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Modern Slavery: The Margins of Freedom
Providing a unique critical perspective to debates on slavery, this book brings the literature on transatlantic slavery into dialogue with research on informal sector labour, child labour, migration, debt, prisoners, and sex work in the contemporary world in order to challenge popular and policy discourse on modern slavery.
- GenresNonfiction
260 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2015
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January 20, 2024
This is one of the most unorthodox and thought-provoking academic books I’ve read in a while. I don’t agree with all of Davidson’s conclusions here but I do think it is definitely worth a read.
The title is a bit of a misnomer, as it is actually a searing critique of the concept of “modern slavery” upheld by the so-called “new abolitionist” academics, activists, and NGOs. On the surface it seems like an odd topic to be critical of— it’s bred a field filled with passionate people who aim to alleviate the plights of those who suffer from extreme forms of economic and sexual exploitation. Many of these victims persist on the margins of society and are not protected by the governments in the countries they’re toiling in, and so the idea is that if more people are made familiar of their situations, collective action can be mobilized to minimize the prevalence of all these forms of oppression. More individuals can therefore be saved from their slavery-like conditions.
The number of people who fall under this list of modern slaves goes into the several millions depending on which metrics one is using. For example, according to the Global Slavery Index, an influential report co-authored by professor Kevin Bales, there are around 50 million slaves as of 2021: 27.6 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriages. Bales is notable for being one of the most well-known of the new abolitionists and so his writings are the target of most of Davidson’s critiques in this book. I have to admit that I haven’t read any of his works, as my introduction to this field was through the writings of Siddharth Kara, though I found that a lot of her critiques didn’t apply as cleanly to his work, and so it felt to me more so a specific critique of Kevin Bales himself.
It’s difficult to summarize her main issues with “modern slavery,” but they surround the complex notions of freedom, agency, and the underlying assumptions that arise when designating certain people as “slaves.” I found a lot of her contentions to be very rational, almost to a fault, and they often left me in a state of confusion more so than illumination. For example, she argues that what constitutes slavery itself is up for debate, therefore, calling a situation to be a modern form of it is quite meaningless. Some of the criteria used to designate modern slavery, such as forced labor without pay, the complete lack of freedom for self-determination, or being under the control by threats of violence, when retrospectively applied over the past thousand years, would broaden the definition of slavery so wide that it would include most women and children in history. There’s a lot of discussion here about how they pretty much had no rights for a very long time and so that isn’t a good enough indicator for calling someone a slave today. She also argues that when some of these modern criteria are applied to chattel slaves in the past, they don’t cleanly fit either. Some slaves had wages for example, or had the freedom to gain liberation for themselves by working for a certain number of years or in a sense by violently revolting against their masters—arguably more freedoms than the average prisoner forced into indentured labor every day.
Another contention she has is that the concept of modern slavery perpetuates a false binary of freedom and unfreedom, of full consent and no consent at all, of slaves and non-slaves, all of which undermines the agency of the individuals taking part in these situations. She contends that real life situations are not black and white. It seemed to me that Davidson’s main issue with modern slavery is that she conceives a lot of the rhetoric around it to bring about an infantilization of women. She uses stories of migrant sex workers a lot as evident for this. She references the work of Siddharth Kara on the “trafficking” into prostitution of Nigerian women into brothels in Italy, and argues that other studies have shown that some of the women go into it quite willingly. That they have agency in their situations. Some even end up working as “madames” of brothels themselves after several years. And so if a woman in a poor village is given the option to migrate into another place as a prostitute so that she can survive—why is that necessarily a bad thing? Yes, in some, or maybe even most, situations, she will be subjected to years of sexual violence and the inability to escape her situation after she agrees to it. Yes, she may be tricked or not fully aware of the limits of her freedom once she leaves her home. Yes, she may be stuck in debt bondage for years before being able to actually make any profit, if she ever gets to that state at all. Yes, if she tries to escape, she’ll likely just be deported. But it’s still not slavery, because she has agency in her situation, while slavery is traditionally rooted in its absence. Davidson uses other examples of child labor as well, or the idea that poor people who choose to work under extreme exploitation so that they can support themselves and their families should be allowed the concept of agency in their situations.
