Researching the Aftermath of Slavery in Mainland East Africa: Methodological, Ethical, and Practical Challenges.
Researching the Aftermath of Slavery in Mainland East Africa: Methodological, Ethical, and Practical Challenges.
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DOI：
10.1080/0144039x.2022.2121888
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发表时间：
2023
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
Pelckmans, Lotte
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Becker, Felicitas;Nyanto, Salvatory S.;Giblin, James;McDougall, Ann;Meckelburg, Alexander;Pelckmans, Lotte
本文探讨了在研究远离沿海种植园带的东非大陆奴隶制后果时所面临的伦理、实践和方法上的挑战。最近人们对后奴隶制产生了兴趣，这是由于与西非的明显对比所激发的，而西非的问题更为突出。文章解释了这种沉默，强调了出于政治动机对殖民地资料中问题的回避以及后殖民历史学家对“有用”过去的偏好。此外，它还质疑奴隶制明显过时所反映的成功融合与持续边缘化之间的平衡。它认为，追踪前奴隶的轨迹需要关注所有形式的社会不平等和依赖，关注谈论奴隶制的线人的潜在地位影响，以及与自由、不自由和依赖相关的各种术语和含义领域。最近的这方面研究表明，奴隶的前身仍然是一个羞耻的问题，而前奴隶作为一个社会类别的消失需要他们一生的努力。尽管奴隶制在东非大陆的社会价值相对有限，但奴隶制仍然是一个有问题且痛苦的遗产，需要研究人员非常谨慎。
This article examines ethical, practical, and methodological challenges in researching the aftermath of slavery in continental East Africa away from the coastal plantation belt. Interest in post-slavery there is recent and inspired by the apparent contrast with West Africa, where the issue is much more salient. The article explains this silence by highlighting politically-motivated avoidance of the issue in colonial sources and the preference of post-colonial historians for ‘useful’ pasts. Further, it questions the balance of successful integration and continuing marginalization reflected in the apparent obsolescence of slavery. It argues that tracing the trajectories of ex-slaves requires attention to all forms of social inequality and dependency, to the potential status implications for informants of speaking about slavery, and to the variety of terms and fields of meaning relevant to freedom, unfreedom and dependency. Recent research in this vein shows that slave antecedents remain a matter of aibu, shame, and that ex-slaves’ disappearance as a social category took lifelong efforts on their part. While the social valence of slave antecedents is relatively limited in mainland East Africa, slavery remains a problematic and painful heritage that demands great circumspection by researchers.