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Completed Project

Antislavery Usable Past

Capturing lessons from the past to tackle modern-day slavery today.

Project summary

The Challenge

Modern-day slavery is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed on a worldwide scale.

The Approach

Capturing lessons from the past to tackle modern-day slavery today

The Outcome

Ultimately this project will inform policy makers and societies around the world and assist them in their fight against modern slavery

Lead academics

John Oldfield

The Challenge

There are more people in slavery today than at any other time in history.

Modern-day slavery is an urgent global problem requiring a multi-faceted approach. At the Wilberforce Institute, our objective is to help to tackle modern-day slavery by drawing on the successes and failures of earlier abolition movements.

 

Anti-Slavery-Day-101016-057

The Approach

Understanding historical slavery and learning lessons from the past to create positive change for the future is a unique strength of the Wilberforce Institute’s research. The Antislavery Usable Past project is a major example of our expertise in this area.

We drew upon recent and longer-standing antislavery movements to highlight and build on successes and achievements. We delivered a number of different project elements including:

  • educating courts worldwide on slavery law.
  • translating the legal definition of slavery into all the official languages of the United Nations.
  • a major piece of research exploring the role of war and conflict as a catalyst for slavery.
  • researching how the public was mobilised to oppose slavery in the past and uncovering how this could help galvanise change today.
  • highlighting the painful realities of this global issue by creating a collection of stories from slavery survivors.
  • a new digital archive capturing a significant moment in antislavery history.
Slave statue

The Impact

This Antislavery Usable Past project has created a series of ground-breaking databases that shed new light on cultures of anti-slavery activism.

Ultimately this project will inform policy makers and societies around the world and assist them in their fight against modern slavery. It will create effective tools for researchers, teachers, policy makers and the general public to help eradicate slavery and provide practical advice and inspiration for anti-slavery campaigners.

Case studies

View all
COMPLETED project

Debt, Poverty and Slavery

Debt was used to enslave Africans during the period of the transatlantic slave trade.
COMPLETED project

Redrawing Slavery

A new approach to understanding the emergence of slavery and its development over time.
COMPLETED project

Stolen Lives

An engaging educational resource highlighting modern slavery and our approach to tackling this.
COMPLETED project

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database

The initiative exposes the bleak truths of one of the biggest human rights crimes in history.
COMPLETED project

Scotland’s Diasporas in a Global Context

Uncovering Scotland’s slavery past. Helping inform effective modern-day migration policies.
COMPLETED project

ECHOES

International collaboration to better understand how museums interact with colonial histories.
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