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Black Suffering for/from Anti-trafficking Advocacy
Open accessAbstract
This article analyses the images that Antislavery Usable Past creates to promote its cause of ‘making the antislavery past usable for contemporary abolition’. Drawing on collective memory studies, I discuss the political implications of how pasts are used for present issues. I argue that Antislavery Usable Past appropriates black suffering by reducing the memory and imagery of slavery to objects that are compatible with the anti-trafficking narrative, without regard for the ongoing black liberation struggle. I conclude by discussing the troubling trend of incorporating anti-trafficking exhibitions into institutions that preserve the history of slavery and abolition. Such inclusions redirect the history lessons of slavery away from understanding and addressing anti-blackness in the present and towards supporting advocacy campaigns articulated in the logics that underpinned racial chattel slavery in the first place.
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Slavery often existed primarily as a legal status wherein property rights could be exercised over a person and upheld through legal or equivalent customary institutions.
“often existed primarily as a legal status wherein property rights could be exercised over a person and upheld through legal or equivalent customary institutions. 9”
From Collapsing the Boundaries Between De Jure and De Facto Slavery: The Foundations of Slavery Beyond the Transatlantic Frame (2020) · cites this paper as [9]
The White Accumulation section describes enslaved people being sold and a slaver accumulating wealth through another enslaved person. That supports the claim's point about treating people as property, but our copy does not describe slavery primarily as a legal status or say that property rights were upheld by law or customary institutions. (LLM, conf=0.80)
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Anti-slavery as development: A global politics of rescue
McGrath, S., & Watson, S. K. (2018) · Geoforum · doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.04.013 · Cited by 53
“The imagined geography of TFLS in these reports, then, exhibits ‘territorial dimensions of racism’ (Bedford 2015:35) in their representation of victims and ‘heroes’ while forestalling any historically rooted understandings of racial inequalities (see Beutin 2017; Stewart 2015).”
BackgroundGabriela Gutierrez-Huerter, O., Gold, S., & Trautrims, A. (2021) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-021-05013-w · Cited by 44
“However, scholars have criticized the inaccurate use or misuse of history that glosses over legacies of racism (Beutin, 2017) and dynamics of colonialism and patriarchy (Pliley, 2021).”
BackgroundWhite Supremacy, Racism and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking
Kempadoo, K., & Shih, E. (2022) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781003162124 · Cited by 38
Duplicitous Freedom: Moral and Material Care Work in Anti-Trafficking Rescue and Rehabilitation
Shih, E. (2018) · Critical Sociology · doi:10.1177/0896920517751589 · Cited by 30
“As an insightful analytic counterpart, Lyndsey Beutin (2017) and Tryon Woods (2013) have also described American anti-trafficking interventions as fundamentally anti-black for how the now ubiquitous “modern day slavery” moniker “appropriates black suffering by reducing the memory and image of…”
BackgroundOkyere, S., Agyeman, N. K., & Saboro, E. (2021) · Anti-Trafficking Review · doi:10.14197/atr.201221164 · Cited by 24
Baker, C. N. (2018) · Politics & Gender · doi:10.1017/s1743923x18000661 · Cited by 24
“…the memory and imagery of slavery to objects that are compatible with the anti-trafficking narrative, without regard for the ongoing black liberation struggle” and in fact “articulated in the logics that underpinned racial chattel slavery in the first place” (Beutin 2017; see also Bravo 2007).”
BackgroundCircles of analysis: a systemic model of child criminal exploitation
Barlow, C., Kidd, A., Green, S., & Darby, B. (2021) · Journal of Children s Services · doi:10.1108/jcs-04-2021-0016 · Cited by 43
The Business of Abolition: Marketizing ‘Anti‐slavery’
McGrath, S., & Mieres, F. (2021) · Development and Change · doi:10.1111/dech.12701 · Cited by 8
Schwarz, K., & Nicholson, A. (2020) · Human Rights Review · doi:10.1007/s12142-020-00604-y · Cited by 8
“The term maangamizi places the specific injustices of transatlantic enslavement within their broader context, recognising not only that individuals were victims of enslavement, but also that this treatment was intentionally perpetrated, widespread, specifically targeted towards Africans and their descendants, and inte…”
BackgroundInfluentialKoch, I. (2024) · Current Anthropology · doi:10.1086/729537 · Cited by 7
“…and critical race theory, a number of scholars have highlighted the all-too-easy fi t between anti – modern slavery thinking on the one hand and white savior, antiblack, and antimigrant sentiment on the other (e.g., Beutin 2017; Kempadoo 2015; Kem-padoo and Shih 2022; Sharma 2005; Woods 2013).”
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McGrath, S., Rogaly, B., & Waite, L. (2022) · Globalizations · doi:10.1080/14747731.2022.2095119 · Cited by 7
“Contemporary abolitionism has also been challenged for reproducing racism through its use of a ‘whitewashed’ version of historical abolitionism (Beutin, 2017; Kempadoo, 2015; McGrath & Watson, 2018; Quirk, 2012; Stewart, 2015; Trodd, 2013).”
