Defining Freedoms: Lived Experience Activists' Perspectives on the Relationship Between Human Trafficking and Colonialism in South Africa
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leicester
Department Name: Politics
Abstract
This project will investigate how South African survivors of human trafficking for sexual exploitation perceive 'freedom'. Freedom in South Africa is often attributed to two prominent liberatory milestones: first, the abolition of slavery in the mid-19th century, and second, the dismantling of apartheid in the 1990s. While the transition from apartheid granted freedoms and equalities previously denied to people of colour, many aspects of colonial political, legal and economic frameworks remained unchanged. Modern concepts of 'freedom' have thus developed within the ideological confines of neoliberalism.
In the global north, human trafficking is often defined as a form of 'modern slavery'. Due to the slavery's illegality, modern slavery is responded to as a crime against individuals' rights to freedom (Bales, 2017). 'New abolitionist' anti-trafficking interventions prioritise rescue and liberation of modern slavery victims and prosecution of traffickers. However, little is known about how trafficked individuals themselves define - and are defined by - ideas of 'freedom'.
Running parallel to, yet often excluded from 'new abolitionist' activities, a movement of survivor activists is emerging, whose priorities differ from the dominant anti-trafficking discourse (Dang and Leyden, 2021). These South African survivors describe exiting trafficking into post-apartheid conditions of poverty and unemployment, leaving them contemplating returning to exploitation to survive. For them, rescue is not synonymous with liberation.
In opposition to 'new abolitionists', critical theorists view the afterlife of slavery as situated within global racial and gendered "systems of domination" that have persisted beyond abolition (O'Connell-Davidson, 2022:2). Racialisation is understood as underlying the segregation of poverty and people in the global south, with western hegemony influencing international law in its favour (Sharma, 2020). Anti-trafficking protocols are underpinned by anti-immigration agendas that maintain these structural inequalities (Aradau, 2008; Brace, 2018; O-Connell Davidson, 2022). Trafficking, while exploitative, is argued to provide a means to escape the afterlife of transatlantic slavery, rather than representing a modern form of slavery in itself.
This project will explore how survivors' perspectives complement or are juxtaposed against theoretical debates which delineate modern definitions of slavery and freedom.
Research Questions
1. How do South African trafficking survivor activists define freedom?
2. What relationships exist between survivors' perceptions of freedom/unfreedom and South Africa's colonial history?
Methods
This interdisciplinary project will explore the impact of South Africa's post-apartheid adoption of western legal frameworks on the experiences of trafficking survivors. It will draw on insights from history, political philosophy, decolonial legal theory, and critical social anthropology. Historical archival research will be used to explore how legislation governing labour and movement developed beyond the establishment of the Cape Colony. Insider ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted with trafficking survivors in South Africa, which will combine interviews, observation, and photovoice methods to illustrate perspectives of freedom/unfreedom. Survivors' opinions on current theory surrounding how slavery and freedom are defined will be explored.
Impact
This project will offer empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions. Human trafficking theory has rarely been survivor-informed (Dang and Leyden, 2021). This project will lay foundations for future empirical research which includes trafficking survivors as contributors to, rather than solely subjects of, academic theory. The theoretical implications of this may be movement towards decolonial considerations in anti-trafficking policy making. Methodologically, my findings will contribute to a newly emerging fie
In the global north, human trafficking is often defined as a form of 'modern slavery'. Due to the slavery's illegality, modern slavery is responded to as a crime against individuals' rights to freedom (Bales, 2017). 'New abolitionist' anti-trafficking interventions prioritise rescue and liberation of modern slavery victims and prosecution of traffickers. However, little is known about how trafficked individuals themselves define - and are defined by - ideas of 'freedom'.
Running parallel to, yet often excluded from 'new abolitionist' activities, a movement of survivor activists is emerging, whose priorities differ from the dominant anti-trafficking discourse (Dang and Leyden, 2021). These South African survivors describe exiting trafficking into post-apartheid conditions of poverty and unemployment, leaving them contemplating returning to exploitation to survive. For them, rescue is not synonymous with liberation.
In opposition to 'new abolitionists', critical theorists view the afterlife of slavery as situated within global racial and gendered "systems of domination" that have persisted beyond abolition (O'Connell-Davidson, 2022:2). Racialisation is understood as underlying the segregation of poverty and people in the global south, with western hegemony influencing international law in its favour (Sharma, 2020). Anti-trafficking protocols are underpinned by anti-immigration agendas that maintain these structural inequalities (Aradau, 2008; Brace, 2018; O-Connell Davidson, 2022). Trafficking, while exploitative, is argued to provide a means to escape the afterlife of transatlantic slavery, rather than representing a modern form of slavery in itself.
This project will explore how survivors' perspectives complement or are juxtaposed against theoretical debates which delineate modern definitions of slavery and freedom.
Research Questions
1. How do South African trafficking survivor activists define freedom?
2. What relationships exist between survivors' perceptions of freedom/unfreedom and South Africa's colonial history?
Methods
This interdisciplinary project will explore the impact of South Africa's post-apartheid adoption of western legal frameworks on the experiences of trafficking survivors. It will draw on insights from history, political philosophy, decolonial legal theory, and critical social anthropology. Historical archival research will be used to explore how legislation governing labour and movement developed beyond the establishment of the Cape Colony. Insider ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted with trafficking survivors in South Africa, which will combine interviews, observation, and photovoice methods to illustrate perspectives of freedom/unfreedom. Survivors' opinions on current theory surrounding how slavery and freedom are defined will be explored.
Impact
This project will offer empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions. Human trafficking theory has rarely been survivor-informed (Dang and Leyden, 2021). This project will lay foundations for future empirical research which includes trafficking survivors as contributors to, rather than solely subjects of, academic theory. The theoretical implications of this may be movement towards decolonial considerations in anti-trafficking policy making. Methodologically, my findings will contribute to a newly emerging fie
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Bee Damara (Student) |