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Research project

SLAVEVOICES - Slave testimonies in the abolition era. European captives, African slaves, and Ottoman servants in 19th century North Africa

This project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC)

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 819353)

SLAVEVOICES has two main ground-breaking scientific goals. First, it aims at fully renewing our approach of the end of slavery, a crucial social transformation in North Africa as a part of the Muslim world.

So far, historians have explained the abolition and slow vanishing of slavery in this region either as the outcome of European imperialistic interventions or to a lesser extent as resulting from debates among Muslim scholars and leaders who were owning slaves. SLAVEVOICES will instead interpret the end of slavery through the testimonies of the ones who experienced and acted for the end of slavery: namely the testimonies of the slaves and their descendants written in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and European languages.

Secondly, by studying together – and not apart, as is often the case – the various groups of slaves in North Africa hailing from Africa, Europe and Asia, SLAVEVOICES will propose a new way of conceiving and writing the history of North Africa. Instead of studying each historical phenomenon according to each national part of this region (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt), SLAVEVOICES will be an innovative and concrete attempt at writing a globalised and connected history of modern North Africa. It will explore the reshaping of the connections that groups of slaves built up within North African societies and between this part of the Muslim world and other adjoining societies in Africa, Asia and Europe in the abolition era.

SLAVEVOICES will innovate in resituating slave testimonies within a broader history of literacy in North Africa throughout the long nineteenth century, a period in which literacy and written sources underwent major changes in Ottoman and colonial North Africa. Finally, through a website, a book, a play, and videos SLAVEVOICES will bring back the voices, the speeches and emotions of nineteenth-century slaves to a present audience, as new forms of enslavement and social dependency are resurfacing across the Mediterranean.

The team

Group members

  • Gabriele Montalbano

    Post-doctoral Researcher

    University of Bologna

  • Ali Al Tuma

    Post-doctoral Researcher

    Utrecht University

  • Salma Hargal

    Associate professor

    Sciences Po Lyon

  • Giacomo Ghedini

    Research Fellow

    Center for History at Sciences Po Paris

  • Dia Barghouti

    PhD Researcher

    Goldsmiths, University of London

  • Inès Mrad Dali

    Post-doctoral Researcher

    Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Paris

External Partners

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