Dang Ke Duc for the ILO/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc-nd)
This piece has been written in response to Rahila Gupta’s piece ‘Defining modern slavery out of existence: who benefits?’, published on openDemocracy 50.50 on 3 February 2016.
Virtually everyone seems to agree that combatting modern slavery should be a top political priority around the globe. But, in a post-abolition world where nobody is legally ascribed the status ‘slave’, and yet where exploitation, oppression, and violence are all around us, what exactly is everybody agreeing to combat? This question provides the jumping off point for my recent book, Modern Slavery: the Margins of Freedom. Drawing on debates amongst historians, philosophers, classicists, anthropologists, and sociologists about chattel slavery’s defining features, the book critically interrogates the definition of slavery used by NGOs like Free the Slaves, Walk Free, Not For Sale, and CNN Freedom Project, which together comprise what I call the ‘new abolitionist’ movement.
