On “Modern Slavery” and the Ambiguities of Debt and Dependency

Referentin: Julia O‘Connell Davidson, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol

Abstract: This paper explores the ways in which the discourse of “modern slavery” promulgated by today’s revitalised anti-slavery movement and endorsed by political and business leaders around the world continues the narrative of modernity critiqued by dependency and postcolonial theorists. In particular, it is concerned with the kind of freedom that campaigners wish to bestow on “modern slaves”, and the very particular forms of debt and dependency that they deem intolerable. The paper briefly presents some data from my current research on the tourism economy in Jamaica to consider an alternative framing of the relationship between slavery, debt, and dependency, one that demands, among other things, attention to the contradictions faced by those at the sharp end of global political and economic inequalities.

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