Linked to the combined research team of slavery projects at the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) and Radboud University (Nijmegen), researcher of both institutions jointly organise a hybrid seminar series ‘Micro-Global Histories of Slavery: Sources and Approaches’.
As a global turn in slavery studies urges us to bring together the study of histories of slavery from across the globe, from Asia to the Atlantic, from local regimes of slavery to the impact of colonial slave trade and slavery, this seminar aims to further critical reflections of sources and approaches for the study micro-global histories of slavery.
The organisers invite scholars to share insights, questions and ideas that are grounded in research practice and experiences with colonial and other or vernacular sources. Discussing sources, research practices and methodologies thus serves as a way to further develop the practice of micro-global histories of slavery.
If you would like to be present at a seminar, or present in it, please contact Dr Sanne Muurling for more information.
Confirmed dates and speakers
(please note that time and locations vary! Updated: 20 February 2025) How and why have economies grown historically? Why and how did worldwide inequalities come into being? How have people all over the world in the past up to the present dealt with the issue of providing a living for themselves and their families? To what extent did they do so either in harmony or in conflict with their surrounding natural environments? And how did this all develop over time? The RHI seminar aims to address these and other questions by organizing monthly lectures and papers on concrete empirical case studies from economic and social history. The organisers explicitly welcome a lively debate on the presented work, and therefore usually distribute the papers beforehand. RHI seminars in principle take place every second Thurday of the month (see below for actual scheduled dates). They are open to the public, but with regard to accommodation and distribution of the paper in advance, prior notice of attention to the Economic and Environmental History Group is appreciated.
18 February 2025, 11:00 CET, IISH (Amsterdam)
Titas Chakraborty (Duke Kunshan University) – Studying enslaved mobilities in Asia
5 March 2025, 15:00 CET,
Radboud University (Nijmegen)
Timo McGregor (Leiden University) – Navigating Court Records and Legal Pluralism in Colonial Contexts
2 April 2025, 15:00 CET, IISH (Amsterdam)
Meenu Mathai and Susan Thomas (Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit) – (Un)Making the Aṭima in Malabar/Kerala: Sources from the Syrian Christian Church Grantavari
14 May 2025, 15:00 CET, Radboud University (Nijmegen)
Claude Chevaleyre (CNRS / Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies) and Koen van der Lijn (Leiden University) – Contracted into slavery? Coerced labour in early modern China
4 June 2025, time TBA, IISH (Amsterdam)
speaker and title TBA
2 July 2025, 15:00 CET, Radboud University (Nijmegen)
Wouter Raaijmakers (Radboud University) – Living in an Empire of Laws: Between Legislation and Litigation in the Indian Ocean World
Wageningen University – RHI Seminars – every 2nd Thursday of each month – registration appreciated