"The special issue Beyond Slavery and Freedom? makes concrete suggestions how we might move beyond this binary and why we should do so. The introduction argues that the conceptual pair slavery/freedom is deeply entwined with narratives of modernity and progress and has shaped scholarship in very diverse fields. On the basis of empirical research from the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), we identify six possible pathways of thematically and methodologically moving beyond slavery/freedom that the contributions to the special issue address: 1) investigating forms of dependency that are not usually defined as slavery, 2) paying attention to semantic fields that are closely connected to this binary but not usually understood in relation to it, 3) highlighting the connection between (political, institutional) power and dependency, 4) engaging with post-slavery periods and experiences, 5) problematizing the challenges of identifying slavery in non-written records, and 6) underscoring the voice of actors."
(Jutta Wimmler and Pia Wiegmink, "Beyond Slavery and Freedom? An Introduction." Journal of Global Slavery, vol. 9, no. 1, 2024, pp. 1-16.)
The special issue features the following contributions by BCDSS members:
- "Beyond Slavery and Freedom? An Introduction" - Authors: Jutta Wimmler and Pia Wiegmink
- "Serving toward Release: Tattoos, Religious Work, and Coercion in Post-Indenture Communities" - Author: Sinah T. Kloß
- "Nkemvou, Nelo, and Tabula: Anticolonial Resistance to 'Labor Recruitment' in the Early Twentieth-Century Cameroon Grassfields" - Author: Ricardo Márquez García
- "Between Liberation and Recoercion: Release and Repatriation of Russian Enslaved Subjects in the Eurasian Border Regions in the Early Nineteenth Century" - Author: Elena Smolarz
- "Feudalism on the Loango Coast? Louis de Grandpré’s 1801 Account of 'Slavery' in Africa" - Author: Jutta Wimmler
- "Moving Late Antique and Early Medieval Penance (c. 550–800) into the Purview of Slavery and Dependency Studies" - Author: Julia Winnebeck
- "‘A State Is Powerful if Its People Are Being Put to [Good] Use’: The Invention of Human Resource Management in Ancient China" - Author: Christian Schwermann
- "The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism, by Ana Lucia Araujo" - Author: Mary A. Afolabi