Reviews
In Benedetta Rossi's Reconfiguring Slavery: West African Trajectories, trajectories reconfiguring slavery refers to the ways in which traditional forms of slavery have left their imprint on the present and does not include completely new forms of subjugation, exploitation, or enslavement, such as child labor, prostitution, elite capture, or international domination by states or corporations. This stimulating collection for West African scholars provides an abundance of examples of the transformations in traditional forms of slavery covering the range of possibilities, from formerly subjugated groups that now have the upper hand over their former masters to situations where traditional forms of symbolic and financial domination still prevail. Rossi defines the book's focus as categorical slavery in contradistinction to metaphorical slavery, the latter being the extension of the general idea of a hierarchical and exploitative relation to other situations lacking any historical roots in traditional categories of master and slave. Nevertheless, one chapter (by Alice Bellagamba) provides an interesting look at modern metaphors of slavery (e.g., a discourse on civil servants as slaves in the Gambia) and another (by Tom McCaskie) deals with African American claims to pan-African cultural ties to the Egyptian concept of Maat. Reconfiguring Slavery has an introduction and chapter by Rossi, as well as chapters by eight other authors: Martin A. Klein, McCaskie, Bellagamba, Jean Schmitz, Christine Hardung, Olivier Leservoisier, Eric Hahonou, and Philip Burnham. It examines historical trajectories in West Africa in general (Klein), Ghana (McCaskie), Gambia (Bellagamba), the Senegal River Valley and Dakar (Schmitz), Benin (Hardung), Mauritania Halpulaaren society (Leservoisier), Niger and Benin (Hohonou), Niger (Rossi), and Cameroon and Trinidad (Burnham). Rossi notes that slavery is both many things to many people and problematic to define, yet she opts, nevertheless, for a definition based on the lowest common denominator: Slavery refers to the individual or communal ownership of another person or group, whereby 'ownership' is understood to reflect culturally specific meanings and forms of rights in things and persons, as well as their modes of transmission and exchange (p. 6). Wittgenstein (1968) cautioned against definitions that aim to define an essence, and Rossi would have been better served relying on a claim to family resemblances in a book dealing with such a wide range of transformations and trajectories. Rossi criticizes Peirce's notion of indexicality by suggesting that residual stigma associated with former slave status is not just a case of indexicality; she argues that it does more than point and that Peirce underestimates the political implications of indices (p. 25). Peirce had a separate term, symbol (his triad of signs included icon, index, and symbol ), and wisely preferred to define indexicality as things that point on the pattern of a physicist's trace from a basic particle in a cloud chamber. Stigma, felt and perceived, is reasonably viewed as indexical and points to a particular past even if no one alive can recall that past perfectly or even if that past is largely a social construction. Even if an index, as any cultural sign, can be used for political purposes, it is not thereby intrinsically political. In contrast, symbols such as those linked to honor or stigma and used in political or social discourses exist only as signs that embody a set of connotations as people consciously attempt to use them for social work. To use a Peirceian index in social work might involve using it as a sign of the (il) legitimacy of a claim to a particular status and then using this (il)legitimacy to make a social claim, for example, for compensation to right past wrongs for those stigmatized or, even, conversely, to justify continued discrimination. Such a process would not imply that the index was other than an accurate pointer however political the use. Psychological, social, or physical features can all be indexical in this way. While each chapter is rich enough to merit a review of its own, journal space precludes this option. Schmitz, in a careful historical summary of the transformation into patron-client relations of master-slave relationships set up under the Almaamiyat during the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century, captures best the goals of the collection. He defines his piece as a study of Senegambian historical transformations of indigenous hierarchies with a focus on the way in which local systems of hierarchy are transformed during the colonial and independence eras in the Senegal River basin and within migrant groups of slave heritage in Dakar. Significantly, he shows that the trajectories such transformations have taken begin early, under the Almaamiyat, and continue in different forms up to the present. His study suggests that legislation against slavery has minimal significance when it comes to escaping the stigma related to slave ancestry and that transitioning into a client status to former slave-holding patrons is the primary trajectory taken that has actually led to nonstigmatized social status. In this vein, Rossi suggests, in her chapter on Ader (Niger), that if slave status is something that lessens one's social status and potential influence, then migration to a distant place is often not the panacea it is considered: to be in a new place without any social influence (social capital) can be worse than remaining in place if social progress at home is possible and social capital is not accessible elsewhere. The motivation for long-distance migration derives from an important social discourse: the terminology defining forms of migration brings with it a legacy (short-term migration, cin rani, literally refers to migration to ensure annual consumption, especially of dependent classes, while long-termmigration, bida, was the term used for the free or unconstrained migration of slave-owning groups) that colors the ways in which people of both master (imajeghan or ineslemen) and slave (in particular Kel Gress) backgrounds currently view local and long-distance migration and the migrants engaging in migration of either type. Klein provides an overview of the history of slave emancipation in West Africa and the vaccilation of French administrations over the slave question: republican principles supported emancipation, while the need to control populations argued for maintaining local elites. This mandates compromises with elites whose slaves provided the means of their support and whose very existence, stigma, and behavior were indexical of the system of social hierarchy on which elite identity rested. Klein's chapter provides the broadest coverage and is crucial to the argument that local forms of slavery were fundamental to many West African societies, even as slavery varied significantly in its character and trajectories in both the distant and the recent past. Hardung's study of the GanunkeeBe of northern Benin focuses on the discourses of hierarchy that illustrate GanunkeeBe current perceptions of inequality, shame, and fear of the descendants of the slave-owning classes. Leservoisier's chapter provides many examples of new identities created in the face of intransigence to social mobility within Haalpulaar society. Hahonou's chapter on Niger and Benin enriches these insights with a discussion of intellectual stratagems to combat legacies of stigma. Burnham's chapter provides a reflection on 40 years of fieldwork that studied examples of both inclusivist transformations and stubborn exclusivist strategies by elites aimed at maintaining the status quo ante. Acceptance of the ignobility of traditional claims to nobility is everywhere hard to achieve. Reference Cited Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1968. Philosophical investigations. G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. Oxford: Blackwell. This stimulating collection for West African scholars provides an abundance of examples of the transformations in traditional forms of slavery covering the range of possibilities, from formerly subjugated groups that now have the upper hand over their former masters to situations where traditional forms of symbolic and financial domination still prevail. This is an exceptionally interesting book. It breaks new ground and makes a significant contribution to slavery and, more particularly, post-slavery studies. An important contribution to Africanist scholarship ... it has every chance of achieving the reconfiguration prefigured in its title. In Reconfiguring Slavery, Benedetta Rossi and an assemblage of European and Canadian anthropologists and historians pick up where the essayists in The End of Slavery in Africa (edited by Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts) left off. As Rossi cautions, 'The existence of anti-slavery legislation does not automatically imply the disappearance of slavery' (p. 7). The scholars in this collection demonstrate how patterns of exploitation born in local systems of slavery continue long after the 1930s. In recent decades, the meaning and practice of slavery in West Africa has been variously recast as a political metaphor, a marker of socio-economic status, and religious dependency. Thus, slavery continues to be relevant throughout contemporary West Africa. The geographical, temporal, and methodological scope of this ten-chapter collection is impressive. Martin Klein's chapter treats the entire period from emancipation to the present and covers a region that spans more than ten countries. In a similarly ambitious chapter, Philip Burnham reassesses more than forty years of trans-Atlantic research and concludes that 'histories of slaves, and claims to empowerment based on slave ancestry and race such as those that featured so prominently in the Trinidadian Emancipation Day seminar seldom find expression in Cameroon' (p. 220). Several scholars study slavery within explicitly national boundaries in Ghana, the Gambia, Senegal, Benin, Mauritania, Niger, and Cameroon; while others focus on cross-territorial areas of Islamic influence. The methodologies include micro-histories of slavery in Senegal and Mauritania, oral histories among various ethno-linguistic communities in Cameroon, and studies of religious and political dependency in the Gambia, Niger, and Benin. The empirical evidence underpinning the essays resulted from exhaustive archival and field research. Benedetta Rossi, Alice Bellagamba, and Christine Hardung have carried out more than twenty years of field work. Moreover, Benedetta Rossi, Tom McCaskie, Jean Schmitz, Olivier Leservoisier, and Eric Hahonou conducted interviews within the past five years presenting new data for this growing field of study. Like other scholars of slavery in Africa Rossi notes that slavery is a 'dynamic phenomenon' that 'evolves along with changing historical and social conditions' (p. 6). For example, kinlessness, lack of property, and religious and political exclusion are no longer always the key markers of slave status. The essays demonstrate that slavery, and thus freedom, in West African communities is grounded in culturally specific meanings that challenge hegemonic Western notions of both chattel slavery and freedom. As Christine Hardung aptly states, 'The Western term 'slave' simply does not reflect the complexity of the multiple positions articulated in this institution' (p. 131). The interpretations of slavery as historical, categorical, metaphorical, and extraverted are constructive and thought-provoking. These frameworks allow scholars and anti-slavery activists to distinguish between enslavement and modern forms of 'un-freedom, exploitation, coercion and social stigma' among vulnerable groups in West African communities such as women, children, and migrants (p. 8). The collection seeks to 'trace transformations in how slavery has been perceived and experienced by different categories of actors in continuously changing circumstances' (p. 1). Yet the voices of slave masters are conspicuously muted. It is important to balance the histories of slaves with their better-studied masters, yet various essays illustrate that masters and former masters, many of whom stayed in power in post-colonial regimes, contested slaves' attempts to renegotiate their status. Martin Klein's essay points out that slaves had opportunities to earn money, which they used to negotiate their slave status vis-a-vis their masters. Meanwhile, as Tom McCaskie shows, Asante elites, who were the slave-owning majority on the Gold Coast, continue to shape discourses on representations of slavery. Jean Schmitz's analysis of patronage along the Senegal River Valley shows that former slaves achieved social and economic mobility through continued ties of patronage to Islamic slave owners. Yet, nowhere is the ongoing power of the master more evident than in Christine Hardung's examination of the influence FulBe have over their former slaves in northern Benin, where they function as 'intermediaries between the profane and sacred worlds' (p. 126). A comparative chapter focused on the roles slave masters played in reformulations of slavery in West African societies would have been a welcome addition to this collection. As a whole, Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Even though the collection does not make sufficient use of maps, the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. The essays by Schmitz, Hardung, Leservoisier, and Hahonou, in particular, illustrate that slavery is so embedded in other contexts of dependency that freeing slaves through political mobilization, anti-slavery legislation, Western education, and urban employment does not necessarily translate into social and economic equality or an end to dependency. Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Benedetta Rossi's analysis bridges an important gap in the conceptualisation of slavery in the history and contemporary politics of West Africa. In a varied but coherent collection of case studies to which Benedetta Rossi's stimulating introduction does full justice, the red thread is that of the multitude of ways in which the descendants of slaves attempt to evade the heritage of the past, how they negotiate the vestiges of the stigma in their contemporary lives, often in paradoxical and ambiguous ways. Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal ... the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. In Reconfiguring Slavery, Benedetta Rossi and an assemblage of European and Canadian anthropologists and historians pick up where the essayists in The End of Slavery in Africa (edited by Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts) left off. As Rossi cautions, 'The existence of anti-slavery legislation does not automatically imply the disappearance of slavery' (p. 7). The scholars in this collection demonstrate how patterns of exploitation born in local systems of slavery continue long after the 1930s. In recent decades, the meaning and practice of slavery in West Africa has been variously recast as a political metaphor, a marker of socio-economic status, and religious dependency. Thus, slavery continues to be relevant throughout contemporary West Africa. The geographical, temporal, and methodological scope of this ten-chapter collection is impressive. Martin Klein's chapter treats the entire period from emancipation to the present and covers a region that spans more than ten countries. In a similarly ambitious chapter, Philip Burnham reassesses more than forty years of trans-Atlantic research and concludes that 'histories of slaves, and claims to empowerment based on slave ancestry and race such as those that featured so prominently in the Trinidadian Emancipation Day seminar seldom find expression in Cameroon' (p. 220). Several scholars study slavery within explicitly national boundaries in Ghana, the Gambia, Senegal, Benin, Mauritania, Niger, and Cameroon; while others focus on cross-territorial areas of Islamic influence. The methodologies include micro-histories of slavery in Senegal and Mauritania, oral histories among various ethno-linguistic communities in Cameroon, and studies of religious and political dependency in the Gambia, Niger, and Benin. The empirical evidence underpinning the essays resulted from exhaustive archival and field research. Benedetta Rossi, Alice Bellagamba, and Christine Hardung have carried out more than twenty years of field work. Moreover, Benedetta Rossi, Tom McCaskie, Jean Schmitz, Olivier Leservoisier, and Eric Hahonou conducted interviews within the past five years presenting new data for this growing field of study. Like other scholars of slavery in Africa Rossi notes that slavery is a 'dynamic phenomenon' that 'evolves along with hanging historical and social conditions' (p. 6). For example, kinlessness, lack of property, and religious and political exclusion are no longer always the key markers of slave status. The essays demonstrate that slavery, and thus freedom, in West African communities is grounded in culturally specific meanings that challenge hegemonic Western notions of both chattel slavery and freedom. As Christine Hardung aptly states, 'The Western term 'slave' simply does not reflect the complexity of the multiple positions articulated in this institution' (p. 131). The interpretations of slavery as historical, categorical, metaphorical, and extraverted are constructive and thought-provoking. These frameworks allow scholars and anti-slavery activists to distinguish between enslavement and modern forms of 'un-freedom, exploitation, coercion and social stigma' among vulnerable groups in West African communities such as women, children, and migrants (p. 8). The collection seeks to 'trace transformations in how slavery has been perceived and experienced by different categories of actors in continuously changing circumstances' (p. 1). Yet the voices of slave masters are conspicuously muted. It is important to balance the histories of slaves with their better-studied masters, yet various essays illustrate that masters and former masters, many of whom stayed in power in post-colonial regimes, contested slaves' attempts to renegotiate their status. Martin Klein's essay points out that slaves had opportunities to earn money, which they used to negotiate their slave status vis-a-vis their masters. Meanwhile, as Tom McCaskie shows, Asante elites, who were the slave-owning majority on the Gold Coast, continue to shape discourses on representations of slavery. Jean Schmitz's analysis of patronage along the Senegal River Valley shows that former slaves achieved social and economic mobility through continued ties of patronage to Islamic slave owners. Yet, nowhere is the ongoing power of the master more evident than in Christine Hardung's examination of the influence FulBe have over their former slaves in northern Benin, where they function as 'intermediaries between the profane and sacred worlds' (p. 126). A comparative chapter focused on the roles slave masters played in reformulations of slavery in West African societies would have been a welcome addition to this collection. As a whole, Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Even though the collection does not make sufficient use of maps, the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. The essays by Schmitz, Hardung, Leservoisier, and Hahonou, in particular, illustrate that slavery is so embedded in other contexts of dependency that freeing slaves through political mobilization, anti-slavery legislation, Western education, and urban employment does not necessarily translate into social and economic equality or an end to dependency. Benedetta Rossi rassemble dans son livre une serie de contributions issues d'une conference tenue a Londres en 2007 pour marquer I'anniversaire de l'abolition de la traite par la Grande Bretagne. Son ouvrage reunit historiens et anthropologues d'horizons geographiques varies (Grande Bretagne, Canada, France, Italie, Autriche, Benin). L'effort de traduction doit etre loue ! Le chapitre de Martin Klein fournit une synthese tres claire de I'evolution historique de I' esclavage dans toute la region. Il permet de situer les autres chapitres plus focalises geographiquement dont la moiM aborde, a travers le continent, l'esclavage peul (5 sur 10). La contribution de Tom Mc Caskie, tres originale, retrace la relation entre le Ghana et des mouvements de descendants d'esclaves nord-americains afro-centristes. D'un cote, les enjeux politiques internes et externes du Ghana (desir de s' attirer le soutien du black caucus americain, opposition entre les presidents ghaneens successifs Rawlings, puis Kufuor). Les enjeux de developpement economique sont egalement importants avec l'essor d'un tourisme de diaspora autour des lieux de traite. La politique de distribution d'honneurs et de titres coutumiers aux leaders afro-americains, dans l'espoir d'encourager des projets de developpement, constitue un developpement fascinant. Ces constructions se developpent dans un contexte de negation de l'esclavage interne par les descendants des victimes de la traite, impregne d'ideologie raciste americaine. Leurs vis-a-vis Africains, eux, les accueillent avec cynisme toujours habites du mepris propre a une culture encore impregnee d'esclavagisme. Alice Bellagamba, dans la me me veine que l'ouvrage de Peters on 64, s'interesse a la reappropriation du discours anti-esclavagiste independamment de la realite de l'esclavage et de ses sequelles en Gambie. Les articles de Jean Schmitz, Christine Hardung, Oliver Leservoisier ont une veritable unite, cl la fois dans la methode d'anthropologie-historique et une precision erudite epoustouflante. Heureusement que Benedetta Rosi a pense cl joindre un glossaire cl la fill du livre ! Dans les trois cas, on nous montre trois phases: des logiques longues d'emancipation, suivies de l'impact colonial puis de celui des democratisations des annees 1990. L'article d'Eric Komlavi Hahonou complete fort bien ces trois contributions via la relation entre escIavage et micro-politique contemporaine au Benin et au Niger. Benedetta Rossi nous mene hors du monde peul, chez les Touareg. EIle s'interroge sur la question de la mobilite des maitres et des escIaves, mais surtout, eIle montre les differences qui existent concernant .' l'esclavage entre differents groupes Touareg. L'histoire specifique de chacun d'entre eux influe sur l'emancipation ou la cIientelisation de ces groupes subordonnes. La derniere contribution, de Phi lip Burnham, propose des reflex ions sur l'evolution des discours relatifs cl l'esclavage dans les recherches des trente dernieres annees. Cet ouvrage insiste sur la polysemie et l'inflation des sens des termes esclave et esclavage . Il montre la transformation de l'esclavage cIassique de l' Afrique de l' ouest en d' autres formes de dependance, tout en gardant la meme designation. Il montre pour les ex-esclaves 1'importance du patronage dans la reussite ou meme la survie comme le cout cl moyen terme du clientelisme.
This stimulating collection for West African scholars provides an abundance of examples of the transformations in traditional forms of slavery covering the range of possibilities, from formerly subjugated groups that now have the upper hand over their former masters to situations where traditional forms of symbolic and financial domination still prevail. This is an exceptionally interesting book. It breaks new ground and makes a significant contribution to slavery and, more particularly, post-slavery studies. An important contribution to Africanist scholarship ... it has every chance of achieving the reconfiguration prefigured in its title. In Reconfiguring Slavery, Benedetta Rossi and an assemblage of European and Canadian anthropologists and historians pick up where the essayists in The End of Slavery in Africa (edited by Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts) left off. As Rossi cautions, 'The existence of anti-slavery legislation does not automatically imply the disappearance of slavery' (p. 7). The scholars in this collection demonstrate how patterns of exploitation born in local systems of slavery continue long after the 1930s. In recent decades, the meaning and practice of slavery in West Africa has been variously recast as a political metaphor, a marker of socio-economic status, and religious dependency. Thus, slavery continues to be relevant throughout contemporary West Africa. The geographical, temporal, and methodological scope of this ten-chapter collection is impressive. Martin Klein's chapter treats the entire period from emancipation to the present and covers a region that spans more than ten countries. In a similarly ambitious chapter, Philip Burnham reassesses more than forty years of trans-Atlantic research and concludes that 'histories of slaves, and claims to empowerment based on slave ancestry and race such as those that featured so prominently in the Trinidadian Emancipation Day seminar seldom find expression in Cameroon' (p. 220). Several scholars study slavery within explicitly national boundaries in Ghana, the Gambia, Senegal, Benin, Mauritania, Niger, and Cameroon; while others focus on cross-territorial areas of Islamic influence. The methodologies include micro-histories of slavery in Senegal and Mauritania, oral histories among various ethno-linguistic communities in Cameroon, and studies of religious and political dependency in the Gambia, Niger, and Benin. The empirical evidence underpinning the essays resulted from exhaustive archival and field research. Benedetta Rossi, Alice Bellagamba, and Christine Hardung have carried out more than twenty years of field work. Moreover, Benedetta Rossi, Tom McCaskie, Jean Schmitz, Olivier Leservoisier, and Eric Hahonou conducted interviews within the past five years presenting new data for this growing field of study. Like other scholars of slavery in Africa Rossi notes that slavery is a 'dynamic phenomenon' that 'evolves along with changing historical and social conditions' (p. 6). For example, kinlessness, lack of property, and religious and political exclusion are no longer always the key markers of slave status. The essays demonstrate that slavery, and thus freedom, in West African communities is grounded in culturally specific meanings that challenge hegemonic Western notions of both chattel slavery and freedom. As Christine Hardung aptly states, 'The Western term 'slave' simply does not reflect the complexity of the multiple positions articulated in this institution' (p. 131). The interpretations of slavery as historical, categorical, metaphorical, and extraverted are constructive and thought-provoking. These frameworks allow scholars and anti-slavery activists to distinguish between enslavement and modern forms of 'un-freedom, exploitation, coercion and social stigma' among vulnerable groups in West African communities such as women, children, and migrants (p. 8). The collection seeks to 'trace transformations in how slavery has been perceived and experienced by different categories of actors in continuously changing circumstances' (p. 1). Yet the voices of slave masters are conspicuously muted. It is important to balance the histories of slaves with their better-studied masters, yet various essays illustrate that masters and former masters, many of whom stayed in power in post-colonial regimes, contested slaves' attempts to renegotiate their status. Martin Klein's essay points out that slaves had opportunities to earn money, which they used to negotiate their slave status vis-a-vis their masters. Meanwhile, as Tom McCaskie shows, Asante elites, who were the slave-owning majority on the Gold Coast, continue to shape discourses on representations of slavery. Jean Schmitz's analysis of patronage along the Senegal River Valley shows that former slaves achieved social and economic mobility through continued ties of patronage to Islamic slave owners. Yet, nowhere is the ongoing power of the master more evident than in Christine Hardung's examination of the influence FulBe have over their former slaves in northern Benin, where they function as 'intermediaries between the profane and sacred worlds' (p. 126). A comparative chapter focused on the roles slave masters played in reformulations of slavery in West African societies would have been a welcome addition to this collection. As a whole, Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Even though the collection does not make sufficient use of maps, the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. The essays by Schmitz, Hardung, Leservoisier, and Hahonou, in particular, illustrate that slavery is so embedded in other contexts of dependency that freeing slaves through political mobilization, anti-slavery legislation, Western education, and urban employment does not necessarily translate into social and economic equality or an end to dependency. Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Benedetta Rossi's analysis bridges an important gap in the conceptualisation of slavery in the history and contemporary politics of West Africa. In a varied but coherent collection of case studies to which Benedetta Rossi's stimulating introduction does full justice, the red thread is that of the multitude of ways in which the descendants of slaves attempt to evade the heritage of the past, how they negotiate the vestiges of the stigma in their contemporary lives, often in paradoxical and ambiguous ways. Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal ... the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. In Reconfiguring Slavery, Benedetta Rossi and an assemblage of European and Canadian anthropologists and historians pick up where the essayists in The End of Slavery in Africa (edited by Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts) left off. As Rossi cautions, 'The existence of anti-slavery legislation does not automatically imply the disappearance of slavery' (p. 7). The scholars in this collection demonstrate how patterns of exploitation born in local systems of slavery continue long after the 1930s. In recent decades, the meaning and practice of slavery in West Africa has been variously recast as a political metaphor, a marker of socio-economic status, and religious dependency. Thus, slavery continues to be relevant throughout contemporary West Africa. The geographical, temporal, and methodological scope of this ten-chapter collection is impressive. Martin Klein's chapter treats the entire period from emancipation to the present and covers a region that spans more than ten countries. In a similarly ambitious chapter, Philip Burnham reassesses more than forty years of trans-Atlantic research and concludes that 'histories of slaves, and claims to empowerment based on slave ancestry and race such as those that featured so prominently in the Trinidadian Emancipation Day seminar seldom find expression in Cameroon' (p. 220). Several scholars study slavery within explicitly national boundaries in Ghana, the Gambia, Senegal, Benin, Mauritania, Niger, and Cameroon; while others focus on cross-territorial areas of Islamic influence. The methodologies include micro-histories of slavery in Senegal and Mauritania, oral histories among various ethno-linguistic communities in Cameroon, and studies of religious and political dependency in the Gambia, Niger, and Benin. The empirical evidence underpinning the essays resulted from exhaustive archival and field research. Benedetta Rossi, Alice Bellagamba, and Christine Hardung have carried out more than twenty years of field work. Moreover, Benedetta Rossi, Tom McCaskie, Jean Schmitz, Olivier Leservoisier, and Eric Hahonou conducted interviews within the past five years presenting new data for this growing field of study. Like other scholars of slavery in Africa Rossi notes that slavery is a 'dynamic phenomenon' that 'evolves along with hanging historical and social conditions' (p. 6). For example, kinlessness, lack of property, and religious and political exclusion are no longer always the key markers of slave status. The essays demonstrate that slavery, and thus freedom, in West African communities is grounded in culturally specific meanings that challenge hegemonic Western notions of both chattel slavery and freedom. As Christine Hardung aptly states, 'The Western term 'slave' simply does not reflect the complexity of the multiple positions articulated in this institution' (p. 131). The interpretations of slavery as historical, categorical, metaphorical, and extraverted are constructive and thought-provoking. These frameworks allow scholars and anti-slavery activists to distinguish between enslavement and modern forms of 'un-freedom, exploitation, coercion and social stigma' among vulnerable groups in West African communities such as women, children, and migrants (p. 8). The collection seeks to 'trace transformations in how slavery has been perceived and experienced by different categories of actors in continuously changing circumstances' (p. 1). Yet the voices of slave masters are conspicuously muted. It is important to balance the histories of slaves with their better-studied masters, yet various essays illustrate that masters and former masters, many of whom stayed in power in post-colonial regimes, contested slaves' attempts to renegotiate their status. Martin Klein's essay points out that slaves had opportunities to earn money, which they used to negotiate their slave status vis-a-vis their masters. Meanwhile, as Tom McCaskie shows, Asante elites, who were the slave-owning majority on the Gold Coast, continue to shape discourses on representations of slavery. Jean Schmitz's analysis of patronage along the Senegal River Valley shows that former slaves achieved social and economic mobility through continued ties of patronage to Islamic slave owners. Yet, nowhere is the ongoing power of the master more evident than in Christine Hardung's examination of the influence FulBe have over their former slaves in northern Benin, where they function as 'intermediaries between the profane and sacred worlds' (p. 126). A comparative chapter focused on the roles slave masters played in reformulations of slavery in West African societies would have been a welcome addition to this collection. As a whole, Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Even though the collection does not make sufficient use of maps, the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. The essays by Schmitz, Hardung, Leservoisier, and Hahonou, in particular, illustrate that slavery is so embedded in other contexts of dependency that freeing slaves through political mobilization, anti-slavery legislation, Western education, and urban employment does not necessarily translate into social and economic equality or an end to dependency. Benedetta Rossi rassemble dans son livre une serie de contributions issues d'une conference tenue a Londres en 2007 pour marquer I'anniversaire de l'abolition de la traite par la Grande Bretagne. Son ouvrage reunit historiens et anthropologues d'horizons geographiques varies (Grande Bretagne, Canada, France, Italie, Autriche, Benin). L'effort de traduction doit etre loue ! Le chapitre de Martin Klein fournit une synthese tres claire de I'evolution historique de I' esclavage dans toute la region. Il permet de situer les autres chapitres plus focalises geographiquement dont la moiM aborde, a travers le continent, l'esclavage peul (5 sur 10). La contribution de Tom Mc Caskie, tres originale, retrace la relation entre le Ghana et des mouvements de descendants d'esclaves nord-americains afro-centristes. D'un cote, les enjeux politiques internes et externes du Ghana (desir de s' attirer le soutien du black caucus americain, opposition entre les presidents ghaneens successifs Rawlings, puis Kufuor). Les enjeux de developpement economique sont egalement importants avec l'essor d'un tourisme de diaspora autour des lieux de traite. La politique de distribution d'honneurs et de titres coutumiers aux leaders afro-americains, dans l'espoir d'encourager des projets de developpement, constitue un developpement fascinant. Ces constructions se developpent dans un contexte de negation de l'esclavage interne par les descendants des victimes de la traite, impregne d'ideologie raciste americaine. Leurs vis-a-vis Africains, eux, les accueillent avec cynisme toujours habites du mepris propre a une culture encore impregnee d'esclavagisme. Alice Bellagamba, dans la me me veine que l'ouvrage de Peters on 64, s'interesse a la reappropriation du discours anti-esclavagiste independamment de la realite de l'esclavage et de ses sequelles en Gambie. Les articles de Jean Schmitz, Christine Hardung, Oliver Leservoisier ont une veritable unite, cl la fois dans la methode d'anthropologie-historique et une precision erudite epoustouflante. Heureusement que Benedetta Rosi a pense cl joindre un glossaire cl la fill du livre ! Dans les trois cas, on nous montre trois phases: des logiques longues d'emancipation, suivies de l'impact colonial puis de celui des democratisations des annees 1990. L'article d'Eric Komlavi Hahonou complete fort bien ces trois contributions via la relation entre escIavage et micro-politique contemporaine au Benin et au Niger. Benedetta Rossi nous mene hors du monde peul, chez les Touareg. EIle s'interroge sur la question de la mobilite des maitres et des escIaves, mais surtout, eIle montre les differences qui existent concernant .' l'esclavage entre differents groupes Touareg. L'histoire specifique de chacun d'entre eux influe sur l'emancipation ou la cIientelisation de ces groupes subordonnes. La derniere contribution, de Phi lip Burnham, propose des reflex ions sur l'evolution des discours relatifs cl l'esclavage dans les recherches des trente dernieres annees. Cet ouvrage insiste sur la polysemie et l'inflation des sens des termes esclave et esclavage . Il montre la transformation de l'esclavage cIassique de l' Afrique de l' ouest en d' autres formes de dependance, tout en gardant la meme designation. Il montre pour les ex-esclaves 1'importance du patronage dans la reussite ou meme la survie comme le cout cl moyen terme du clientelisme.
This stimulating collection for West African scholars provides an abundance of examples of the transformations in traditional forms of slavery covering the range of possibilities, from formerly subjugated groups that now have the upper hand over their former masters to situations where traditional forms of symbolic and financial domination still prevail. Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 5 This is an exceptionally interesting book. It breaks new ground and makes a significant contribution to slavery and, more particularly, post-slavery studies. -- Suzanne Miers An important contribution to Africanist scholarship ... it has every chance of achieving the reconfiguration prefigured in its title. -- P. F. Moraes Farias University of Birmingham In Reconfiguring Slavery, Benedetta Rossi and an assemblage of European and Canadian anthropologists and historians pick up where the essayists in The End of Slavery in Africa (edited by Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts) left off. As Rossi cautions, 'The existence of anti-slavery legislation does not automatically imply the disappearance of slavery' (p. 7). The scholars in this collection demonstrate how patterns of exploitation born in local systems of slavery continue long after the 1930s. In recent decades, the meaning and practice of slavery in West Africa has been variously recast as a political metaphor, a marker of socio-economic status, and religious dependency. Thus, slavery continues to be relevant throughout contemporary West Africa. The geographical, temporal, and methodological scope of this ten-chapter collection is impressive. Martin Klein's chapter treats the entire period from emancipation to the present and covers a region that spans more than ten countries. In a similarly ambitious chapter, Philip Burnham reassesses more than forty years of trans-Atlantic research and concludes that 'histories of slaves, and claims to empowerment based on slave ancestry and race such as those that featured so prominently in the Trinidadian Emancipation Day seminar seldom find expression in Cameroon' (p. 220). Several scholars study slavery within explicitly national boundaries in Ghana, the Gambia, Senegal, Benin, Mauritania, Niger, and Cameroon; while others focus on cross-territorial areas of