Research Unchained: the Multidisciplinary Future of Antislavery Studies
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Research Unchained: The Multidisciplinary Future of Antislavery Studies A Special Issue of the Journal of Modern Slavery in collaboration with the Antislavery Early Research Project supported by the AHRC Antislavery Usable Past Volume 4, Issue 2 December 2018 JOURNAL OF MODERN SLAVERY A Multidisciplinary Exploration of Human Trafficking Solutions Volume 4, Issue 2 December 2018 Research Unchained: The Multidisciplinary Future of Antislavery Studies A Special Issue in collaboration with the Antislavery Early Research Project supported by the AHRC Antislavery Usable Past Guest Editors Katarina Schwarz, Hannah Jeffery and Rebecca Nelson Editor-in-Chief Jodi L. Henderson Digital Editor Peter F. Zimowski Web Design Peter F. Zimowski / David Perry Cover Art Courtesy of Joel Bergner Advisory Board Editorial Board Dr. Kevin Bales Dr. Aidan McQuade Dr. Tina Davis Benjamin Thomas Greer Dr. Mohamed Y. Mattar Dr. Zoe Trodd Cory Smith Dr. Carter F. Smith Stephen M. Apatow Dr. Monti Narayan Datta Helen Burrows Geraldine Bjällerstedt Roger-Claude Liwanga Marcel van der Watt Publisher: SlaveFree Today http://slavefreetoday.org http://journalofmodernslavery.org ISSN: 2574-9897 TABLE OF CONTENTS Forward to Research Unchained: Multidisciplinary Future of i Antislavery Studies Dr. Jean Allain and Dr. Kevin Bales Introduction by the editors of the Antislavery Usable Past iii Postgraduate Research Network Special Issue Katarina Schwarz, Hannah Jeffery, and Rebecca Nelson, PhD candidates Part I: Definitions and Legal Justice Approaching Contemporary Slavery Through an Historic Lens: 1 an Interdisciplinary Perspective Rebecca Nelson and Alicia Kidd, PhD candidates Securing the Prohibition of Labour Exploitation in Law and Practice: Slavery, Servitude, Forced Labour and Human 20 Trafficking in Italy, Spain and the UK Dr. Paola Cavanna, Ana Belén Valverde Cano, PhD candidate, and Amy Weatherburn, PhD candidate Strategic Litigation as a Tool to Combat Modern Slavery 47 James Sinclair, PhD candidate Irregular Victims: Investigating the Immigration Status Decisions of Post-NRM Victims of Human Trafficking, the 66 Availability of Eligible Benefits and the Related Impact on Victims of Trafficking Alexandra Williams-Woods and Yvonne Mellon, PhD candidates Reasserting Agency: Procedural Justice, Victim-Centricity, and the 93 Right to Remedy for Survivors of Slavery and Related Exploitation Katarina Schwarz and Jing Geng, PhD candidates TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Part II: New Anti-Slavery Strategies and Cultures “A Colossal Work of Art”: Antislavery Methods of Visual Protest 121 From 1845 to Today Hannah Jeffery, PhD candidate, and Dr. Hannah-Rose Murray ‘They don’t play or run or shout…They’re slaves’: The First 143 Survey of Children’s Literature on Modern Slavery Charlotte James, PhD candidate Analysing Slavery through Satellite Technology: How Remote Sensing Could Revolutionise Data Collection to Help End 169 Modern Slavery Bethany Jackson, PhD student, Dr. Kevin Bales, Dr. Sarah Owen, Dr. Jessica Wardlaw, and Dr. Doreen S. Boyd Collaborating to Identify, Recover and Support Victims of 200 Modern Slavery Ben Brewster, PhD candidate Forward to Research Unchained: Multidisciplinary Future of Antislavery Studies. Allain & Bales. Foreword Dr. Jean Allain and Dr. Kevin Bales This Special Issue provides us with the possibility to look into the multidisciplinary futures of antislavery studies and to appreciate the contemporary terrain in which early career researchers are seeking to establish and develop their voices. It is not surprising that fresh voices are represented here expressing fresh and challenging ideas. Today’s scholarly landscape is a challenging one for these authors, as they are the beneficiaries of an information revolution which has placed remarkable digitised primary sources, a flood of official reports, as well as an explosion in more readily available academic literature at their finger-tips. These riches require them to be discerning in drilling through the various layers of information before they find and develop the veins of knowledge they seek to mine. Each, in their own way, has demonstrated that their research has not been passive, that they have been active in either their empirical undertakings or their doctrinal studies so as to develop new understandings, new ideas, and new theories. There is a clear sense in the writings of this generation that their work is not purely academic, that the issues of slavery and antislavery are at the forefront of the public agenda, and that they are seeking to be part of the solution rather than the problem. For some, this means a critique of broader political and economic systems that drive modern slavery, for others