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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Contemporary Slavery

Popular Rhetoric and Political Practice

Contemporary slavery has emerged as a source of fascination and a spur to political mobilization. This volume brings together experts to carefully explore how the language of slavery has been invoked to support a series of government interventions, activist projects, legal instruments, and rhetorical and visual performances. However well-intentioned these interventions might be, they remain subject to a host of limitations and complications. Recent efforts to combat slavery are too often sensationalist, self-serving, and superficial and end up failing the test of speaking truth to power. Bringing about lasting change will require direct challenges to dominant political and economic interests.


396 pages | © 2017

Law and Society


Table of Contents

Part 1: The Cause of Contemporary Slavery

1 Contemporary Slavery as More than Rhetorical Strategy? The Politics and Ideology of a New Political Cause / Annie Bunting and Joel Quirk

2 Contemporary Slavery and its Definition in Law / Jean Allain

3 When Human Trafficking Means Everything and Nothing / Joel Quirk

4 Asylum and the “Forced Marriage” Paradox: Gender-Based Harm and Contemporary Slavery in Forced Conjugal Associations / Benjamin Lawrance

Part 2: Rhetoric

5 Narrating Wartime Enslavement, Forced Marriage and Modern Slavery / Annie Bunting

6 Show and Tell: Contemporary Anti-Slavery Advocacy As Symbolic Work / Fuyuki Kurasawa

7 Methodological Debates in Human Rights Research: A Case Study of Human Trafficking in South Africa / Darshan Vigneswaran

8 Reparative Justice and the Post-Conflict Phase of Modern Slavery / Roy Brooks

Part 3: Practice

9 Modern Slavery From a Management Perspective: The Role of Industry Context and Organizational Capabilities / Andrew Crane

10 State Enslavement in North Korea / Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

11 Letting Go: How Elites Manage Challenges to Contemporary Slavery / Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick

12 Child Domestic Labour: Work Like Any Other, Work Like No Other / Jonathan Blagbrough

Appendix / Bibliography / Index

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