332 research outputs found
TraSIS: Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies. Three Concepts from Islamic Legal Sources
No full textScholarship on the history of slavery is often grounded in two misapprehensions: firstly, that the phenomenon is confined to the premodern past, and secondly, that freedom and slavery are binaries rather than poles on a spectrum of freedom and unfreedom. TraSIS challenges both. Focusing on three distinct legal categories, the project members trace trajectories of juristic conceptualisations of unfreedom, exploring their implementation in Islamicate societies and thereby uncovering how interpersonal relations are impacted by ‘strong asymmetrical dependencies‘ (Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies). Foregrounding the 19th and 20th centuries, we interrogate historical continuities and shifts in juristic discourse on unfreedom from a longue durée perspective.
TraSIS is comprised of four sub-projects. The first three of these each explore a legal concept which can be located beyond the slavery/freedom binary: the umm al-walad (Serena Tolino), the kitāba-contract (Laura Emunds) and the kafāla (Laura Rowitz), focusing on Sunni sources. The fourth sub-project (Omar Anchassi) will address these three concepts with a focus on Shiite and Ibāḍī sources
El Tlacuache Núm. 698 (2015). 698 Año 13 (2015) noviembre. El Tlacuache
No full textLa mujer vista por cronistas en tiempos novohispanos por Laura Elena Hinojosa. - El Códice Mauricio de la Arena forma parte de Los códices de Tlaquiltenango por Laura Elena Hinojosa
Neuere Fachgeschichte der Orientalistik in Hamburg
No full textOne Foot in the Past, One in the Future: Young Investigators and the Tradition of Middle Eastern Studies in Hamburg war ein Lehrforschungsprojekt der Hamburger Islamwissenschaft. Von April 2019 bis März 2020 erforschten Studierende der Iranistik, Islamwissenschaft und Turkologie die Geschichte der Islam- und Nahostudien in Hamburg. Dabei ging es nicht nur um die Vergangenheit – wie im Namen des Projeks angedeutet, geht es auch darum, „einen Schritt in die Zukunft“ zu machen: Als junge Forschende sind die Studierenden von heute diejenigen, die in Zukunft Forschung und Lehre gestalten werden. Dieses Projekt ist aus der Überzeugung entstanden, dass es dafür eine kritische Reflexion darüber braucht, wie in unserer Disziplin Wissen generiert wird. Unter der Leitung von Dr. Serena Tolino, damals Juniorprofessorin an der Universität Hamburg, beschäftigten sich Studierende mit Theorie und Methoden der Postkolonialen Studien sowie der Memory Studies und rekonstruierten vor diesem Hintergrund die neuere Geschichte ihres Fachbereichs. Ihre Untersuchungen fokussierten auf die 1960-er bis 90er-Jahre und stützen sich auf die Recherche in verschiedenen Archiven in Hamburg und Rom sowie auf Interviews mit Zeitzeug:innen der Universität Hamburg.
Die Projektidee war 2018 in Zusammenarbeit mit Studierenden entwickelt worden und wurde im November 2018 mit dem Sonderpreis zum 100. Jubiläum der Universität Hamburg 2019 des Claussen-Simon-Wettbewerbs für Hochschulen ausgezeichnet
Roots and Trajectories of ,Modern Slavery’ in Qatar
No full textIn the Gulf states, the widespread phenomenon of labour migration is controlled by means of the so-called kafāla system since the 1960s. This sponsorship system grants Gulf Arabs comprehensive control over their migrant ‘guest workers’. In recent years, it has been criticized as ‘modern slavery’ and has undergone rather superficial reform processes. In Qatar, a development and human rights discourse attests to how government and quasi-state actors are striving to paint a different picture.
In my dissertation project, I examine the genesis and persistence of the kafāla as a labour migration regime and concrete legal instrument: the introduction of the kafāla historically coincides with the late abolition of slavery in this region – and legal transformation of slaves into wage workers coming along with it. This period is also marked by Britain's long-lasting colonial presence and the emerging oil industry. Against this background, I understand the sponsorship system as a form of unfree labour that has its origins in the region's past and is linked to the modes of production of its society.
In the present, we can observe a normalization of violence (Gardner 2010) against migrant workers, at times accompanied by a legitimizing discourse. Increasingly, the issue of labour migration is being used to negotiate the national identity of Gulf societies in which the oil rentier economy poses an obstacle to the expansion of civic rights.
Both in terms of the introduction of the kafāla and its durability as an instrument of current migration policy, I seek to examine accompanying public and legal discourse in Qatar. What role do Western discourses around freedom, development, workers’, and human rights play? How is and was the kafāla linked to other (un)free labour regimes
FIFA schickt Fussball-WM 2022 in die Wüste – Katars Kampf für ein modernes Image
No full textDie Fussball-WM 2022 in Katar steht unmittelbar bevor. Eines der weltweit grössten Sportereignisse findet somit in einem Land ohne Fussballtradition statt. Und in einem Land, das in den letzten Jahren immer wieder wegen Menschenrechtsverletzungen in den Schlagzeilen war.
Wie konnte es so weit kommen? Dieser Frage gehen die beiden Hosts Jennifer Bosshard (SRF) und Yacine Nemra (RTS) im Film nach. Schrittweise zeigen sie auf, wie sich das Wüstenemirat Katar die Weltmeisterschaft sicherte und welche Elemente dafür notwendig waren
The Standard Unified Contract for Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon — Recognition of Rights and Responsibilities or Facilitation of ‘Modern Slavery’?
No full textIn this blog post, I portray the Standard Unified Contract for migrant domestic workers in Lebanon. In shedding light on the contract’s provisions, I aim to contextualise it within the kafāla system governing migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, and to raise the topic of contract slavery
The Labour Migration Regime of the Kafāla – Continuity and Change in Qatar
No full textProject Description: Labour relations in legal perspective in the modern Middle East
In the Gulf states (as well as in Jordan and Lebanon), the widespread phenomenon of labour migration is controlled by means of the so-called kafāla system since the 1960s. This sponsorship system grants Arab citizens’ comprehensive control over their migrant ‘guest workers’. In recent years, it has been criticized as ‘modern slavery’ and has undergone rather superficial reform processes. However, local development and human rights discourses attest to how government and quasi-state actors are striving to paint a different picture.
In my dissertation project, I examine the genesis and persistence of the kafāla as a labour
migration regime and concrete legal instrument: the introduction of the kafāla historically coincides with the late abolition of slavery in the Gulf region – and the legal transformation of slaves into wage workers coming along with it. This period is also marked by Britain's long-lasting colonial presence and the emerging oil industry. Against this background, I understand the sponsorship system as a form of labour dependency that has its origins in the region's past and is linked to the modes of production of its society.
Recently, coercion under the kafāla has increasingly raised attention in the context of the
FIFA world cup 2022 in Qatar. However, workers are affected by it in different ways, depending on their nationality, class, gender, kind of occupation and other factors. In the present, we can observe a normalization of violence against migrant workers, at times accompanied by a legitimizing discourse.
Increasingly, the issue of labour migration is being used to negotiate the national identity of Gulf societies in which the oil rentier economy poses an obstacle to the expansion of civic rights.
Both in terms of the introduction of the kafāla and its durability as an instrument of current
migration policy, I seek to examine accompanying public and legal discourse. What role do Western discourses around freedom, development, workers’, and human rights play? How is and was the kafāla linked to other regimes of labour dependency? How do gender, race, religion and class figure in these discourses
What Can We Learn about Slavery from a Manual for Judges and Notaries?
No full textIn this blog post I focus on the relevance that shurūṭ manuals written for judges and notaries have for understanding practices related to slavery, and legal practices more generally. Shurūṭ works are works that reproduce standardised legal contracts or judicial rulings in a range of domains for easy use by legal professionals. The blog post focuses on a source entitled Jawāhir al-ʿuqūd wa-muʿīn al-quḍāh wa-l-muwaqqiʿīna wa-l-shuhūd (“The Essences of Contracts and a Guide to Judges, Notaries and Witnesses”), composed in the ninth/fifteenth century by Shams al-Dīn al-Minhāji al-Asyūṭī (d. 880/1475) and specifically on the chapter devoted to ummahāt al-awlād (lit. ‘mothers of the child’), a term referring to female enslaved people who bear their master’s child
On the “Guile” of Slaves: Thirteen Recommendations of Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (d. 570/1175) on the Purchase of Male and Female Slaves
No full textThe blog post focuses on Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī’s Nuzhat al-aṣḥāb fī muʿāsharat al-aḥbāb (A Friends’ Jaunt in Coitus Between Lovers) an erotological compendium that explores various aspects of eroticism. Among the topics discussed in this text, al-Maghribī dedicates a chapter to the selection of slaves, emphasizing meticulous physical examination and cautioning against deception. The paper examines the recommendations provided by al-Maghribī on how to wisely choose suitable slaves for purchase. Through warnings against deceitful practices by both women and boys, al-Maghribī inadvertently reveals the agency of enslaved individuals striving to improve their conditions. Thus, despite being tailored for an elite male audience, the text also reflects broader societal attitudes
The Blurred Boundaries of Slavery and Freedom in the Early Modern Crimean Khanate
No full textIn Summer 2023, the TraSIS project organised a joint conference with the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) in the picturesque Swiss lakeside town of Murtensee. Some of our guests generously agreed to contribute a blog post in which they discuss one of the sources they presented on at the conference. In the second post of this series, Turkana Allahverdiyeva, a doctoral student at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, discusses a case of non-elite household slavery in the early modern Crimean Khanate
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