Objective Contemporary antislavery campaigners invoke the history of Atlantic World slavery to highlight the plight of 48 million people today living in exceptionally harsh circumstances, described as ‘modern slavery’. Yet in a world where many are oppressed and exploited, the lines between ‘modern slavery’ and other forms of drudgery, exclusion, and domination, are not easily drawn. Critics argue that the dominant discourse of ‘modern slavery’ relies upon a highly selective vision of injustice and suffering, and fails to consider or challenge the structural inequalities and systems of domination (race, caste, class, gender, age, nationality) that routinely restrict rights and freedoms. The proposed project retains a concern with the continuing significance of Atlantic World history, but upturns conventional discourse by interrogating the problem of freedom – as opposed to slavery - in the contemporary world. Through fieldwork in Brazil, Ghana, Italy, Portugal and the UK with groups that appear in dominant discourse as at risk of ‘modern slavery’, its key aims are: i) to revisit histories of marronage and other strategies by which enslaved and newly emancipated people sought to move closer to freedom in the Atlantic World historically, and ask what light they can shed on the perception, pursuit and practice of freedom by marginalized and rightless people in the Atlantic World today; ii) to use insights from this dialogue between past and present to contribute to theoretical debates on freedom, and its relation to agency, honour, gender, age, race, mobility, property, and personhood; iii) to work with research participants to co-produce counter-narratives to conventional antislavery stories of ‘modern slavery’, and, by communicating them through performance as well as text, encourage more nuanced popular and political debate on the contemporary meaning and practice of freedom. Fields of science social scienceslawhuman rightshuman rights violationshuman traffickingsocial sciencessociologysocial issuessocial inequalitiesracial inequality Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2017-ADG - ERC Advanced Grant Call for proposal ERC-2017-ADG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant Coordinator UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL Net EU contribution € 1 847 596,00 Address Beacon house queens road BS8 1QU Bristol United Kingdom See on map Region South West (England) Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area Bristol, City of Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 Beneficiaries (2) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 1 847 596,00 Address Beacon house queens road BS8 1QU Bristol See on map Region South West (England) Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area Bristol, City of Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM Participation ended United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 0,00 Address University park NG7 2RD Nottingham See on map Region East Midlands (England) Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Nottingham Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
