Antislavery activists tell us there are some 50 million ‘modern slaves’ around the globe today, and children’s involvement in fishing on Ghana’s Lake Volta is often featured as an example of ‘modern slavery’ in antislavery campaigning and fund-raising materials. But does describing such children as ‘enslaved’ capture or conceal the problems they and their communities face? And do campaigns against ‘modern slavery’ lead to the kind of interventions that help or that harm? This documentary film looks behind and beyond the ‘modern slavery’ narrative. Developed through the European Research Council funded project, Modern Marronage: The Pursuit and Practice of Freedom in the Contemporary World (ERC ADG 788563), and in collaboration with residents of islands and riverine communities on Ghana’s Volta lake, this documentary film explores the stark socio-political and economic deprivation and marginalisation that shapes the lives and labour of all children and their families in this area. The film draws attention to the need to tackle these underlying challenges and also for more complex and nuanced understandings of agency, choice, childhood and freedom than those which inform campaigns against ‘modern slavery’.
Screening of this short film by Sam Okyere (University of Bristol) and Sam Liebmann (Tamo Junto Productions) will be accompanied by discussion of the Modern Marronage project, and its lessons with regard to the use and abuse of histories of Atlantic World slavery. This conversation will be led by Julia O’Connell Davidson (University of Bristol), Modern Marronage project lead and project research associate Maeli Farias (University of Bristol)
Film Screening will take place in the Antioch church at Whitney Plantation, 1:00 PM on September 6. Admission is free of charge.
