Journal of Global Slavery

The Journal of Global Slavery (JGS) aims to advance and promote a greater understanding of slavery and post-slavery from comparative, transregional, and/or global perspectives, as well as methodological and theoretical aspects of its study. It especially underscores the global and globalizing nature of slavery in world history.

As a practice in which human beings were held captive for an indefinite period of time, coerced into extremely dependent and exploitative power relationships, denied rights (including potentially rights over their labor, lives, and bodies), could be bought and sold, were vulnerable to forced relocation by various means, and forced to labor against their will, slavery in one form or another has existed in innumerable societies throughout history. JGS fosters a global view of slavery by integrating the latest scholarship from around the world and providing an interdisciplinary platform for scholars working on slavery in regions as diverse as ancient Rome, Pre-Colombian Mexico, Han dynasty China, the Ottoman Empire, the antebellum United States, and twenty-first-century Mali.

The journal also promotes a view of slavery as a globalizing force in the development of world civilizations. Global history focuses heavily upon the global movement of people, goods, and ideas, with a particular emphasis on processes of integration and divergence in the human experience. Slavery straddles all of these focal points, as it connected and integrated various societies through economic and power-based relationships, and simultaneously divided societies by class, race, ethnicity, and cultural group.