It is a timeless question, that of human freedom: what does it mean to be free? Is it merely the opposite of enslavement? We can here start from an understanding that humans have historically and continue to be shackled by many aspects – and in all types - of society, and that forms of human bondage and enslavement continue to exist and constitute a failure to realise human rights and freedoms. Contemporary slavery constitutes a denial and deprivation of socio-economic, political and general well-being.
It is against this background, of asking the vast questions around human freedom and well-being and the challenges that confront them that our project with the Antislavery Knowledge Network is being undertaken. The estimates of people living in conditions of enslavement are staggering, if controversial, with the International Labour Organisation’s Global Estimates of Modern Slavery now placing the figures at more than 40 million people around the world.
The particular historical, socio-economic and political factors, amongst others, in Sub-Saharan Africa present a number of challenges when confronting and talking about contemporary slavery. Although predominant narratives on Africa and slavery tend to consign enslavement to the past, and to look at the present-day legacies of the transatlantic slave trade, more attention is being paid to contemporary forms of slavery. In Africa, conversations around contemporary slavery have brought to the fore the seemingly “seamless” continuation of the exploitation and profit motive of slavery from past to present, as well as the contextual and global economic factors that create and perpetuate conditions conducive to enslavement.
This work on modern or contemporary slavery and its scale does not in any way diminish the horrendous nature of transatlantic slavery. It offers the opportunity to recognise (dis)continuities in the manifestations and other facets of slavery, as well as emphasising the structural and systematic factors that endure to provide the factors conducive to the perpetuation of different forms of slavery.
Introducing the Antislavery Knowledge Network
It is the thrust of our project to explore how the arts and humanities can be utilized in combating contemporary slavery in the Sub-Saharan Africa, with the three countries chosen for the pilot projects being Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Challenge-led multi-disciplinary research using the arts and humanities can provide a greater understanding of the specific country contexts and circumstances within which enslavement occurs. The arts shed light on relationships between society and individuals, institutions and how they interact to produce or confront enslavement. These can be socio-economic, or political, encapsulated in different aspects of cultures, religion, political and economic histories. Arts and humanities are prominent in public debates, yet it is how the contexts and material they engage is selected, represented and utilised to both meet the challenges of development and basic human rights that can shape those debates.
The work of our network will operate in tandem with efforts to meet the goal of decent work – number 8 in the United Nations 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Target 8.7 demands that member states, by 2030: eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms. The network is bound together by a recognition of the agency of those cast as victims and powerless, working with communities that are engaged and development focused, who actively participate in their own journey towards combating contemporary slavery. One of the aims of the project is to develop an exhibition of the work done by members of the network.
Through fostering sustainable partnerships /collaborations, the arts and humanities can do many things, such as shape curatorial practices in museums and other public and exhibition spaces. We want to enable and explore the impacts of multiple representations of enslavement that are accessible to numerous audiences from different communities. These collaborations will strengthen research capacity through knowledge exchange, and the arts and humanities naturally highlight importance of representation, as how stories of enslavement are told matters. This also becomes part of creating awareness, not just of the prevalence of contemporary forms of enslavement in sub-Saharan Africa, but how communities can participate in the fight against contemporary slavery. Shaping perceptions and attitudes to slavery, especially because combating enslavement requires the support and participation of communities.
By its evocative power, artistic creation can simultaneously address the present and the past. It thus reveals the latent and vivid traces of history and memory in contemporary inequalities and injustice – through literature, theatre, visual arts, cinema, music and dance. Artistic accounts and reflections of the slave trade and slavery enable to link us in a sensitive and subjective way to this past by transcending the usual cultural barriers. Artistic creation - which is complementary to scientific research - also enables to better grasp the consequences of this history.
The arts and humanities have a large role to play in addressing contemporary slavery. In addition to developing new ideas to combat slavery, sharpening our conceptual, theoretical and methodological tools, the arts and humanities can also be an important part of how we reimagine the grammars and experiences of compassion, solidarity and the myriad complexities of being human.
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