Popular in Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Titus Quinctius Flamininus’ “Italian triumph”

McGill University Michael Fronda

Arts and Humanities

Lincoln and the Jews

Brandeis University Jonathan Sarna

Arts and Humanities

Amputations and Convalescence

University of Western Australia Emily Brink

Art

Drawing on the past: Palladio, his precursors and knowledge of ancient architecture

University of Birmingham David Hemsoll

Art

Language, Sound, and Image in Wallace Berman’s Aleph, 1956–1966

University of San Diego Chelsea Behle Fralick

Arts and Humanities

Early Modern Natural Law Theories

University of Copenhagen Knud Haakonssen

A Cultural History of Slavery and Human Trafficking in the Age of Global Conflict

View more insights in Arts and Humanities - History - Intellectual and Religious History

View more figures from University of York

View the page of Henrice Altink

Read the Study

Slavery and human trafficking have plagued history, with the worst witnessed during the Age of Global Conflict. Henrice Altink explores the enduring issues of exploitation and the emergence of new forms of slavery.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 11, 2023

Generating Workspace

Export as PDF

This video video outlines the author's motivations and objectives for editing a volume that explores unfree labor practices from 1900 to 1945. Initially approached to edit a different volume, the author chose this one due to a growing interest in the resurgence of slavery and exploitative labor during this period, informed by their experience teaching a related course.

Key aims of the book include challenging the traditional understanding of slavery, illustrating that many exploitative labor practices from the past persisted and transformed, rather than ended with formal abolition. The author highlights three critical factors contributing to the upsurge in unfree labor: the global conflict of World War II, the era's globalization and commercialization, and European colonization, which often relied on unpaid labor for resource extraction and infrastructure development.

The volume features contributions from a diverse range of scholars, discussing themes such as the legal definitions of slavery, economic impacts, and anti-slavery movements, while also emphasizing local examples and the global scope of the issue. The author encourages readers to conceptualize labor as a continuum, recognizing the complexity between fully free labor and its unfree counterparts. Overall, the book aims to deepen understanding of the persistence of slavery-like practices and the contradictions inherent in historical attempts to eradicate such exploitation.

Language:

Export as PDF

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.255 --> 00:03.315
So maybe it's, it's good to start off by saying how I came

00:03.335 --> 00:04.355
to edit the book,

00:04.355 --> 00:07.795
because I was approached by the editor of the series

00:07.855 --> 00:10.395
as a whole to edit one of the volumes.

00:10.455 --> 00:12.875
And I think he probably thought that it would've gone for

00:13.385 --> 00:14.675
this, the volume just

00:14.675 --> 00:15.675
before this one, the one

00:15.675 --> 00:18.035
that covers Atlantic slavery in the 19th century,

00:18.035 --> 00:20.435
because I'd written a book about Jamaican slavery,

00:21.175 --> 00:23.275
but I actually opted to do this one,

00:23.275 --> 00:26.275
which covers the period 1900 to 1945.

00:26.275 --> 00:28.435
Because I've been teaching a course, I designed

00:28.935 --> 00:31.955
and taught a course about unfree labor across time

00:31.975 --> 00:35.155
and place, and designing and teaching that course.

00:35.355 --> 00:37.275
I realized that this period was one

00:37.275 --> 00:39.795
where there was an upsurge in slavery

00:39.975 --> 00:42.395
and other exploitative labor practices,

00:42.395 --> 00:44.835
and I thought that if I edit this volume, I'll,

00:44.835 --> 00:48.235
I'll find out more about what were the factors that drove

00:48.305 --> 00:52.195
that upsurge in these different types of unfree labor.

00:52.575 --> 00:56.035
So that's what, what made me up for this particular volume.

00:56.135 --> 00:58.795
And then more specific about what the aims

00:58.795 --> 01:00.955
and the objectives of the volume are.

01:01.605 --> 01:03.275
First of all, what I hope

01:03.505 --> 01:07.955
that readers will get from this particular book is that,

01:08.055 --> 01:11.715
the, so-called that mantle slavery model held, a lot

01:11.715 --> 01:13.835
of powers still in slavery model.

01:14.355 --> 01:16.475
I mean, the model that was in place in the Americas up

01:16.475 --> 01:19.755
to about 1888 where slaves were property,

01:20.065 --> 01:21.875
they were markedly different from their

01:21.875 --> 01:23.075
owners in terms of race.

