Overview

Contemporary slavery has recently and unexpectedly emerged as a source of both popular fascination and a spur to political mobilization. This volume brings together a cast of leading experts to carefully explore how the history and iconography of slavery has been invoked to support a series of government interventions, activist projects, legal instruments, and rhetorical and visual performances. However well-intentioned these interventions might be, they nonetheless remain subject to a host of limitations and complications. Recent efforts to combat contemporary slavery are too often sensationalist, self-serving, and superficial; and therefore end up failing the crucial test of speaking truth to power. The widely held notion that anti-slavery is one of those rare issues that “transcends” politics or ideology is only sustainable because the underlying issues at stake have been constructed and demarcated in a way that minimizes direct challenges to dominant political and economic interests. This must change.

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9780774832434

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Reviews

Contemporary Slavery is a must-read for every academic, practitioner, and activist working in the field of slavery and human trafficking... Each of the chapters provides a new perspective, and the strongest impact is gained by just this: the holistic, diverse representation of observations, analysis, and research ... this book is an invaluable compilation of thoughtful, nuanced chapters, which build a case for more careful academic engagement with the language of slavery. -- Journal of Human Trafficking * Nandor Kunst & Kurttuli Lingenfelter *

Author Information

Annie Bunting is an associate professor in the law and society program at York University in Toronto, teaching in the areas of legal pluralism and human rights. She has published articles in journals including Social and Legal Studies, Journal of Law and Society, Canadian Journal of Human Rights and chapters in various book collections. She is currently directing an international research collaboration on forced marriage in conflict situations with historians of slavery and women’s human rights scholars. She is the coeditor (with B. Lawrance and R. Roberts) of Marriage by Force? Contestation over Consent and Coercion in Africa (Ohio University Press, 2016). Joel Quirk is a professor of political studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Joel is the author or editor of seven books, including The Anti-Slavery Project (2011) and Mobility Makes States (2015). He is a current member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project, where he serves as Rapporteur, and is also an editor for openDemocracy’s “Beyond Trafficking and Slavery.” Contributors: Jean Allain, Jonathan Blagbrough, Roy Brooks, Annie Bunting, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Andrew Crane, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, Fuyuki Kurasawa, Benjamin Lawrance, Joel Quirk, and Darshan Vigneswaran

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