Islamic influence. The methodologies include micro-histories of slavery in Senegal and Mauritania, oral histories among various ethno-linguistic communities in Cameroon, and studies of religious and political dependency in the Gambia, Niger, and Benin. The empirical evidence underpinning the essays resulted from exhaustive archival and field research. Benedetta Rossi, Alice Bellagamba, and Christine Hardung have carried out more than twenty years of field work. Moreover, Benedetta Rossi, Tom McCaskie, Jean Schmitz, Olivier Leservoisier, and Eric Hahonou conducted interviews within the past five years presenting new data for this growing field of study. Like other scholars of slavery in Africa Rossi notes that slavery is a 'dynamic phenomenon' that 'evolves along with changing historical and social conditions' (p. 6). For example, kinlessness, lack of property, and religious and political exclusion are no longer always the key markers of slave status. The essays demonstrate that slavery, and thus freedom, in West African communities is grounded in culturally specific meanings that challenge hegemonic Western notions of both chattel slavery and freedom. As Christine Hardung aptly states, 'The Western term 'slave' simply does not reflect the complexity of the multiple positions articulated in this institution' (p. 131). The interpretations of slavery as historical, categorical, metaphorical, and extraverted are constructive and thought-provoking. These frameworks allow scholars and anti-slavery activists to distinguish between enslavement and modern forms of 'un-freedom, exploitation, coercion and social stigma' among vulnerable groups in West African communities such as women, children, and migrants (p. 8). The collection seeks to 'trace transformations in how slavery has been perceived and experienced by different categories of actors in continuously changing circumstances' (p. 1). Yet the voices of slave masters are conspicuously muted. It is important to balance the histories of slaves with their better-studied masters, yet various essays illustrate that masters and former masters, many of whom stayed in power in post-colonial regimes, contested slaves' attempts to renegotiate their status. Martin Klein's essay points out that slaves had opportunities to earn money, which they used to negotiate their slave status vis-a-vis their masters. Meanwhile, as Tom McCaskie shows, Asante elites, who were the slave-owning majority on the Gold Coast, continue to shape discourses on representations of slavery. Jean Schmitz's analysis of patronage along the Senegal River Valley shows that former slaves achieved social and economic mobility through continued ties of patronage to Islamic slave owners. Yet, nowhere is the ongoing power of the master more evident than in Christine Hardung's examination of the influence FulBe have over their former slaves in northern Benin, where they function as 'intermediaries between the profane and sacred worlds' (p. 126). A comparative chapter focused on the roles slave masters played in reformulations of slavery in West African societies would have been a welcome addition to this collection. As a whole, Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Even though the collection does not make sufficient use of maps, the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. The essays by Schmitz, Hardung, Leservoisier, and Hahonou, in particular, illustrate that slavery is so embedded in other contexts of dependency that freeing slaves through political mobilization, anti-slavery legislation, Western education, and urban employment does not necessarily translate into social and economic equality or an end to dependency. African Affairs, vol 110, no 440 Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. African Affairs, vol 110, no 440 Benedetta Rossi's analysis bridges an important gap in the conceptualisation of slavery in the history and contemporary politics of West Africa. -- Paul Lovejoy Slavery and Abolition, vol. 31, no. 4 In a varied but coherent collection of case studies to which Benedetta Rossi's stimulating introduction does full justice, the red thread is that of the multitude of ways in which the descendants of slaves attempt to evade the heritage of the past, how they negotiate the vestiges of the stigma in their contemporary lives, often in paradoxical and ambiguous ways. -- Roger Botte Africa, Vol. 80, No, 3 Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal ... the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. African Affairs In Reconfiguring Slavery, Benedetta Rossi and an assemblage of European and Canadian anthropologists and historians pick up where the essayists in The End of Slavery in Africa (edited by Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts) left off. As Rossi cautions, 'The existence of anti-slavery legislation does not automatically imply the disappearance of slavery' (p. 7). The scholars in this collection demonstrate how patterns of exploitation born in local systems of slavery continue long after the 1930s. In recent decades, the meaning and practice of slavery in West Africa has been variously recast as a political metaphor, a marker of socio-economic status, and religious dependency. Thus, slavery continues to be relevant throughout contemporary West Africa. The geographical, temporal, and methodological scope of this ten-chapter collection is impressive. Martin Klein's chapter treats the entire period from emancipation to the present and covers a region that spans more than ten countries. In a similarly ambitious chapter, Philip Burnham reassesses more than forty years of trans-Atlantic research and concludes that 'histories of slaves, and claims to empowerment based on slave ancestry and race such as those that featured so prominently in the Trinidadian Emancipation Day seminar seldom find expression in Cameroon' (p. 220). Several scholars study slavery within explicitly national boundaries in Ghana, the Gambia, Senegal, Benin, Mauritania, Niger, and Cameroon; while others focus on cross-territorial areas of Islamic influence. The methodologies include micro-histories of slavery in Senegal and Mauritania, oral histories among various ethno-linguistic communities in Cameroon, and studies of religious and political dependency in the Gambia, Niger, and Benin. The empirical evidence underpinning the essays resulted from exhaustive archival and field research. Benedetta Rossi, Alice Bellagamba, and Christine Hardung have carried out more than twenty years of field work. Moreover, Benedetta Rossi, Tom McCaskie, Jean Schmitz, Olivier Leservoisier, and Eric Hahonou conducted interviews within the past five years presenting new data for this growing field of study. Like other scholars of