diving deeply into the lived experience of slavery, and for still others it is teasing out the policy implications and most powerful responses to slavery. In finding their writing voice and developing it through this edition focused on Research Unchained, we all bear witness to embryonic avenues of research which may well define full areas of knowledge as we move forward in exploring the ways that human beings exploit each other. These new avenues of antislavery inquiry and knowledge are novel and important and push the boundaries of scholarship. As the study on satellite technology shows, the sky is no longer the limit. But while looking forward, these young scholars are recognising a past with which they must grapple, one which speaks to historical enslavement and manner in which that past speaks to the present. This is a usable past, for the history of all previous anti-slavery work has much to say and teach the current global antislavery movement—a movement that is often sadly unaware of the lessons of its past. Beyond the technologies that will assist in defining this generation of academics, knowledge at their fingertips has also meant that voices long silenced and isolated are now being networked and heard again. As a result, social barriers Journal of Modern Slavery, Volume 4, Issue 2. Winter 2018 i Forward to Research Unchained: Multidisciplinary Future of Antislavery Studies. Allain & Bales. are being dismantled: #BlackLivesMatter, #Rhodesmustfall, #SlaveTech, and #Metoo speak to an emancipatory impulse which is central to antislavery efforts. Recognition of white supremacy, of the monuments to slavers of the past, of racial injustice, and structural inequalities; each emerging movement in its own way redresses the balance towards a more just world. The emphasis on survivors of slavery which is given voice in the three last studies of this Special Issue speaks to this shift and is a harbinger of things to come. The development of these articles have been ‘workshopped’ through annual conferences of the Postgraduate Research Network of the Antislavery Usable Past, a programme of research funded by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council. We have been privileged to see this Network grow and to engage these young scholars, creating an environment for them where they could meet each other, learn from their colleagues in other academic disciplines, enrich their academic lives, and ultimately build networks which can benefit them in their future endeavours - as well as teach us a great deal in the process. The collegiality that has developed is manifest in the co-publications which constitute the majority of the articles in the Special Issue. This is one further example of the future of academic scholarship, where young scholars living and working in different countries, in different cities, having had the opportunity the get to know each other through the Postgraduate Research Network, have been able to bring multidisciplinary collaborative research to print, working at a distance. Each of the authors in the Antislavery Usable Past Postgraduate Research Network Special Issue, entitled Research Unchained: Multidisciplinary Future of Antislavery Studies, is to be commended for both their independent research and the multidisciplinary impulse which has brought them together. As this Special Issues attests, antislavery studies are well equipped to meet the challenges of the future. They have developed networks which will serve them well into this future and have come to learn from each other the various dynamics at play both in their academic lives, but more so in the lives of those who still live in bondage. Their studies, their written works, and their collaborations are in themselves acts of liberation. Journal of Modern Slavery, Volume 4, Issue 2. Winter 2018 ii Introduction by the editors of the Antislavery Usable Past Postgraduate Research Network Special Issue. Schwarz, Jeffery & Nelson Research Unchained: The Multidisciplinary Future of Antislavery Studies Katarina Schwarz, Hannah Jeffery, and Rebecca Nelson PhD candidates With the growing visibility of the contemporary antislavery movement on the global stage, and the rising demand for new and revolutionary research about human exploitation, emergent scholarship in the field is becoming increasingly vital. New ideas and approaches are crucial to understand and engage with the complex and constantly evolving institution. As exploitation adapts over time in response to changes in context, efforts to combat the phenomena must also transform—demanding research that grapples with the myriad of possible forms it might take and presents solutions not only to the problems of today, but to the challenges of tomorrow. Yet, in order to tend to the future, it is fundamental that we listen to the past. History must be the bedrock