Library, all on hand in the Sainsbury Centre.
Our courses
The SRU offers MA and PhD degrees, with generous scholarships and funding support for students. MRes and MPhil options are available.
It also offers visiting fellowships for postdoctoral scholars and hosts regular conferences, symposia and other academic meetings.
The MA and PhD programmes are intended for those interested in careers in higher education, museums and galleries, publishing, journalism and development.
Our research and teaching
Combining anthropological, art-historical, archaeological and museological approaches, SRU research and teaching are focused on the distinctive cultures of the three regions.
It has a particular focus on how artworks and objects are made, used and circulated – in effect, how they matter to people, both in their original contexts and in the contexts of museums and exhibitions.
As part of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UEA the SRU contributes to a substantial and lively scholarly community in the Sainsbury Centre.
Our people
Events and News
Dr Awet Araya will join SRU faculty in August 2024, bringing a wealth of expertise and experience in the archaeology and material culture of eastern Africa, the Indian Ocean World and its global interconnections. He holds a PhD in African and Islamic Archaeology from the University of Exeter, UK and a BA in Anthropology and Archaeology from the College of Arts and Social Sciences, Eritrea. Between 2011 and 2016, he was curator of the Archaeology and Ethnography section at the Northern Red Sea Region Museum in Massawa, Eritrea, and he also worked as a field archaeologist in major national and international projects, for example at Adulis and Buya. In 2023-2024, he was Africa Project curator at the British Museum, researching and documenting African collections, including gold-weights from Ghana, and researching collector biographies. He participated in the ‘African Histories and Heritage Tour’ programme drafting workshop and the refresh of the Sainsbury Africa Gallery.
Dr Araya’s PhD research examined African presence in Bahrain and the Arabian-Persian Gulf between the 7th and 20th century CE, using African material culture as key indicators. The work involved two field seasons in Bahrain, a review of extensive archaeological literature of coastal and continental East Africa, and an assessment of African ceramics collections at the British Museum and the National Museum of Uganda in Kampala. He is preparing his PhD thesis for publication, tentatively titled ‘African Material Culture in Medieval Gulf’.
Dr Araya is co-organiser of the Forum for Medieval Studies in Ethiopia and the Horn (FMSEH) housed at Debre Berhan University Ethiopia, in close collaboration with the French Centre in Ethiopia and the University of Oxford, and has been active part of public history projects, such as the project ‘Exploring Migration and Blackness Amongst Northeast African Diaspora Communities of London through Ancient Greek Storytelling’, using museum collections to tell stories pertinent to reimagining the past.