Introduction: Historicizing and Spatializing Global Slavery

Abstract

The introduction to this volume explains the condition of slavery (including its definition and its place at the far end of a broad spectrum of coercion and unfreedom); illuminates conceptual and methodological choices; and discusses the layout and main intentions of the handbook. In particular it discusses how scholars approach the study of slavery, as well as some common themes in global slavery scholarship. It also underscores the intention of this volume to both historicize and spatialize slavery—i.e., to historicize it by moving beyond linear stories that trace slavery from Graeco-Roman antiquity and end with transatlantic slavery and abolition; and to spatialize it by recentering the geography of slavery, illuminating regional contexts of slavery around the world.