01:23.735 --> 01:26.675
Uh, they had very little, freedom of movement,

01:26.855 --> 01:29.555
and also they passed the status on to the offspring.

01:30.055 --> 01:32.475
And, and what the book tries to show is

01:32.475 --> 01:35.155
that contemporaries use that as a yardstick

01:35.255 --> 01:38.995
to decide whether a particular exploitative labor practice

01:39.095 --> 01:40.275
was slavery or not.

01:40.815 --> 01:43.675
And at the same time was also used by, you know, those

01:43.735 --> 01:46.275
who wanted legislation to end slavery

01:47.135 --> 01:50.075
to denote certain labor practices as being slavery,

01:50.075 --> 01:52.715
because it was a very strong rhetorical tool

01:52.855 --> 01:54.755
to label label it that way.

01:55.335 --> 01:56.715
So that's, that's one aim.

01:56.815 --> 02:00.835
And then the other aim is to, demonstrate

02:00.975 --> 02:04.315
and explain that sheer upsurge in unfree labor

02:04.615 --> 02:05.835
in this particular period.

02:06.295 --> 02:09.355
And the book points to three major factors.

02:09.695 --> 02:12.555
One of them is the actual global conflict,

02:12.555 --> 02:15.715
particularly the second World War, when there was an upsurge

02:15.715 --> 02:17.795
of unfree labor, particularly in Nazi Germany,

02:17.895 --> 02:19.515
but also in the Japanese empire.

02:20.215 --> 02:24.475
Second factor is very much, the kind of globalization

02:24.535 --> 02:26.275
and commercialization of this period.

02:27.185 --> 02:30.245
So what you see in the period is a demand

02:30.265 --> 02:31.445
for particular products

02:32.185 --> 02:37.045
and in order to, you know, grow, extract those products.

02:37.545 --> 02:40.725
Um, resource was used to unfree labor.

02:41.025 --> 02:44.485
So for example, pearls were in great demand at the time,

02:45.065 --> 02:49.365
and these were particularly, found in, in the Gulf area.

02:49.465 --> 02:50.725
And the gulf area started

02:50.725 --> 02:53.445
to use enslave labor from Eastern Africa to do that.

02:53.505 --> 02:55.605
So particularly young boys that we used as,

02:55.665 --> 02:58.085
as pearl divers,

02:58.785 --> 03:02.925
Linked to that in the period there is, a lot

03:02.925 --> 03:04.925
of migration when people go

03:05.305 --> 03:08.485
to work on these new commercial enterprises.

03:08.505 --> 03:10.525
So, for example, you see,

03:11.165 --> 03:12.805
Japanese contract labors working on,

03:12.945 --> 03:15.365
on plantation sugar plantations in Hawaii,

03:16.155 --> 03:18.725
signing those contracts may be freely,

03:18.905 --> 03:22.765
but getting to these plantations where they then face a lot

03:22.765 --> 03:25.165
of conditions that we would now call unfree.

03:25.985 --> 03:28.885
And then obviously another really major factor in this

03:28.885 --> 03:31.005
period is European colonization.

03:31.225 --> 03:34.485
So the period that the book covers follows on from the

03:34.485 --> 03:35.765
scramble for Africa.

03:36.745 --> 03:39.685
And, you know, you could say it's, it's the, it's the heyday

03:39.685 --> 03:42.365
of imperialism and, you know, the extraction

03:42.365 --> 03:45.165
of natural resources, the building

03:45.185 --> 03:48.605
of major infrastructure in economies that often required,

03:49.105 --> 03:50.965
you know, it required lots of labor,

03:50.985 --> 03:53.285
but often labor for which wasn't paid,

03:53.335 --> 03:55.245
which wasn't freely entered into.

03:55.665 --> 03:57.645
So those are our, you know, the key factors

03:57.675 --> 03:58.885
that the book highlights.

03:59.665 --> 04:01.765
And then you also asked about, you know,

04:01.905 --> 04:03.285
the contributors to the volume.

04:03.985 --> 04:05.325
So there's eight chapters.

04:05.635 --> 04:07.405
Some of the chapters are co-authored,

04:07.425 --> 04:10.245
but the authors are, we're all selected on the basis

04:10.305 --> 04:11.405
of their expertise.

04:12.305 --> 04:15.845
Uh, so we have, for example, Jean, Elaine,

04:15.895 --> 04:18.645
who's a professor of law at Monash University, who's,

04:18.645 --> 04:20.565
you know, one of the leading experts on

04:20.565 --> 04:22.085
international law around slavery.