BackgroundFrom Conflict to Modern Slavery
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.001.0001 · Cited by 5
Reflections from the Field: Disparate responses to labour exploitation in post-Katrina Louisiana
McCallum, L. (2020) · Anti-Trafficking Review · doi:10.14197/atr.201220152 · Cited by 4
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Brace, L. (2019) · Atlantic Studies · doi:10.1080/14788810.2019.1669419 · Cited by 4
Godoy, S. M., Thelwell, M., Perris, G. E., Kelly, M. A., Freeman, O., McDonald, J., Barnert, E. S., & Bath, E. P. J. (2025) · Journal of Human Trafficking · doi:10.1080/23322705.2025.2542069 · Cited by 4
Editorial: Anti-Trafficking Education: Sites of care, knowledge, and power
Fukushima, A. I., Hill, A., & Suchland, J. (2021) · Anti-Trafficking Review · doi:10.14197/atr.201221171 · Cited by 3
Kempadoo, K., & Durisin, E. M. (2020) · doi:10.1002/9781119315049.ch22 · Cited by 2
Nghishitende, N. J. (2023) · Emerald Group Publishing Limited eBooks · doi:10.1108/978-1-80382-383-620231008 · Cited by 1
Beutin, L. P. (2022) · Feminist Media Studies · doi:10.1080/14680777.2022.2149592 · Cited by 1
“…slavery through simplified aesthetic conflation obscures the ways in which the actual history of transatlantic slavery undergirds contemporary global exploitation (L. Beutin 2017), while “elid[ing] the ways racial power continues to shape the United States” (A. Fukushima and J. Hua 2015, 56).”
BackgroundSelf-citationNarratives of human trafficking: Defining policy, practice and positioning in a contested field
Cornforth-Camden, B. (2021) · doi:10.26686/wgtn.17009273.v1 · Cited by 1
Parroting the past: historical continuity and change through cultures of cruelty in Brazil
Collins, J.-M. (2018) · Journal of Iberian & Latin American Studies · doi:10.1080/14701847.2018.1531219
“For a critique of the modern abolitionist agenda and campaign, see Beutin (2017).”
BackgroundBoukli, A., Yanacopulos, H., & Papanicolaou, G. (2019) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-63058-8_11
Approaching Contemporary Slavery Through an Historic Lens: an Interdisciplinary Perspective
Nelson, R., & Kidd, A. (2018) · Journal of Modern slavery · doi:10.22150/jms/arrv7667
Forced Labor in the US Construction Industry
Halegua, A., & Chin, K. H. (2021) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-70675-3_6
Pornography and Human Trafficking
Rothman, E. F. (2021) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190075477.003.0011
To know in the subjunctive: New abolitionistimagetextsand the specter of modern slavery
Martínez, S. (2021) · Journal of Human Rights · doi:10.1080/14754835.2021.1971070
“Critical race theorists are asking whether ramping up punishments and escalating policing explains racial disparities in trafficking arrests and imprisonment similar to those produced by the war on drugs (Beutin, 2017; Phillips, 2015; Woods, 2013).”
BackgroundBoukli, A., Yanacopulos, H., & Papanicolaou, G. (2019) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-63192-9_11-1
“To this fourth point, critics have added that contemporary efforts to use the emotive term “modern slavery” rely on “rebranding human trafficking” using the less “legalistic” concept of modern slavery (Dottridge 2017; Beutin 2017).”
Background(2023) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478024354-003
(2023) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478024354-007
(2023) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478024354-011
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Reparations and the Rise of Antitrafficking Discourse
(2023) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478024354-002
Child Trafficking: Contemporary Action in the Twenty-First Century
Faulkner, E. A. (2023) · Transnational crime, crime control and security · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-23566-5_5
Child Trafficking in Europe: Nationalism, Vulnerability, and Protection
Faulkner, E. A. (2023) · Transnational crime, crime control and security · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-23566-5_6
Conclusion: A Tale of Child Trafficking and the Shift to Modern Slavery
Faulkner, E. A. (2023) · Transnational crime, crime control and security · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-23566-5_7
Fugitivity and marronage and the study of sex work
Davidson, J. O. (2023) · Frontiers in Sociology · doi:10.3389/fsoc.2023.1151284
“Those who use the prostitution-slavery analogy diminish the enormity of the horror of Atlantic world slavery and “its legacies of anti-black racism” (Beutin, 2017).”
BackgroundBosworth, M., & Hoyle, C. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.002.0006
Introduction and current context
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.003.0001
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.002.0004
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.003.0005
Fleeing conflict to modern slavery
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.003.0004
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.002.0005
Generating the conditions for risk
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.003.0006
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.003.0002
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.003.0008
Heys, A. (2023) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192846549.002.0009
Spatz, B. (2020) · Punctum Books · doi:10.21983/p3.0295.1.00
Clifford, E. (2025) · International Political Sociology · doi:10.1093/ips/olaf035
Metadata
- Authors
- Beutin, L. P.
- Corresponding author
- Beutin, Lyndsey P.
- ORCID
- Beutin, Lyndsey P.
- Venue
- Anti-Trafficking Review
- Published
- 2017-09-21
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 14-30
- ISSN
- 2286-7511 (ISSN-L)
- 2287-0113
- OpenAlex
- W2758191528
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 6
- FWCI
- 14.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Anti-Trafficking Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Anti-Trafficking Review (Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Colonialism, slavery, and trade
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Race, History, and American Society
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration
- Keywords
- anti-trafficking advocacy, Black suffering, slavery, collective memory, abolition, anti-Blackness, historical memory, Black liberation
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