Capture, Bondage, and Forced Relocation in Asia

Presentation

For several years, networks of historians have gradually formed around workshops, conferences and digital humanities projects to reassess the place and history of slavery and trafficking in Asia and the early modern Indian Ocean. Driven by the ambition of these historians to go beyond the colonial historical framework that prompted the emergence of this new initiative, the intent of this conference is to continue the conversation and expand it to integrate continental and East Asian experiences.

Inspired by a preliminary data set that strongly suggests slavery and human trafficking in Asia may have been at least comparable in number to that of the Atlantic world, these scholars also recognize the need to move beyond the Atlantic as a model of inquiry, with its attendant Eurocentric biases. We aim to investigate slavery and slave trading in Asia in all its historical depth and social, economic, political, and cultural complexity.

For instance, we know from pre-European treaties, yet wish to know more, about the thriving slave trade that flourished across vast parts of Asia. One objective of the conference is to reintegrate these "Asian" treaties, which were then transformed and took on new dimensions with the growth of European colonialism. Yet, this is only one part of a larger picture. While we now have a better understanding of how expropriated people fit into the political economy of labor, we still have much to learn about the social and political circumstances that governed and led to their expropriation.

Capture, forced relocation, and enslavement were not just about the acquisition of dependent and servile labor. In particular, the transfer of women, as well as of children, underscores the need to focus on all factors that facilitated the displacement and trafficking of human beings, to understand better the structures, conditions, and social relations in which transfers of people and trafficking took place. What historically specific dynamics and situations allowed for the social uprooting of individuals and their reinsertion into contexts of enslavement and dependency? How did these processes articulate with wider regional, cross-regional, and global circuits of political economy?

Both quantitative and qualitative research is needed to comprehend better the dynamics, directions, logics and dimensions of capture, forced relocation and enslavement in Asia. A wide variety of papers will analyze the contexts, routes, and means by which people were displaced, exchanged, and reduced to dependency and servitude in Asia, alongside the presentation of related projects on quantitative and geospatial studies of trafficking in early modern Asia.

Participants

Allen, Richard (Framingham State University); Ansar, Anas (Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies); Bischoff, Jeannine (Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften, Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies); Bosma, Ulbe (International Institute of Social History); Calanca, Paola (Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient); Chevaleyre, Claude (CNRS – UMR 5062, ENS-Lyon, IAO); Conermann (Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies); de Sousa, Lucio (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies); Ekama, Kate (Université de Stellenbosch); Fei Si-yen (University of Pennsylvania); Fujitani, James (Azusa Pacific University); Gaynor, Jennifer (State University of New York, Buffalo); Geelen, Alexander (International Institute of Social History); Hägerdal, Hans (Université Linnaeus); Hellman, Lisa (Freie Universität); Jaluzot, Béatrice (IEP de Lyon. Directrice de l’UMR 5062); Kukreja, Akanksha (Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi); Manguin, Pierre-Yves (Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient); Miller, Joseph C. (Université de Virginie); Perez-Garcia, Manuel (Shanghai Jiaotong University); Samantha Sint Nicolaas (International Institute of Social History); )Reidy, Michael (Londres); Souza de Faria, Patricia (Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro); Suzuki Hideaki (School of Global Humanities and Social Sciences, Université de Nagasaki); Thiébaut, Rafaël (International Institute of Social History); van Rossum, Matthias (International Institute of Social History); Wagenaar, Lodewijk (Université d’Amsterdam); Wellfelt, Emilie (Université de Stockholm); Zeuske, Michaël (Université de Cologne).

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