04:22.905 --> 04:25.085
But we also have, you know,

04:25.255 --> 04:27.765
early career researchers contributing chapters

04:27.765 --> 04:29.085
because of their expertise.

04:29.195 --> 04:31.645
Like, for example, Wilson Bell,

04:31.815 --> 04:34.565
who's an associate professor at a Canadian university

04:35.225 --> 04:39.005
who is an expert on the Stalin, Eric Gula Archipelago.

04:39.225 --> 04:41.245
And he, you know,

04:41.245 --> 04:43.885
wrote a chapter about slave economies in the period.

04:44.545 --> 04:49.165
So a real mix of early career established scholars, mix

04:49.165 --> 04:51.685
of historians, and a mix of social scientists.

04:51.785 --> 04:55.045
But the book does not have, it doesn't start, like, this is

04:55.045 --> 04:57.085
how we understand slavery in the book.

04:57.675 --> 05:00.925
What it does do though, is it really tries to unpack

05:01.105 --> 05:04.245
how contemporaries define and understood slavery.

05:04.745 --> 05:06.565
And particularly takes a lot

05:06.565 --> 05:08.605
of interest in legal definitions

05:08.725 --> 05:11.605
because it was at this moment in time

05:11.795 --> 05:14.525
that the first global efforts were done

05:14.545 --> 05:15.765
to eradicate slavery.

05:16.305 --> 05:20.925
So in 1926 League of Nations, they,

05:20.995 --> 05:23.005
come up with an a slavery convention,

05:23.345 --> 05:25.845
and then four years later, the ILO comes up

05:25.845 --> 05:27.485
with a forced labor convention,

05:28.025 --> 05:31.925
and several chapters in the book really try to unpack,

05:32.025 --> 05:33.925
the definitions in those conventions

05:34.105 --> 05:36.765
and how they came to be framed in that particular way.

05:37.545 --> 05:40.765
And, so that is, is one thing

05:40.765 --> 05:41.965
that the book really does is,

05:41.985 --> 05:45.965
is unpacking the local understandings at that moment in time

05:46.025 --> 05:47.045
of these definitions

05:47.065 --> 05:51.485
and the contestations around that the book tries to show

05:51.545 --> 05:52.965
as well, that, you know,

05:53.065 --> 05:56.565
and alongside a kind of an upsurge in,

05:57.065 --> 05:58.565
Unfree labor, more

05:58.565 --> 06:01.325
and more people being exploited,

06:01.375 --> 06:05.165
there was also a greater diversification of different types

06:05.225 --> 06:07.685
of slavery and other types of unfree labor.

06:08.385 --> 06:11.365
And what it tries to highlight is that some of these,

06:11.375 --> 06:13.685
types of unfree labor had been around for,

06:13.745 --> 06:14.805
for sometimes centuries,

06:14.825 --> 06:16.725
but there were modified, they were changed.

06:17.425 --> 06:22.365
So to give you maybe two examples of that, in, you know,

06:22.365 --> 06:25.565
prison labor had often been hired out, usually

06:25.665 --> 06:27.005
for like neighboring farms.

06:27.385 --> 06:31.885
But what you see in 1900 to about, you know, 1945, is

06:31.885 --> 06:34.445
that it becomes far more kind of commercial on,

06:34.465 --> 06:37.645
on a much bigger scale, particularly in the southern states

06:37.705 --> 06:41.845
of the us but also, especially during,

06:42.065 --> 06:45.765
the Nazi Germany when inmates of camps were hired out

06:45.765 --> 06:47.845
to big firms like for example, Siemens

06:47.845 --> 06:50.245
or iga Faren, that was a new one.

06:50.865 --> 06:53.845
And then another, a kind of, you know, longstanding practice

06:53.845 --> 06:56.645
that became quite, you know, modified in this period

06:57.305 --> 06:59.085
was a practice called Pawning.

06:59.745 --> 07:02.805
Um, if somebody had taken out a debt

07:03.145 --> 07:05.845
and, it was not uncommon in certain places

07:05.985 --> 07:09.165
for then a person, usually a family member to be used

07:09.185 --> 07:11.565
as a pawn until the debt was paid off.

07:11.585 --> 07:13.565
And during that period, they more

07:13.565 --> 07:15.245
or less lost their freedom they had to work.

