Slave Trade and Slavery in Asia—New Perspectives

Abstract

Abstract Recent years have witnessed an expanding body of scholarship indicating the importance of slave trade and slavery in different parts of the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago worlds. This work has not only challenged the dominant focus of slavery scholarship on the Atlantic context but has also encouraged scholars to reassess wider perspectives on Asian and global social histories. This special issue brings together contributions that explore these new horizons. Together, they take up the issue of slavery and mobility in different parts of the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago worlds from a comparative perspective, dealing not only with the existence and patterns of slave trade itself but also with its social and sociopolitical implications. These articles require us to rethink some of the dominant perspectives in a historiography that for a long time has emphasized the unique and local character of “Asian” slaveries, positing dichotomies between slavery in the Atlantic and elsewhere, as well as between Western and non-Western slaveries. The contributions to this special issue challenge several of these existing dichotomies and provide new contributions to the understanding of the role and importance of slavery from a global perspective, as well as to the history of the Indian Ocean and Indonesian archipelago worlds. This introduction reflects on this collective contribution and aims to provide an outline for a relevant research agenda.