Contemporary Slavery : The Rhetoric of Global Human Rights Campaigns

This volume brings together a cast of leading experts to carefully explore how the history and iconography of slavery has been invoked to support a series of government interventions, activist projects, legal instruments, and rhetorical performances. However well-intentioned these interventions might be, they nonetheless remain subject to a host of limitations and complications. Recent efforts to combat contemporary slavery are too often sensationalist, self-serving, and superficial and, therefore, end up failing the crucial test of speaking truth to power. The widely held notion that antislavery is one of those rare issues that "transcends" politics or ideology is only sustainable because the underlying issues at stake have been constructed and demarcated in a way that minimizes direct challenges to dominant political and economic interests. This must change. By providing an original approach to the underlying issues at stake, Contemporary Slavery will help readers understand the political practices that have been concealed beneath the popular rhetoric and establishes new conversations between scholars of slavery and trafficking and scholars of human rights and social movements. Contributors: Jean Allain, Jonathan Blagbrough, Roy Brooks, Annie Bunting, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Andrew Crane, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, Fuyuki Kurasawa, Benjamin Lawrance, Joel Quirk, and Darshan Vigneswaran Contemporary slavery as more than rhetorical strategy? : the politics and ideology of a new political cause / Annie Bunting and Joel Quirk -- Contemporary slavery and its definition in law / Jean Allain -- When human trafficking means everything and nothing / Joel Quirk -- Asylum and the forced marriage paradox : gender-based harm and contemporary slavery in forced conjugal associations / Benjamin N. Lawrance -- Narrating wartime enslavement, forced marriage, and modern slavery / Annie Bunting -- Show and tell : contemporary anti-slavery advocacy as symbolic work / Fuyuki Kurasawa -- Methodological debates in human rights research : a case study of human trafficking in South Africa / Darshan Vigneswaran -- Reparative justice and the post-conflict phase of modern slavery / Roy L. Brooks -- Modern slavery from a management perspective : the role of industry context and organizational capabilities / Andrew Crane -- State enslavement in North Korea / Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann -- Letting go : how elites manage challenges to contemporary slavery / Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick -- Child domestic labour : work like any other, work like no other / Jonathan Blagborough Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Part 1. The Cause of Contemporary Slavery 1. Contemporary Slavery as More Than Rhetorical Strategy? The Politics and Ideology of A New Political Cause 2. Contemporary Slavery and Its Definition in Law 3. When Human Trafficking Means Everything and Nothing 4. Asylum Courts And the “Forced Marriage Paradox”: Gender-Based Harm and Contemporary Slavery in Forced Conjugal Associations Part 2. Rhetoric 5. Narrating Wartime Enslavement, Forced Marriage, And Modern Slavery 6. Show And Tell: Contemporary Anti-Slavery Advocacy As Symbolic Work 7. Methodological Debates in Human Rights Research: A Case Study of Human Trafficking in South Africa 8. Reparative Justice and the Post-Conflict Phase of Modern Slavery Part 3. Practice 9. Modern Slavery from a Management Perspective: The Role of Industry Context and Organizational Capabilities 10. State Enslavement In North Korea 11. Letting Go: How Elites Manage Challenges To Contemporary Slavery 12. Child Domestic Labour: Work Like Any Other, Work Like No Other Appendix Selected Bibliography Contributors Index