Slavery Old and New : Labour Exploitation Through the Ages and Around the Globe

Seminar Series

This joint research initiative, a collaboration between institutes at York and McGill Universities, examines the legal conceptualization of labour exploitation. Through an interdisciplinary, transnational and historical methodology, it draws on a variety of disciplines, spaces in time, and places around the world, to explore law’s understanding of “labour exploitation” and its relationship to society and practices.

For the 2014-15 academic year, the series is co-presented by three organizations : York University’s Harriet Tubman Institute, and the McGill University Faculty of Law’s Institute of Comparative Law, Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law. A fourth organization Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory will join for the fourth installment in this year’s series.

Aspects of the Triangular Slave Trade in Canada

with Dr. Afua Cooper

25 novembre 2015

The Oppenheimer Chair, in collaboration with the McGill Institute of Comparative Law and the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University are pleased to welcome Dr. Afua Cooper as part the seminar series ‘Slavery Old and New : Labour Exploitation Through the Ages and Around the Globe’.

Where in Montreal : Room 107 (by video-conference) of Burnside Hall, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke West
Where in Toronto : Stedman Lecture Hall 120E, York University

A lunch will be served at McGill University. Please RSVP at oppenheimer@mcgill.ca for Montreal attendance.

The speaker
Dr. Cooper is Chair of the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in African Canadian history and African Diaspora from the University of Toronto. Her expertise include slavery, abolition, and freedom, especially for the 18th and 19th centuries, gender studies, Black education, and Black literatures.

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Cet événement fait partie de :

Slavery Old and New : Labour Exploitation Through the Ages and Around the Globe

Seminar Series

Cadres juridiques et pratiques économiques autour du travail servile en société coloniale esclavagiste

L'enregistrement de la conférence est maintenant disponible

4 novembre 2015

Cette présentation par le professeur Jean-François Niort fait partie de la série “Slavery Old and New : Labour Exploitation Through the Ages and Around the Globe” – une initiative de la Chaire Oppenheimer, de l’Institut de droit comparé de McGill, et du Harriet Tubman Institute at York. Cet événement est organisé grâce à la contribution financière du Centre Paul-André Crépeau de droit privé et comparé.

**Cette présentation sera donnée en français**

Mercredi, 4 novembre 2015
13h00-14h30
Salle 107, Burnside Hall

Un léger goûter sera servi. Vous pouvez confirmer votre présence à oppenheimer@mcgill.ca.

Cadres juridiques et pratiques économiques autour du travail servile en société coloniale esclavagiste : l’exemple des Petites Antilles françaises (Guadeloupe-Martinique) au XVIIIe siècle

Résumé
Le propos de l’intervention sera de tenter d’éclairer les rapports entre les cadres juridiques et les pratiques économiques du travail servile au sein de la société esclavagiste coloniale des petites Antilles françaises (Guadeloupe et Martinique) à travers l’évolution des règles juridiques au cours du XVIIIe siècle et en particulier deux textes majeurs : l’édit royal sur la police des îles de l’Amérique française de mars 1685 (communément appelé par la suite « Code Noir ») et l’ordonnance du gouverneur général des îles françaises du Vent sur la « police générale des nègres et gens de couleur » de décembre 1783.

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Cet événement fait partie de :

Slavery Old and New : Labour Exploitation Through the Ages and Around the Globe

Seminar Series

Slavery memorial in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Photograph: Jeffery DelViscio/Flickr (Creative Commons).

The Fictive Coherence of Global Struggle : Combating ‘Modern-Day Slavery’ in Rhetoric and Practice (video posted)

Professor Joel Quirk

28 septembre 2015

28 september 2015, 12:30-14:00
Burnside Hall, Room 107 (via video-conference), 805 Sherbrooke W

A Slavery Old and New Talk with Professor Joel Quirk, University of the Witwatersrand.
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Abstract
Combating human trafficking has been widely presented as a cohesive and singular global cause, which builds upon the noble work of ‘modern-day abolitionists’ seeking to finally end slavery once and for all. The main argument of this paper is that this popular rhetoric of shared global struggle is both highly misleading and politically problematic. In its current incarnation, ‘the cause’ of ending human trafficking and ‘modern-day slavery’ brings together two major elements : i) an increasingly dense regime of law and policy which is universal in scope yet shallow and selective when it comes to effective application, and ii) a diverse portfolio of more substantive political interventions which tend to heavily concentrate upon specific locations and industries. These case-specific interventions often have little or no direct connection to parallel interventions taking place in other parts of the world. There may well be broad similarities in the types of abuses which occur in different contexts and countries, but a great deal of a creative aggregation and extrapolation is required in order to translate broad similarities into the language of a singular and cohesive global cause. Once we puncture this fictive coherence, it quickly becomes clear that there is not one global anti-trafficking or anti-slavery movement, but many different movements and actors with different agendas and interests, most of which primarily focus upon specific issues and/or localised concerns. In stark contrast to historical campaigns to end legal slavery, which were firmly aimed at the profits and privileges of the rich and powerful, most of these interventions only rarely pose a direct threat to major political and economic interests, which is ultimately a key source of their appeal.

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Cet événement fait partie de :

Slavery Old and New : Labour Exploitation Through the Ages and Around the Globe

Seminar Series