Modern Slavery or Modern Marronage ?

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

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”

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”!

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.

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

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

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’.

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.

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

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

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

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?

“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.

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

Modern Slavery or Modern Marronage ?