Bearing Witness

Contemporary Slave Narratives and the Global Antislavery Movement
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-009-01847-0
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 253 Seiten

Reihe: Slaveries since Emancipation

Since the 1990s, modern slavery has been recognized as a global problem, with campaigners around the world providing assessments of its nature and extent, its drivers, and possible solutions for ending it. However, largely absent from the global antislavery movement's discourse and policy prescriptions are the voices of survivors of slavery themselves. Survivors' authentic voices are underemployed vital tools in the fight against modern slavery in all its forms. Through close readings of over 200 contemporary slave narratives, Andrea Nicholson repositions the history of the genre and exposes the conditions and consequences of slavery, and the challenges survivors face in liberation. Far from the trope of 'capture, enslavement, escape,' she argues that narratives are rich and vitally important sources that enable the antislavery community to be gain important insights and build more effective interventions.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nicholson, Andrea

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. A narrated self: The contemporary slave narrative genre; 2. 'I was free, I still wasn't free': Defining freedom; 3. The construction and reconstruction of slave and survivor identities; 4. Bearing witness: Trauma in contemporary slave narratives; 5. Assuming 'full' freedom: Challenges in recovery; 6. Antislavery strategies and the survivor as activist; Conclusion; Appendix: Table of narratives analyzed; Bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Nicholson, Andrea
Andrea Nicholson is Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, and a member of the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham. Her research primarily concerns survivor testimony and the support frameworks in place for survivors of human trafficking and modern slavery. She has previously undertaken research and consultancy for a range of non-governmental and governmental organizations, including the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery.