Trafficking in Antiblackness: Modern-Day Slavery, White Indemnity, and Racial Justice

In Trafficking in Antiblackness Lyndsey P. Beutin analyzes how campaigns to end human trafficking—often described as “modern-day slavery”—invoke the memory of transatlantic slavery to support positions ultimately grounded in antiblackness. Drawing on contemporary antitrafficking visual culture and media discourse, she shows how a constellation of media, philanthropic, NGO, and government actors invested in ending human trafficking repurpose the history of transatlantic slavery and abolition in ways that undermine contemporary struggles for racial justice and slavery reparations. The recurring narratives, images, and figures such as “slavery in Africa,” “Arab slave traders,” and “Black incapacity for self-governance” discursively turn Black people across the diaspora into the enslavers of the past and present in place of white Americans and Europeans. Doing so, Beutin contends, creates a rhetorical defense against being held liable for slavery’s dispossessions and violence. Despite these implications, Beutin demonstrates that antitrafficking discourse remains popular and politically useful for former slaving nations and their racial beneficiaries because it refashions historic justifications for white supremacy into today’s abolition of slavery.

Lyndsey P. Beutin is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Media Arts at McMaster University.

ISBN: 9781478019787
Format: Paperback
Pages: 280
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
Published: March 24, 2023

"A critical contribution to the field of human trafficking studies. Her interdisciplinary approach and incisive analysis shed light on the racial logics that underpin contemporary anti-trafficking discourse. . . . This work is essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and activists committed to understanding and addressing the intersections of race, human trafficking, and modern slavery. Beutin’s book is not only a call to action for those involved in anti-trafficking efforts but also a crucial reminder of the importance of considering racial justice in all aspects of humanitarian work."