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What Slaveholders Think: How Contemporary Perpetrators Rationalize What They Do
Drawing on fifteen years of work in the antislavery movement, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines the systematic oppression of men, women, and children in rural India and asks: How do contemporary slaveholders rationalize the subjugation of other human beings, and how do they respond when their power is threatened? More than a billion dollars have been spent on antislavery efforts, yet the practice persists. Why? Unpacking what slaveholders think about emancipation is critical for scholars and policy makers who want to understand the broader context, especially as seen by the powerful. Insight into those moments when the powerful either double down or back off provides a sobering counterbalance to scholarship on popular struggle.
Through frank and unprecedented conversations with slaveholders, Choi-Fitzpatrick reveals the condescending and paternalistic thought processes that blind them. While they understand they are exploiting workers' vulnerabilities, slaveholders also feel they are doing workers a favor, often taking pride in this relationship. And when the victims share this perspective, their emancipation is harder to secure, driving some in the antislavery movement to ask why slaves fear freedom. The answer, Choi-Fitzpatrick convincingly argues, lies in the power relationship. Whether slaveholders recoil at their past behavior or plot a return to power, Choi-Fitzpatrick zeroes in on the relational dynamics of their self-assessment, unpacking what happens next. Incorporating the experiences of such pivotal actors into antislavery research is an immensely important step toward crafting effective antislavery policies and intervention. It also contributes to scholarship on social change, social movements, and the realization of human rights.
Through frank and unprecedented conversations with slaveholders, Choi-Fitzpatrick reveals the condescending and paternalistic thought processes that blind them. While they understand they are exploiting workers' vulnerabilities, slaveholders also feel they are doing workers a favor, often taking pride in this relationship. And when the victims share this perspective, their emancipation is harder to secure, driving some in the antislavery movement to ask why slaves fear freedom. The answer, Choi-Fitzpatrick convincingly argues, lies in the power relationship. Whether slaveholders recoil at their past behavior or plot a return to power, Choi-Fitzpatrick zeroes in on the relational dynamics of their self-assessment, unpacking what happens next. Incorporating the experiences of such pivotal actors into antislavery research is an immensely important step toward crafting effective antislavery policies and intervention. It also contributes to scholarship on social change, social movements, and the realization of human rights.
248 pages, Hardcover
Published March 7, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 18, 2017
This is not quite a general study of all slaveholders, but more focused on bonded labor in rural India. The practice was formally abolished in 1976, but still continues in the countryside where enforcement is weak. The book is divided largely between theories of societal mobilization and interviews with slave owners.
Those who continue with the practice attempt to justify it either with appeals to tradition, (i.e the caste system), or how they feel compressed between the demands of agitated workers on one hand, and larger multinational corporations on the other (who prefer automation anyway). I suspect that the author had not entirely gained the slave owners' trust, and that they felt ready to justify themselves to him rather than explore their feelings on the matter. Likewise, his dependence on their interviews potentially understates the brutality of their practices.
As for his broader theses - I'm more convinced by his assertion that these practices continue if there is a degree of societal acceptance for them, and as that wears down, so does the practice. As for the talk of how slave owners are products of their own society - well, Arendt talked about that first, but it's possible to understand how and why seemingly-good people make decisions without falling over yourself to justify them.
Those who continue with the practice attempt to justify it either with appeals to tradition, (i.e the caste system), or how they feel compressed between the demands of agitated workers on one hand, and larger multinational corporations on the other (who prefer automation anyway). I suspect that the author had not entirely gained the slave owners' trust, and that they felt ready to justify themselves to him rather than explore their feelings on the matter. Likewise, his dependence on their interviews potentially understates the brutality of their practices.
As for his broader theses - I'm more convinced by his assertion that these practices continue if there is a degree of societal acceptance for them, and as that wears down, so does the practice. As for the talk of how slave owners are products of their own society - well, Arendt talked about that first, but it's possible to understand how and why seemingly-good people make decisions without falling over yourself to justify them.
July 18, 2018
This book does what it says on the tin. It covers slaveholders in India, mainly farmers and quarry owners who employ debt-burdened bonded labourers, and the author aims to help anti-slavery campaigners by doing qualitative research on the justifications those slaveholders use. It also records the ways that those arguments and the preference for using bonded labour are already breaking down as Indian laws are (spottily) enforced and campaigners disrupt the practice by fighting the good fight. It is a very, theory-laden academic text but even if you're not an active campaigner it's interesting ethnography.
September 4, 2017
177 pages, but really 3 pages of writing and 174 pages of bloviating redundancy. He left out everything that would have been of value (first-hand stories with slaveholders), choosing instead to wallow in theory of the most colorless and shopworn variety.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews