Prof. Gwyn Campbell [Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, Montreal/Canada]

Foschungsschwerpunkt "Gesellschaft und Kultur in Bewegung" und Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien, MLU
Hörsaal I, GSZ/Steintor-Campus, Adam-Kuckhoff-Str. 35, 06108 Halle

Conventional slavery studies overwhelmingly concentrate on the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas from c. 1500 to 1888. In this trade, some 12-15 million Africans, mostly young West African males aged between 15 and 30 were shipped chiefly to the Caribbean, Brazil, and the United States, to work on cash crop plantations and in mines. In the Americas they formed a black chattel class, deprived of human rights, the property of white owners who could abuse and sell them at will. The heritage of New World slavery still pervades American society, over 200 years after the abolition of the slave trade, and 150 years after the end of slavery in the US. It has also led to an almost automatic association in the academic and public mind of Africans with historical forms of slavery, and with chattel slavery as the pervasive form of human servitude. This talk challenges these conventional views through an examination of the history of bondage and human trafficking in the Indian Ocean world, a vast region running from eastern Africa to the Far East.

Gwyn CAMPBELL holds a Canada Research Chair in Indian Ocean World History at McGill University. He gained degrees in economic history from the universities of Birmingham and Wales and has taught in India (Voluntary Service Overseas) as well as at universities in Madagascar, Britain, South Africa, Belgium and France. A specialist in the economic history of the Indian Ocean region, he is a member of McGill’s Centre for Developing Area Studies (CDAS) and African Studies Program. Campbell’s current research is focused on the foundations of the Indian Ocean world global economy, as well as slavery, migration and diasporas in the Indian Ocean world. He is particularly interested in the dynamics of minority cultures, imperialism, globalisation and third world development.

Weitere Informationen auf webdoc.urz.uni-halle.de/dl/290/pub/Affiche_Amo_Lecture_A3_Gwyn_Campbell.pdf