CFP: Slavery Past, Present and Future

It is an unfortunate truth that slavery, in one form or another,
exists in almost all human societies. The 2014 United States State
Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, for example, claims that
virtually every country in the world is now a source, transit, or
destination point for human trafficking, which it describes as a
"modern form of slavery."

Is slavery an inevitable part of the human condition? Controversial
estimates indicate that up to 35 million people worldwide are
enslaved. This modern re-emergence of slavery following abolition
over two hundred years ago, is said to be linked to the deepening
interconnectedness of countries in the global economy,
overpopulation, and the economic and other vulnerabilities of the
individual victims and communities.

This conference will explore slavery in all its dimensions and, in
particular, the ways in which we understand and attempt to respond to
it.

Throughout history, slavery (the purchase and sale of human beings as
chattel), enslavement (through conquest, and exploitation of
indebtedness, among other vulnerabilities), and similar extreme forms
of exploitation and control have been well documented.

Slightly more than two hundred years ago a hard fought consensus
emerged regarding the evils and wrongness of human enslavement. (In
2007 the United Kingdom celebrated the 200th anniversary of its
abolition of the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans. In 2008
the United States followed suit.) Yet, despite these historic
triumphs, slavery continued in various forms.

Submissions to this conference are sought from people from all
genders and walks of life, including academics (from multiple
disciplines, such as art, anthropology, history, ethnic studies,
politics, economics) and non-academics; social workers, activists,
and health care professionals; government representatives and policy
makers; former slaves and indentured laborers; members of at-risk
populations such as migrant and guest workers, non-regularized
immigrants, and refugees.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of potential themes:

- What is slavery - social, cultural, and legal definitions?
- Is human trafficking a modern form of slavery
- The experience of slavery (from the perspectives of slave, slave
  master, and society)
- The legacies of slavery in contemporary life: Power-subordination
  structures; Guilt (ancestral, descendant, survivors', beneficiary's)
  and its rejection; reparations
- Contemporary anti-trafficking and anti-slavery organizations, their
  missions, methodologies, and effectiveness
- Social, cultural, political, and economic structures that create
  and sustain slavery through space and time
- Enslavement and its effects on families and societies
- The perils and successes of rescue and rehabilitation; what are the
  risks of re-enslavement?
- Self-enslavement: can a human sell himself?
- Addiction as enslavement?
- Is enslavement gendered?
- The role of race, ethnicity and otherness
- Official commemorations and denials of and apologies for slavery
- Education and educating about slavery
- Experiencing enslavement through literature, visual and performance
  arts

The Steering Group welcomes the submission of proposals for short
workshops, practitioner-based activities, performances, and
pre-formed panels. We particularly welcome short film screenings;
photographic essays; installations; interactive talks and alternative
presentation styles that encourage engagement.

What to Send:
Proposals will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word
proposals should be submitted by Friday 13th March 2015. If a
proposal is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no
more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 22nd May 2015.
Proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising
Chairs; proposals may be in Word or RTF formats with the following
information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in
programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of
proposal, f) up to 10 keywords. E-mails should be entitled: Slavery 1
Proposal Submission.

All abstracts will be at least double blind peer reviewed. Please use
plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any
special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or
underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all proposals
submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should
assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in
cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic
route or resend.

Organising Chairs:
Karen E. Bravo: [email protected]
Rob Fisher: [email protected]

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries domain which
aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to
share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of
intellectual and academic exploration. All proposals accepted for and
presented at the conference must be in English and will be eligible
for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected proposals may be developed
for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All publications
from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from
interested delegates from the conference.

Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal courtesy and
professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should
attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to
make this commitment, please do not submit an abstract for
presentation.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and
we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel
or subsistence.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/hostility-and-violence/slavery-past-present-and-future/call-for-presentations/