Labor on the Fringes of Empire: Voice, Exit and the Law

Description

After the abolition of slavery in the Indian Ocean and Africa, the world of labor remained unequal, exploitative, and violent, straddling a fine line between freedom and unfreedom. This book explains why. Unseating the Atlantic paradigm of bondage and drawing from a rich array of colonial, estate, plantation and judicial archives, Alessandro Stanziani investigates the evolution of labor relationships on the Indian subcontinent, the Indian Ocean and Africa, with case studies on Assam, the Mascarene Islands and the French Congo. He finds surprising relationships between African and Indian abolition movements and European labor practices, inviting readers to think in terms of trans-oceanic connections rather than simple oppositions. Above all, he considers how the meaning and practices of freedom in the colonial world differed profoundly from those in the mainland. Arguing for a multi-centered view of imperial dynamics, Labor on the Fringes of Empire is a pioneering global history of nineteenth-century labor. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction: Progress and (Un)Freedom (Alessandro Stanziani)....Pages 1-29 Coercion, Resistance and Voice (Alessandro Stanziani)....Pages 31-66 Utilitarianism and the Abolition of Slavery in India (Alessandro Stanziani)....Pages 67-136 Slavery, Abolition and the Contractarian Approach in the Indian Ocean: The Case of Mauritius (Alessandro Stanziani)....Pages 137-176 How Do You Say “Free” in French? (Alessandro Stanziani)....Pages 177-249 The Welfare State and the Colonial World, 1880–1914: The Case of French Equatorial Africa (Alessandro Stanziani)....Pages 251-316 Conclusion: Voice, Exit and the Law in Historical Perspective (Alessandro Stanziani)....Pages 317-323 Back Matter ....Pages 325-334