Modern Slavery Revisited: Unearthing Historical Contexts in Contemporary Discourse

1. Modern Slavery or Modern Marronage? Julia O’Connell Davidson School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS), University of Bristol

2. Dominant narrative of “modern slavery” • Human trafficking – “the modern day slave trade— the process of enslaving a person” • “We” thought slavery was defeated in C19th, but it’s back and it’s worse; more people affected, colour-blind, hidden in plain sight. • Theresa May – we need to “wake up to the horrors of modern-day slavery”

3. Remembering and Forgetting Transatlantic Slavery in “Modern Slavery” Campaigns • Forgets transatlantic slavery emerged and prospered alongside modernity– it wasmodern slavery • Continues ‘transition narrative’ of history as progress from ‘primitive’ to ‘civilised’ • Remembers only European antislavery activism, and calls on us to help “free the slaves”!

4. Remembering Transatlantic Slavery • Modern slavery campaigns invoke the past to emphasise slavery as the reduction of persons to things, human beings to mere suffering bodies.

5. Forgets the Role of the State • “Slave” was a status ascribed by the state • Those with slave status were treated as “things” for purposes of accounting and exchange, but also as criminally culpable “persons”. They had a “double character” (Saidiya Hartman) • Fugitive Slave Law exemplifies • Slavery designated “a relation to law, state, and sovereign power; a condition of disfigured personhood, civil incapacitation, and bare life” (Best and Hartman) • Only those disfigured by slave status could be subject to slavery

6. Racializing the line between Freedom and Slavery • Under transatlantic system “the dishonor, humiliation and bestialization” associated with slave status was racialised as black, freedom, rights and citizenship coded as white

7. Thwarting Efforts to Secure Freedom: State Controls over Mobility • “Modern slavery” talk focuses on Africans transported into slavery • African victims of transatlantic slavery did not want to go to the Americas – they were moved by overwhelming physical force • Those who today are described as ‘trafficked into modern slavery’ almost invariably wanted to move, and did so in pursuit of greater freedom. Better compared with fugitives from slavery. • Need to focus on state control over mobility of groups deemed ‘alien’.

8. State controls over mobility of enslaved historically: • Passports, tickets (visas), fences, patrols, sentries, carrier sanctions, bond schemes, dogs, laws criminalizing those who assisted runaways, Fugitive Slave Act.

9. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide • In C19th slave and free states in the US, law created a “hostile environment” for those with slave status • Hostile environments force people into dependency on others, placing them at risk of exploitation and abuse

10. Framed as transport into slavery • CNN Report on “slave auctions” 2017. • Reports on “modern slavery” in hand carwashes in the UK • Solution = measures to crack down on slavers and prevent people from embarking on journeys that put them at risk of enslavement

11. But framed as escape, we see… • The violent illiberality of methods by which contemporary states seek to restrict mobility • That laws designed to immobilize create vulnerability to violence and exploitation • That campaigns to “spot the signs” are not necessarily helpful

12. A “Safe Whaling App”? • White and black sailors, including, fugitive slaves employed on C19th whaling ships • Working conditions and employment relations could amount to “modern slavery” • Would a “safe whaling app” harm or help fugitive slaves seeking employment aboard whalers?

13. “Modern Slavery” and Immigration Enforcement • Concerns about vulnerability to “modern slavery” used to justify raids on Hand Car Washes and other informal sector workplaces • Mustafa Darwood was not innately “vulnerable”. He was made vulnerable by EU and UK immigration regimes. • He was right to be terrified of immigration officers. So are all irregular migrants and asylum seekers working in UK.

14. Conclusions: Trafficking & modern slavery frame • Obscures the fact that people move in pursuit of greater freedom, and will not stop doing so; • Reflects and reproduces a vision of “them” as quite unlike “us” (“they” should stay where they are, “we” can travel as much as we like); • Distracts policy makers from solutions that are more pragmatic and/or more respectful of human rights, e.g., creation of more and new legal channels for migration, including for low-wage work; refugee resettlement; separation of justice, health, education, and labour law enforcement from immigration controls