Call for Papers – “Aspects of Human Bondage and Trafficking in the Indian Ocean World (from East Africa to China) from early times to the present day”

The Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC), at Mcgill University calls for papers for an online workshop on “Aspects of Human Bondage and Trafficking in the Indian Ocean World (from East Africa to China) from early times to the present day” to be held in mid-2025.

The collection of essays published in The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia edited by Gwyn Campbell appeared in 2004. The rationale for that volume was to explore structures of human bondage and human trafficking outside the Atlantic -based paradigms defined by the dichotomy between “slavery” and “freedom” and an almost exclusive focus of the Black-New World experience that had hitherto dominated slavery studies. Over the last twenty years the study of IOW bondage and human trafficking has opened up new avenues of research, including the relationship between environmental factors and enslavement, gender and age structures of bondage, the wide range of unfreedoms, and past-to-present patterns of bondage. The time has come to reflect this new research in a publication that will contribute substantially to a greater understanding of human bondage.

Selected papers will be published in an edited volume. Those interested should send a provisional title and one-paragraph abstract to Gwyn Campbell (gwyn.campbell@mcgill.ca) by 15 February 2025.