One of her biggest claims in the book is that the rhetoric of modern slavery is mainly used as justification for strengthening borders. She details a history of how the language around this topic has been utilized by politicians and NGOs and argues that they claim to care about “trafficking,” but really just want excuses to make immigration more difficult. And ironically, the difficulties of immigration itself is what causes these illegal systems to proliferate. In other words, “trafficking” only exists because the barriers to legal immigration into countries of the Global North are too high, and so these dangerous situations are developed in order to sneak people into countries for cheaper exploitable labor. And so she argues that the effects of pushing the narrative of modern slavery and human trafficking, has the effect of making these problems much worse.
This is just a slice of the many arguments that Davidson explores in the book. I found a lot of the arguments here very fascinating to read, as she’s very good at showing the depths of seemingly straight-forward issues. I agreed with a lot of the argumentation, almost in a sophistic way, but I came out of the book feeling like it misses the heart of why the concept of “modern slavery” is so persuasive. She is understandably frustrated with the language being used to describe the real-life issues going on, as they are sometimes historically inaccurate or overly simplistic, but she misses the human elements behind the efforts to “abolish” this “new slavery.” Reading Kara, for example, you hear story after story of some of the most extreme forms of exploitation that are otherwise not at all included in public discourse. Their stories are absolutely heartbreaking and difficult to make sense of. The terminology of “modern slavery” seems to me to be there in order to give space to these very specific stories of utter hardship, all of which are brought about by broader issues of poverty in our contemporary society. She criticizes the “new abolitionists” for ignoring the systems in society that lead to the examples they highlight and says that they focus too much on individuals. That it’s more about perpetuating a hero/victim narrative as opposed to actually getting to the bottom of societal issues. This may be true when the language is co-opted by large NGOs or government officials or major brands. But from reading Kara, at least, I don’t think it’s possible to come away from his writing thinking that structural issues in society are neglected. And so the critiques seem more specific to just one person: Kevin Bales. But then again, I haven’t read enough on this topic to know.
It just doesn’t make sense to me for the whole field of inquiry to be thrown away, fully maligned, and even accused of perpetuating the same issues they’re claiming to want to alleviate. Yes, it has some conceptual issues and they’re worth pointing out, but what popular ideas don’t? That doesn’t mean they lose all usefulness. Still, I think this is an important text to read in order to get a fuller idea of some of the conceptual problems with “modern slavery.”
The title is a bit of a misnomer, as it is actually a searing critique of the concept of “modern slavery” upheld by the so-called “new abolitionist” academics, activists, and NGOs. On the surface it seems like an odd topic to be critical of— it’s bred a field filled with passionate people who aim to alleviate the plights of those who suffer from extreme forms of economic and sexual exploitation. Many of these victims persist on the margins of society and are not protected by the governments in the countries they’re toiling in, and so the idea is that if more people are made familiar of their situations, collective action can be mobilized to minimize the prevalence of all these forms of oppression. More individuals can therefore be saved from their slavery-like conditions.
The number of people who fall under this list of modern slaves goes into the several millions depending on which metrics one is using. For example, according to the Global Slavery Index, an influential report co-authored by professor Kevin Bales, there are around 50 million slaves as of 2021: 27.6 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriages. Bales is notable for being one of the most well-known of the new abolitionists and so his writings are the target of most of Davidson’s critiques in this book. I have to admit that I haven’t read any of his works, as my introduction to this field was through the writings of Siddharth Kara, though I found that a lot of her critiques didn’t apply as cleanly to his work, and so it felt to me more so a specific critique of Kevin Bales himself.
It’s difficult to summarize her main issues with “modern slavery,” but they surround the complex notions of freedom, agency, and the underlying assumptions that arise when designating certain people as “slaves.” I found a lot of her contentions to be very rational, almost to a fault, and they often left me in a state of confusion more so than illumination. For example, she argues that what constitutes slavery itself is up for debate, therefore, calling a situation to be a modern form of it is quite meaningless. Some of the criteria used to designate modern slavery, such as forced labor without pay, the complete lack of freedom for self-determination, or being under the control by threats of violence, when retrospectively applied over the past thousand years, would broaden the definition of slavery so wide that it would include most women and children in history. There’s a lot of discussion here about how they pretty much had no rights for a very long time and so that isn’t a good enough indicator for calling someone a slave today. She also argues that when some of these modern criteria are applied to chattel slaves in the past, they don’t cleanly fit either. Some slaves had wages for example, or had the freedom to gain liberation for themselves by working for a certain number of years or in a sense by violently revolting against their masters—arguably more freedoms than the average prisoner forced into indentured labor every day.