07:15.945 --> 07:17.965
And what you, you know, this was very common,

07:17.965 --> 07:21.165
especially in West Africa, in the 17th, 18 19th century.

07:21.425 --> 07:24.325
But then pawning also becomes more common elsewhere.

07:24.665 --> 07:26.725
So for example, in Japan,

07:26.995 --> 07:31.845
parents rural in rural areas were really struggling

07:31.865 --> 07:33.925
to make ends meet, would sometimes

07:34.515 --> 07:37.725
poem young daughters to middlemen.

07:37.865 --> 07:42.325
And these middlemen then would often, pass them on

07:42.745 --> 07:44.005
to, brothels.

07:44.105 --> 07:47.285
So these girls entered what was then quite,

07:47.345 --> 07:51.525
an extensive global, trade in, in, you know,

07:51.705 --> 07:53.445
in sex, eventually.

07:53.945 --> 07:56.085
And, and one of the chapters in the book about gender

07:56.145 --> 07:59.845
by Jessica finally really explores that trade, what she

08:00.305 --> 08:01.965
and what contemporaries also called the,

08:01.965 --> 08:02.965
the white slave trade.

08:02.965 --> 08:06.285
Particularly, I think to some extent you,

08:07.025 --> 08:08.845
it may be a useful distinction.

08:09.585 --> 08:13.565
Um, I think it is actually much more that we have

08:13.565 --> 08:16.525
to think about it as a massive pleura of all sorts

08:16.525 --> 08:17.965
of different types of unfree labor.

08:18.625 --> 08:21.565
Uh, some of it which became copied from one part

08:21.565 --> 08:23.125
of the world to another part of the world.

08:23.225 --> 08:25.285
But within particular local context,

08:25.965 --> 08:29.405
longstanding unfree labor practices became modified

08:29.405 --> 08:31.285
because of different factors being at place.

08:31.435 --> 08:35.645
Like I said, for example, the commercialization, the,

08:35.825 --> 08:38.485
migration of people in and out.

08:38.945 --> 08:42.565
All of that changed in some places longstanding practices

08:42.955 --> 08:44.605
like all the other volumes.

08:44.705 --> 08:46.605
In this series, the book covers,

08:47.125 --> 08:48.965
a eight chapters, eight themes.

08:49.345 --> 08:52.405
So there's definitions, there's the law of slavery,

08:53.055 --> 08:54.565
there is the economy of slavery,

08:54.745 --> 08:59.325
The politics of slavery, social organization, gender, age

08:59.325 --> 09:02.485
and family, and then finally anti-slavery activities.

09:03.305 --> 09:04.765
And, all

09:04.765 --> 09:07.405
of these chapters draw evidence from across the world.

09:07.505 --> 09:09.805
But because of their areas of expertise,

09:10.035 --> 09:13.285
authors often bring in examples from their own area.

09:13.905 --> 09:15.165
So for example,

09:15.465 --> 09:17.405
the chapter about the social organization

09:17.425 --> 09:19.565
of slavery is written by co-author

09:19.625 --> 09:21.645
by three African historians.

09:22.105 --> 09:25.405
And they actively draw upon, case studies from Africa,

09:25.405 --> 09:28.205
particularly French Mauritania, which you know,

09:28.225 --> 09:30.565
is a case study you won't find in the other chapters

09:30.565 --> 09:33.445
because of the expertise that the authors bring in.

09:34.225 --> 09:35.365
Um, most

09:35.365 --> 09:39.485
of the chapters rely heavily on secondary literature, so

09:39.485 --> 09:41.725
what other people have already written about the topic,

09:42.225 --> 09:44.605
but they often do bring in primary sources

09:44.865 --> 09:48.485
to exemplify points made to a, you know,

09:48.485 --> 09:51.045
provide a more human interest story as well.

09:52.315 --> 09:54.165
It's important to point out though, that when,

09:54.195 --> 09:56.845
when we talk about primary sources about this particular

09:56.855 --> 09:58.565
topic, at that moment in time,

09:58.985 --> 10:03.005
we don't have many firsthand accounts by slaves

10:03.225 --> 10:05.165
or by other unfree laborers

10:05.165 --> 10:07.005
because many of them were illiterate.

10:07.545 --> 10:11.605
But also, you know, some of the unfree labor practices,

10:11.705 --> 10:14.325
for example, dose in Nazi Germany

10:14.465 --> 10:18.045
or the Japanese Empire, evidence for that

10:18.335 --> 10:20.485
until recently was very hard to get

10:20.485 --> 10:22.565
because a lot of materials had been destroyed.