slavery in Africa Rossi notes that slavery is a 'dynamic phenomenon' that 'evolves along with hanging historical and social conditions' (p. 6). For example, kinlessness, lack of property, and religious and political exclusion are no longer always the key markers of slave status. The essays demonstrate that slavery, and thus freedom, in West African communities is grounded in culturally specific meanings that challenge hegemonic Western notions of both chattel slavery and freedom. As Christine Hardung aptly states, 'The Western term 'slave' simply does not reflect the complexity of the multiple positions articulated in this institution' (p. 131). The interpretations of slavery as historical, categorical, metaphorical, and extraverted are constructive and thought-provoking. These frameworks allow scholars and anti-slavery activists to distinguish between enslavement and modern forms of 'un-freedom, exploitation, coercion and social stigma' among vulnerable groups in West African communities such as women, children, and migrants (p. 8). The collection seeks to 'trace transformations in how slavery has been perceived and experienced by different categories of actors in continuously changing circumstances' (p. 1). Yet the voices of slave masters are conspicuously muted. It is important to balance the histories of slaves with their better-studied masters, yet various essays illustrate that masters and former masters, many of whom stayed in power in post-colonial regimes, contested slaves' attempts to renegotiate their status. Martin Klein's essay points out that slaves had opportunities to earn money, which they used to negotiate their slave status vis-a-vis their masters. Meanwhile, as Tom McCaskie shows, Asante elites, who were the slave-owning majority on the Gold Coast, continue to shape discourses on representations of slavery. Jean Schmitz's analysis of patronage along the Senegal River Valley shows that former slaves achieved social and economic mobility through continued ties of patronage to Islamic slave owners. Yet, nowhere is the ongoing power of the master more evident than in Christine Hardung's examination of the influence FulBe have over their former slaves in northern Benin, where they function as 'intermediaries between the profane and sacred worlds' (p. 126). A comparative chapter focused on the roles slave masters played in reformulations of slavery in West African societies would have been a welcome addition to this collection. As a whole, Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal. Even though the collection does not make sufficient use of maps, the content and accessible language make the text appropriate for undergraduate courses on globalization, post-colonial Africa, and poverty and inequality. Specialists of Africa and slavery will benefit from the innovative theories and methodologies that the essayists employ. In addition, the interpretations of slavery are beneficial to humanitarian organizations currently working in Africa. The essays by Schmitz, Hardung, Leservoisier, and Hahonou, in particular, illustrate that slavery is so embedded in other contexts of dependency that freeing slaves through political mobilization, anti-slavery legislation, Western education, and urban employment does not necessarily translate into social and economic equality or an end to dependency. African Affairs Benedetta Rossi rassemble dans son livre une serie de contributions issues d'une conference tenue a Londres en 2007 pour marquer I'anniversaire de l'abolition de la traite par la Grande Bretagne. Son ouvrage reunit historiens et anthropologues d'horizons geographiques varies (Grande Bretagne, Canada, France, Italie, Autriche, Benin). L'effort de traduction doit etre loue ! Le chapitre de Martin Klein fournit une synthese tres claire de I'evolution historique de I' esclavage dans toute la region. Il permet de situer les autres chapitres plus focalises geographiquement dont la moiM aborde, a travers le continent, l'esclavage peul (5 sur 10). La contribution de Tom Mc Caskie, tres originale, retrace la relation entre le Ghana et des mouvements de descendants d'esclaves nord-americains afro-centristes. D'un cote, les enjeux politiques internes et externes du Ghana (desir de s' attirer le soutien du black caucus americain, opposition entre les presidents ghaneens successifs Rawlings, puis Kufuor). Les enjeux de developpement economique sont egalement importants avec l'essor d'un tourisme de diaspora autour des lieux de traite. La politique de distribution d'honneurs et de titres coutumiers aux leaders afro-americains, dans l'espoir d'encourager des projets de developpement, constitue un developpement fascinant. Ces constructions se developpent dans un contexte de negation de l'esclavage interne par les descendants des victimes de la traite, impregne d'ideologie raciste americaine. Leurs vis-a-vis Africains, eux, les accueillent avec cynisme toujours habites du mepris propre a une culture encore impregnee d'esclavagisme. Alice Bellagamba, dans la me me veine que l'ouvrage de Peters on 64, s'interesse a la reappropriation du discours anti-esclavagiste independamment de la realite de l'esclavage et de ses sequelles en Gambie. Les articles de Jean Schmitz, Christine Hardung, Oliver Leservoisier ont une veritable unite, cl la fois dans la methode d'anthropologie-historique et une precision erudite epoustouflante. Heureusement que Benedetta Rosi a pense cl joindre un glossaire cl la fill du livre ! Dans les trois cas, on nous montre trois phases: des logiques longues d'emancipation, suivies de l'impact colonial puis de celui des democratisations des annees 1990. L'article d'Eric Komlavi Hahonou complete fort bien ces trois contributions via la relation entre escIavage et micro-politique contemporaine au Benin et au Niger. Benedetta Rossi nous mene hors du monde peul, chez les Touareg. EIle s'interroge sur la question de la mobilite des maitres et des escIaves, mais surtout, eIle montre les differences qui existent concernant .' l'esclavage entre differents groupes Touareg. L'histoire specifique de chacun d'entre eux influe sur l'emancipation ou la cIientelisation de ces groupes subordonnes. La derniere contribution, de Phi lip Burnham, propose des reflex ions sur l'evolution des discours relatifs cl l'esclavage dans les recherches des trente dernieres annees. Cet ouvrage insiste sur la polysemie et l'inflation des sens des termes esclave et esclavage . Il montre la transformation de l'esclavage cIassique de l' Afrique de l' ouest en d' autres formes de dependance, tout en gardant la meme designation. Il montre pour les ex-esclaves 1'importance du patronage dans la reussite ou meme la survie comme le cout cl moyen terme du clientelisme. Journal des Africanistes 81-1
