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The Palgrave Handbook of Bondage and Human Rights in Africa and Asia

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Illuminates the complex relationships between the economic, political, social, and environmental factors that have produced historical and contemporary forms of bondage and human trafficking in Africa and Asia
  • Features structural analysis of historical and contemporary forms of bondage in Africa and Asia
  • Offers a major corrective to Eurocentric conceptions of human bondage and suggests new directions for research and policy-making

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Table of contents (19 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
  2. Introduction

    • Gwyn Campbell, Alessandro Stanziani
    Pages 1-27
  3. Rural Women as Property in Zambia: The AIDS Exit

    • Jon D. Unruh, Emily Frank
    Pages 289-300
  4. The Persistence of Debt Bondage in South India: Market and Political Alliances

    • Isabelle Guérin, Govidan Venkatasubramanian, Santosh Kumar
    Pages 347-367
  5. Indebted to Work: Bondage in Brick Kilns

    • Smita Premchander, Stuti Poddar, Laura Uguccioni
    Pages 389-414

About this book

In the West, human bondage remains synonymous with the Atlantic slave trade. But large slave systems in Africa and Asia predated, co-existed, and overlapped with the Atlantic system—and have persisted in modified forms well into the twenty-first century, posing major threats to political and economic stability within those regions and worldwide. This handbook examines the deep historical roots of unfree labour in Africa and Asia along with its contemporary manifestations. It takes an innovative longue durée perspective in order to link the local and global, the past and present. Contributors trace shifting forms of forced labour in the region since circa 1800, connecting punctual shocks such as environmental crisis, conflict, market instability, and crop failure to human security threats such as impoverishment, violence, migration, kidnapping, and enslavement. Together, these chapters illuminate the historical and contemporary dimensions of bondage in Africa and Asia, withimportant implications for the fight against modern-day bondage and human trafficking.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Gwyn Campbell

  • École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France

    Alessandro Stanziani

About the editors

Gwyn Campbell is Founding Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, Canada. He is also Editor of the Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies. His publications include Africa and the Indian Ocean World from Early Times to circa 1900 (2019) and An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar, 1750–1895 (2005). 


Alessandro Stanziani is Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and Research Director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris. His monographs include Labor on the Fringes of Empire: Voice, Exit and the Law (Palgrave, 2018) and Eurocentrism and the Politics of Global History (Palgrave, 2018). 



Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Palgrave Handbook of Bondage and Human Rights in Africa and Asia

  • Editors: Gwyn Campbell, Alessandro Stanziani

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95957-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc. 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-349-95956-3Published: 15 January 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-95959-4Published: 26 August 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-349-95957-0Published: 14 January 2020

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 433

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 8 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: World History, Global and Transnational History, Labor History, Social Justice, Equality and Human Rights, Social Anthropology, Imperialism and Colonialism

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access