10:23.065 --> 10:26.405
Or like, for example, companies that hired prison labor

10:27.225 --> 10:29.005
closed, had closed their archives

10:29.025 --> 10:30.525
and they've only opened up recently.

10:30.705 --> 10:34.925
So, so the contributor to the volume do not, you know,

10:35.035 --> 10:39.045
provide much of firsthand accounts of what it was like

10:39.625 --> 10:42.645
to be, an enslaved other, another form

10:42.645 --> 10:44.485
of unfree labor in this period.

10:45.635 --> 10:49.085
Also, you know, all of the chapters have images.

10:49.515 --> 10:51.165
Each has about five images,

10:51.705 --> 10:55.925
and these images range from photographs of unfree laborists.

10:56.345 --> 11:00.405
So for example, indentured servants in the Caribbean to,

11:00.485 --> 11:03.965
a lot of anti, abolitionism,

11:04.075 --> 11:05.725
like abolitionism propaganda,

11:06.305 --> 11:10.805
and then also some images of people who, you know,

11:11.155 --> 11:14.805
enabled condone, systems of slavery and unfree labor.

11:14.865 --> 11:17.365
So for example, there's an image of King Leopold II

11:17.505 --> 11:22.165
of Belgium who, in his, you know, colony

11:22.165 --> 11:25.725
of the Congo allowed for a lot of unfree labor practices,

11:25.725 --> 11:27.285
particularly on rebel plantations.

11:28.025 --> 11:31.245
And then on top of these eight chapters

11:31.245 --> 11:32.325
that draw upon primary

11:32.465 --> 11:35.325
and secondary literature, I also provide an introduction

11:35.385 --> 11:38.845
to the, to the volume where I set out

11:38.845 --> 11:40.765
what the main objectives are, et cetera,

11:40.785 --> 11:43.365
but also focus on some areas where

11:43.965 --> 11:46.645
I think scholars working on this topic could go next.

11:46.865 --> 11:50.245
And, you know, one of these for example is, is work

11:50.245 --> 11:53.405
around memory and commemoration of these practices.

11:53.835 --> 11:56.605
There's a lot of work around memory commemoration

11:56.785 --> 11:58.085
of Atlantic slavery.

11:58.385 --> 12:00.405
So there's museums devoted to it.

12:00.405 --> 12:03.085
Like, in Liverpool we have the slavery museum,

12:03.625 --> 12:06.885
but when it comes to the unfree labor practices in this

12:06.885 --> 12:08.605
period, there's very little there

12:08.705 --> 12:10.885
and it tends to be largely confined to,

12:11.225 --> 12:12.605
for example, Europe.

12:13.345 --> 12:16.725
Um, so you know, sites of former,

12:17.035 --> 12:18.205
Nazi camps, for example.

12:18.825 --> 12:21.085
But there isn't much, for example, about the unfree labor

12:21.085 --> 12:24.125
that was used to build major infrastructure works in Africa.

12:24.265 --> 12:25.885
And I think, you know, that could be an area

12:25.885 --> 12:27.365
where historians could go next.

12:27.505 --> 12:29.725
So they were given, instructions

12:29.825 --> 12:31.085
to cover the whole globe,

12:31.305 --> 12:32.685
but they were encouraged

12:32.685 --> 12:35.325
to really bring in also the evidence from their own

12:35.325 --> 12:36.445
areas of expertise.

12:36.465 --> 12:39.885
And that's what we see. So for example, the chapter around,

12:40.225 --> 12:43.485
abolitionism by Katrina Kfa,

12:43.745 --> 12:45.605
she is an expert on the abolition

12:45.605 --> 12:46.885
of slavery in northern Nigeria.

12:47.145 --> 12:49.365
So she uses that.

12:49.545 --> 12:52.365
Um, well, part of the chapter is a case study of

12:52.425 --> 12:55.245
how slavery in Northern Nigeria became abolished.

12:55.485 --> 12:56.645
I think, you know, the main message

12:56.795 --> 12:59.165
that I hope they take away is that, you know,

12:59.165 --> 13:01.805
slavery did not come to an end when Brazil,

13:01.825 --> 13:02.965
the last country in America

13:03.025 --> 13:05.405
to abolish slavery ended the practice.

13:06.065 --> 13:07.085
It continued

13:07.385 --> 13:10.005
and actually, what a lot

13:10.005 --> 13:13.685
of people will probably find quite, you know,

13:15.165 --> 13:17.425
not quite what they expected is there was actually an

13:17.455 --> 13:18.905
upsurge in slavery

13:18.925 --> 13:21.065
and other types of unfree labor in this period.

13:21.445 --> 13:23.825
And I really, you know, want them to understand

13:24.485 --> 13:26.585
the factors why that was the case.

13:27.245 --> 13:29.065
And I think the other, the other thing

13:29.065 --> 13:32.945
that I hope they will take away is the kind of,

13:33.135 --> 13:34.505
contradiction,

13:34.735 --> 13:36.625
that is happening in this particular period.

13:36.625 --> 13:39.625
Because on the one hand you have this upsurge in on free

13:39.625 --> 13:43.025
labor, and on the other hand you have the two well,

13:43.625 --> 13:47.145
multiple attempts to eradicate slavery on a global scale,

13:47.215 --> 13:49.905
like particularly the 1926 League

13:49.905 --> 13:51.345
of Nation Slavery Convention

13:51.345 --> 13:53.825
and the 1930 ILO four Labor Convention.

13:53.885 --> 13:55.985
And, and what it tries to show and,

13:56.005 --> 13:58.865
and do is explain how these two things could go exist.

13:58.965 --> 14:01.985
And, and one of the answers to that is, is largely

14:02.325 --> 14:03.625
around colonialism.

14:04.365 --> 14:07.825
Um, the need, you know, the, the, the, the, the, you know,

14:07.825 --> 14:12.305
the desire to extract natural resources from colonies and,

14:12.325 --> 14:15.545
and the use of, you know, unfree labor to do that.

14:16.125 --> 14:18.545
And then I think, you know, final point that I hope,

14:19.095 --> 14:22.705
readers will take away or maybe not take away,

14:22.705 --> 14:25.825
but at least think about is what do we mean by free labor?

14:26.645 --> 14:31.585
Uh, the free labor is often posited against unfree labor,

14:31.725 --> 14:34.225
but what I think the book really highlights is

14:34.225 --> 14:36.985
that it's much more of a continuum with, on the one hand,

14:37.045 --> 14:38.305
you know, real free labor

14:38.315 --> 14:40.705
where somebody freely signs a contract,

14:40.805 --> 14:42.225
has negotiated their working

14:42.225 --> 14:43.785
conditions, that pay, et cetera.

14:44.045 --> 14:46.745
And on the other hand, you know, unfree labor practices

14:46.745 --> 14:48.105
with the most extreme slavery

14:48.115 --> 14:50.425
where somebody is somebody else's property.

14:50.885 --> 14:54.185
But the book highlights a lot of different practices along

14:54.185 --> 14:58.265
that continuum, but many of them really to that far end of,

14:58.565 --> 15:00.185
of unfree rather than free.

00:00 - So maybe it's, it's good to start off by saying how I came to edit the book, because I was approached by the editor of the series as a whole to edit one of the volumes. And I think he probably thought that it would've gone for this, the volume just

00:14 - before this one, the one that covers Atlantic slavery in the 19th century, because I'd written a book about Jamaican slavery, but I actually opted to do this one, which covers the period 1900 to 1945. Because I've been teaching a course, I designed and taught a course about unfree labor across time and place, and designing and teaching that course. I realized that this period was one where there was an upsurge in slavery

00:39 - and other exploitative labor practices, and I thought that if I edit this volume, I'll, I'll find out more about what were the factors that drove that upsurge in these different types of unfree labor. So that's what, what made me up for this particular volume. And then more specific about what the aims and the objectives of the volume are. First of all, what I hope that readers will get from this particular book is that, the, so-called that mantle slavery model held, a lot

01:11 - of powers still in slavery model. I mean, the model that was in place in the Americas up to about 1888 where slaves were property, they were markedly different from their owners in terms of race. they had very little, freedom of movement, and also they passed the status on to the offspring. And, and what the book tries to show is that contemporaries use that as a yardstick to decide whether a particular exploitative labor practice

01:39 - was slavery or not. And at the same time was also used by, you know, those who wanted legislation to end slavery to denote certain labor practices as being slavery, because it was a very strong rhetorical tool to label label it that way. So that's, that's one aim. And then the other aim is to, demonstrate and explain that sheer upsurge in unfree labor in this particular period.

02:06 - And the book points to three major factors. One of them is the actual global conflict, particularly the second World War, when there was an upsurge of unfree labor, particularly in Nazi Germany, but also in the Japanese empire. Second factor is very much, the kind of globalization and commercialization of this period. So what you see in the period is a demand for particular products and in order to, you know, grow, extract those products.

02:37 - resource was used to unfree labor. So for example, pearls were in great demand at the time, and these were particularly, found in, in the Gulf area. And the gulf area started to use enslave labor from Eastern Africa to do that. So particularly young boys that we used as, as pearl divers, Linked to that in the period there is, a lot of migration when people go to work on these new commercial enterprises.

03:08 - So, for example, you see, Japanese contract labors working on, on plantation sugar plantations in Hawaii, signing those contracts may be freely, but getting to these plantations where they then face a lot of conditions that we would now call unfree. And then obviously another really major factor in this period is European colonization. So the period that the book covers follows on from the scramble for Africa.

03:36 - And, you know, you could say it's, it's the, it's the heyday of imperialism and, you know, the extraction of natural resources, the building of major infrastructure in economies that often required, you know, it required lots of labor, but often labor for which wasn't paid, which wasn't freely entered into. So those are our, you know, the key factors that the book highlights. And then you also asked about, you know,

04:01 - the contributors to the volume. So there's eight chapters. Some of the chapters are co-authored, but the authors are, we're all selected on the basis of their expertise. so we have, for example, Jean, Elaine, who's a professor of law at Monash University, who's, you know, one of the leading experts on international law around slavery. But we also have, you know,

04:25 - early career researchers contributing chapters because of their expertise. Like, for example, Wilson Bell, who's an associate professor at a Canadian university who is an expert on the Stalin, Eric Gula Archipelago. And he, you know, wrote a chapter about slave economies in the period. So a real mix of early career established scholars, mix of historians, and a mix of social scientists. But the book does not have, it doesn't start, like, this is

04:55 - how we understand slavery in the book. What it does do though, is it really tries to unpack how contemporaries define and understood slavery. And particularly takes a lot of interest in legal definitions because it was at this moment in time that the first global efforts were done to eradicate slavery. So in 1926 League of Nations, they, come up with an a slavery convention,

05:23 - and then four years later, the ILO comes up with a forced labor convention, and several chapters in the book really try to unpack, the definitions in those conventions and how they came to be framed in that particular way. And, so that is, is one thing that the book really does is, is unpacking the local understandings at that moment in time of these definitions and the contestations around that the book tries to show

05:51 - as well, that, you know, and alongside a kind of an upsurge in, Unfree labor, more and more people being exploited, there was also a greater diversification of different types of slavery and other types of unfree labor. And what it tries to highlight is that some of these, types of unfree labor had been around for, for sometimes centuries, but there were modified, they were changed.

06:17 - So to give you maybe two examples of that, in, you know, prison labor had often been hired out, usually for like neighboring farms. But what you see in 1900 to about, you know, 1945, is that it becomes far more kind of commercial on, on a much bigger scale, particularly in the southern states of the us but also, especially during, the Nazi Germany when inmates of camps were hired out to big firms like for example, Siemens or iga Faren, that was a new one.

06:50 - And then another, a kind of, you know, longstanding practice that became quite, you know, modified in this period was a practice called Pawning. if somebody had taken out a debt and, it was not uncommon in certain places for then a person, usually a family member to be used as a pawn until the debt was paid off. And during that period, they more or less lost their freedom they had to work. And what you, you know, this was very common,

07:17 - especially in West Africa, in the 17th, 18 19th century. But then pawning also becomes more common elsewhere. So for example, in Japan, parents rural in rural areas were really struggling to make ends meet, would sometimes poem young daughters to middlemen. And these middlemen then would often, pass them on to, brothels. So these girls entered what was then quite, an extensive global, trade in, in, you know,

07:51 - in sex, eventually. And, and one of the chapters in the book about gender by Jessica finally really explores that trade, what she and what contemporaries also called the, the white slave trade. Particularly, I think to some extent you, it may be a useful distinction. I think it is actually much more that we have to think about it as a massive pleura of all sorts of different types of unfree labor.

08:18 - some of it which became copied from one part of the world to another part of the world. But within particular local context, longstanding unfree labor practices became modified because of different factors being at place. Like I said, for example, the commercialization, the, migration of people in and out. All of that changed in some places longstanding practices like all the other volumes. In this series, the book covers,

08:47 - a eight chapters, eight themes. So there's definitions, there's the law of slavery, there is the economy of slavery, The politics of slavery, social organization, gender, age and family, and then finally anti-slavery activities. And, all of these chapters draw evidence from across the world. But because of their areas of expertise, authors often bring in examples from their own area. So for example,

09:15 - the chapter about the social organization of slavery is written by co-author by three African historians. And they actively draw upon, case studies from Africa, particularly French Mauritania, which you know, is a case study you won't find in the other chapters because of the expertise that the authors bring in. most of the chapters rely heavily on secondary literature, so what other people have already written about the topic,

09:42 - but they often do bring in primary sources to exemplify points made to a, you know, provide a more human interest story as well. It's important to point out though, that when, when we talk about primary sources about this particular topic, at that moment in time, we don't have many firsthand accounts by slaves or by other unfree laborers because many of them were illiterate. But also, you know, some of the unfree labor practices,

10:11 - for example, dose in Nazi Germany or the Japanese Empire, evidence for that until recently was very hard to get because a lot of materials had been destroyed. Or like, for example, companies that hired prison labor closed, had closed their archives and they've only opened up recently. So, so the contributor to the volume do not, you know, provide much of firsthand accounts of what it was like to be, an enslaved other, another form

10:42 - of unfree labor in this period. Also, you know, all of the chapters have images. Each has about five images, and these images range from photographs of unfree laborists. So for example, indentured servants in the Caribbean to, a lot of anti, abolitionism, like abolitionism propaganda, and then also some images of people who, you know, enabled condone, systems of slavery and unfree labor. So for example, there's an image of King Leopold II

11:17 - of Belgium who, in his, you know, colony of the Congo allowed for a lot of unfree labor practices, particularly on rebel plantations. And then on top of these eight chapters that draw upon primary and secondary literature, I also provide an introduction to the, to the volume where I set out what the main objectives are, et cetera, but also focus on some areas where I think scholars working on this topic could go next.

11:46 - And, you know, one of these for example is, is work around memory and commemoration of these practices. There's a lot of work around memory commemoration of Atlantic slavery. So there's museums devoted to it. Like, in Liverpool we have the slavery museum, but when it comes to the unfree labor practices in this period, there's very little there and it tends to be largely confined to, for example, Europe.

12:13 - so you know, sites of former, Nazi camps, for example. But there isn't much, for example, about the unfree labor that was used to build major infrastructure works in Africa. And I think, you know, that could be an area where historians could go next. So they were given, instructions to cover the whole globe, but they were encouraged to really bring in also the evidence from their own

12:35 - areas of expertise. And that's what we see. So for example, the chapter around, abolitionism by Katrina Kfa, she is an expert on the abolition of slavery in northern Nigeria. So she uses that. well, part of the chapter is a case study of how slavery in Northern Nigeria became abolished. I think, you know, the main message that I hope they take away is that, you know,

12:59 - slavery did not come to an end when Brazil, the last country in America to abolish slavery ended the practice. It continued and actually, what a lot of people will probably find quite, you know, not quite what they expected is there was actually an upsurge in slavery and other types of unfree labor in this period. And I really, you know, want them to understand

13:24 - the factors why that was the case. And I think the other, the other thing that I hope they will take away is the kind of, contradiction, that is happening in this particular period. Because on the one hand you have this upsurge in on free labor, and on the other hand you have the two well, multiple attempts to eradicate slavery on a global scale, like particularly the 1926 League of Nation Slavery Convention

13:51 - and the 1930 ILO four Labor Convention. And, and what it tries to show and, and do is explain how these two things could go exist. And, and one of the answers to that is, is largely around colonialism. the need, you know, the, the, the, the, the, you know, the desire to extract natural resources from colonies and, and the use of, you know, unfree labor to do that. And then I think, you know, final point that I hope, readers will take away or maybe not take away,

14:22 - but at least think about is what do we mean by free labor? the free labor is often posited against unfree labor, but what I think the book really highlights is that it's much more of a continuum with, on the one hand, you know, real free labor where somebody freely signs a contract, has negotiated their working conditions, that pay, et cetera. And on the other hand, you know, unfree labor practices with the most extreme slavery

14:48 - where somebody is somebody else's property. But the book highlights a lot of different practices along that continuum, but many of them really to that far end of, of unfree rather than free.

Faculti AI can make mistakes