Another contention she has is that the concept of modern slavery perpetuates a false binary of freedom and unfreedom, of full consent and no consent at all, of slaves and non-slaves, all of which undermines the agency of the individuals taking part in these situations. She contends that real life situations are not black and white. It seemed to me that Davidson’s main issue with modern slavery is that she conceives a lot of the rhetoric around it to bring about an infantilization of women. She uses stories of migrant sex workers a lot as evident for this. She references the work of Siddharth Kara on the “trafficking” into prostitution of Nigerian women into brothels in Italy, and argues that other studies have shown that some of the women go into it quite willingly. That they have agency in their situations. Some even end up working as “madames” of brothels themselves after several years. And so if a woman in a poor village is given the option to migrate into another place as a prostitute so that she can survive—why is that necessarily a bad thing? Yes, in some, or maybe even most, situations, she will be subjected to years of sexual violence and the inability to escape her situation after she agrees to it. Yes, she may be tricked or not fully aware of the limits of her freedom once she leaves her home. Yes, she may be stuck in debt bondage for years before being able to actually make any profit, if she ever gets to that state at all. Yes, if she tries to escape, she’ll likely just be deported. But it’s still not slavery, because she has agency in her situation, while slavery is traditionally rooted in its absence. Davidson uses other examples of child labor as well, or the idea that poor people who choose to work under extreme exploitation so that they can support themselves and their families should be allowed the concept of agency in their situations.
One of her biggest claims in the book is that the rhetoric of modern slavery is mainly used as justification for strengthening borders. She details a history of how the language around this topic has been utilized by politicians and NGOs and argues that they claim to care about “trafficking,” but really just want excuses to make immigration more difficult. And ironically, the difficulties of immigration itself is what causes these illegal systems to proliferate. In other words, “trafficking” only exists because the barriers to legal immigration into countries of the Global North are too high, and so these dangerous situations are developed in order to sneak people into countries for cheaper exploitable labor. And so she argues that the effects of pushing the narrative of modern slavery and human trafficking, has the effect of making these problems much worse.
This is just a slice of the many arguments that Davidson explores in the book. I found a lot of the arguments here very fascinating to read, as she’s very good at showing the depths of seemingly straight-forward issues. I agreed with a lot of the argumentation, almost in a sophistic way, but I came out of the book feeling like it misses the heart of why the concept of “modern slavery” is so persuasive. She is understandably frustrated with the language being used to describe the real-life issues going on, as they are sometimes historically inaccurate or overly simplistic, but she misses the human elements behind the efforts to “abolish” this “new slavery.” Reading Kara, for example, you hear story after story of some of the most extreme forms of exploitation that are otherwise not at all included in public discourse. Their stories are absolutely heartbreaking and difficult to make sense of. The terminology of “modern slavery” seems to me to be there in order to give space to these very specific stories of utter hardship, all of which are brought about by broader issues of poverty in our contemporary society. She criticizes the “new abolitionists” for ignoring the systems in society that lead to the examples they highlight and says that they focus too much on individuals. That it’s more about perpetuating a hero/victim narrative as opposed to actually getting to the bottom of societal issues. This may be true when the language is co-opted by large NGOs or government officials or major brands. But from reading Kara, at least, I don’t think it’s possible to come away from his writing thinking that structural issues in society are neglected. And so the critiques seem more specific to just one person: Kevin Bales. But then again, I haven’t read enough on this topic to know.
It just doesn’t make sense to me for the whole field of inquiry to be thrown away, fully maligned, and even accused of perpetuating the same issues they’re claiming to want to alleviate. Yes, it has some conceptual issues and they’re worth pointing out, but what popular ideas don’t? That doesn’t mean they lose all usefulness. Still, I think this is an important text to read in order to get a fuller idea of some of the conceptual problems with “modern slavery.”
October 29, 2020
A good summary. I had hoped the author would've discussed in detail the modern slavery practices of the Middle East, particularly the exploitation of blue-collar/domestic migrant workers under the Kafala system in the Persian Gulf states.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews