More than 300 slavery and migration scholars respond to those advocating for military force against migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean. This is no slave trade. Where is the moral justification for actions that cost lives?

European Union political leaders have announced that their response to the staggering loss of life amongst migrants crossing the Mediterranean in unseaworthy vessels will be the use of force to smash the so-called ‘networks’ that operate out of Libya to orchestrate the perilous sea crossings. How? On May 11, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini stated that “No one is thinking of bombing. I’m talking about a naval operation,” but two days later, the Guardian reported on a leaked strategy paper for an EU mission in the Mediterranean and in Libyan territorial waters proposing an air and naval campaign. This, the paper said, would lead to ‘collateral damage’. In other words, adults and children boarding or aboard the vessels under attack might be killed. With or without bombs, such ‘collateral damage’ is already a known product of the measures being employed by the EU to push back, deter, and divert migrants, including those seeking asylum.

Where is the moral justification for some of the world’s richest nations employing their naval and technological might in a manner that leads to the death of men, women and children from some of the world’s poorest and most war torn regions? A dangerous perversion of history is being peddled to answer this question.

In recent years, policy on unauthorized movement across borders has drawn a distinction between the activities of ‘people smugglers’ and those of ‘human traffickers’. Smuggling involves voluntary, consensual arrangements, but trafficking is said to entail coercion or deception, and has been repeatedly likened to the transatlantic slave trade by politicians, journalists, and even some contemporary anti-slavery campaigners. The dangers of the analogy are now made manifest, with the terms ‘smuggling’ and ‘trafficking’ being employed interchangeably in relation to migrants crossing the Mediterranean. And it is this elision that makes it possible for EU leaders to discuss the use of military force on the North African coast as if it were a moral necessity. “Human traffickers are the slave traders of the 21st century, and they should be brought to justice”, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi recently wrote. When the problem is framed in this way, their vow to “identify, capture and destroy” the vessels of those who move migrants looks like a ‘tough choice’ forced upon EU leaders by the sudden appearance of a far greater evil—a modern slave trade.

But this is patently false and entirely self-serving. As scholarship on the history of slavery makes painfully clear, what is happening in the Mediterranean today does not even remotely resemble the transatlantic slave trade. Enslaved Africans did not want to move. They were held in dungeons before being shackled and loaded onto ships. They had to be prevented from choosing suicide over forcible transportation. That transportation led to a single and utterly appalling outcome—slavery.

Today, those embarking on the journey to Europe want to move. If they were free to do so, they would be taking advantage of the flights that budget airlines operate between North Africa and Europe at a tiny fraction of the cost of the extraordinarily dangerous sea passage. And it is not ‘slavers’ or ‘traffickers’ who are preventing them from accessing this safe route.

It’s true that would-be migrants are sometimes held in terrifying conditions in Libya, but not in dungeons as a precursor to being forcibly shipped as slaves. Rather, many are held in immigration detention centres, partly funded by the EU, where both adults and children are at risk of violence, including whippings, beatings and torture. And the outcome for those who make it onto boats is uncertain. Some die en route, some survive only to be exploited and abused at the point of destination. But others who survive secure at least a chance of accessing rights, protection, family reunion, education, work, freedom from persecution, and so on.

This is not the contemporary equivalent of the transatlantic slave trade. To attempt to crush it with military force is not to take a noble stand against the evil of slavery, or even against ‘trafficking’. It is simply to continue a long tradition in which states, including slave states of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, use violence to prevent certain groups of human beings from moving freely.

This, it should be remembered, is a tradition that found its apogee in the now notorious Berlin Conference of 1885 which authorised the partition/conquest of Africa by the powers of Europe on the basis of ending so-called ‘Arab slavery’. In the two decades that followed, millions of Africans lost their lives including vast numbers of Congolese under the tutelage of the great ‘philanthropist’ himself, King Leopold II of Belgium.

And today the manner in which European states, and Australia, are continuing that tradition sets an example which is being followed worldwide, as evidenced by the appalling spectacle of Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar, but refused landing in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia and left to die at sea.

There is no moral basis for measures that lead to the death of peaceable women, men and children, including victims of torture, and those fleeing persecution and war. Europe’s leaders and people must remember their own history, recent and not so recent, and the responsibilities Europe bears for the bodies in the Mediterranean and the people on the boats. We call for the resettlement of many more refugees within Europe and the dismantling of the barriers to movement that have been put in the way of all but the most wealthy.

We demand that Europe’s political leaders stop abusing the history of transatlantic slavery to legitimate military and migrant deterrent actions, and instead recall, and act upon the demands for freedom of movement, or ‘a right of locomotion’ articulated by African American anti-slavery activists of the nineteenth century.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
—Frederick Douglass

Signatures

The following have signed as individuals and not on behalf of the universities and other institutions that employ them. To add your name to the signatures below, please email beyond.slavery@opendemocracy.net with the subject “SIGN”.

Marthe Achtnich – University of Oxford
Nilufar Ahmed – Senior Research Officer, Swansea University
Bridget Anderson – Professor, COMPAS, University of Oxford
Ruben Andersson – Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of International Development, LSE
Kehinde Andrews – Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Birmingham City University
Ana Lucia Araujo – Professor of History, Howard University, Washington DC
Paola Bacchetta – Associate Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Oliver Bakewell – Co-Director IMI and Associate Professor, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford
Dr Alex Balch – Senior lecturer, Department of Politics, Centre for the Study of International Slavery (CSIS), University of Liverpool
Manuel Barcia – Professor of Latin American History, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, Deputy Director – Institute for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, University of Leeds
Jenny Barrett – DPhil in International Development, University of Oxford
David Bartram – Department of Sociology, University of Leicester
Tanja Bastia – Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester
Harald Bauder – Academic Director, Ryerson Centre for Immigration & Settlement (RCIS), Professor of Geography, Ryerson University
Esma Baycan – Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva
Laya Behbahani – Business & Policy Analyst, Simon Fraser University
Alice Bellagamba – Professor Political Anthropology, African Studies, University of Milan-Bicocca
Fatiha Belmessous – Researcher, Université de Lyon
Nikki Berg Burin – Assistant Professor of History and Women & Gender Studies, University of North Dakota
Gurminder K. Bhambra – Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick
Sirma Bilge – Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Université de Montréal, Québec
Elizabeth Bishop – Associate Professor, Modern Arab History, Texas State University
Carin Björngren Cuadra – Associate Professor, Department of Social work, Malmö University
David Blight – Professor of American History, Yale University
Prof. Dr. Manuela Boatcă – Sociology of global inequalities, Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
Anthony Bogues – Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory, Director for the Center of Slavery and Justice, Brown University, USA
Eileen Boris – Hull Professor, History, Global Studies and Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Laura Brace – Senior Lecturer, Politics, University of Leicester
Avtar Brah – Professor Emerita, Birkbeck College, University of London
Pepijn Brandon – NWO-Rubicon Fellow, Post-doctoral Associate, History Department, University of Pittsburgh
Karen E. Bravo – Professor of Law, Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indiana University
Jan Brezger – Research Associate, Freie University, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Sabine Broeck – Universität Bremen
Thomas C. Buchanan – University of Adelaide
Alice Bullard – Chief Executive Officer, IRA-USA and former Professor of History, Georgia Institute of the Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Vernon Burton – Director Clemson CyberInstitute, Creativity Professor Humanities, Professor of History, Sociology, and Computer Science, Clemson University; emeritus University of Illinois
Marco Buttino – Storia contemporanea, Dipartimento Culture, Politica e Società, Università di Torino
Bridget Byrne – Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Manchester
Mariana P. Candido – Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Kansas
Joseph Carens – Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto
Isabel Maria Estrada Carvalhais – Assistant Professor, University of Minho, Portugal
Stephen Castles – Professor, Research Chair in Sociology, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Sydney
Mateja Celestina – Research Associate, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University
Robin Celikates – Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam
Myriam Cherti – Migration Researcher, University of Oxford
Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick – Assistant Professor of Political Sociology, Central European University, Budapest
Dr Emma Christopher – University of Technology Sydney/ Anti-Slavery Australia
Robin Cohen – Emeritus Professor, University of Oxford
Kathleen M. Coll – Assistant Professor, Politics Department, University of San Francisco
John “Sean” Condon – Associate Professor and Chair, History Department, Merrimack College
Heaven Crawley – FAcSSm, Chair in International Migration, Coventry University
Dr. A. Glenn Crothers – Associate Professor of History, University of Louisville
Daniela Danna – Research Fellow, Università degli studi di Milano
David Brion Davis – Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University
Nicholas De Genova – Reader in Urban Geography, King’s College London
Jeroen de Kloet – Professor of Globalisation Studies, University of Amsterdam
Luke De Noronha – Doctoral Candidate in Anthropology, University of Oxford
Nigel de Noronha – PhD Candidate in Social Statistics, University of Manchester
Jan-Georg Deutsch – Associate Professor in Commonwealth History, Fellow, St Cross College, University of Oxford
Anna Di Bartolomeo – Research Fellow, Migration Policy Centre, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute
Seymour Drescher – Distinguished Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
Franck Duvell – Senior Researcher & Associate Professor, University of Oxford
Dace Dzenovska – Associate Professor Migration, University of Oxford
David Eltis – Robert W. Woodruff Professor of History, Emory University
Pieter Emmer – Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
Hakan Erdem – Faculty Member, Sabanci University
Umut Erel – Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University
James Esson – Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University
Nicholas J. Evans – Lecturer in Diaspora History, Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull
Bronwen Everill – King’s College London
Anne Fairchild – Historic Sites Program Manager, Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites
Toyin Falola – Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin
Sara R. Farris – Sociology Department, Goldsmiths college, University of London
Karwan Fatah-Black – Leiden University, the Netherlands
David Feldman – Professor and Director Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism, School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy Birkbeck, University of London
Sandrina Ferreira Antunes – Assistant Professor, Universidade do Minho, Portugal
Deborah A. Field – Professor of History, Adrian College, Adrian, Michigan
David Scott FitzGerald – Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
Bernard K. Freamon – Professor of Law and Director Zanzibar Program on Modern Day Slavery and Human Trafficking, Seton Hall Law School One Newark Center, Newark, New Jersey
Judy Fudge – Professor, Kent Law School
Paolo Gaibazzi – Research Fellow, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
Marco Gardini – Post-Docoral Fellow, University of Milano-Bicocca
Andrew Geddes FAcSS – Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield
Malick Ghachem – Associate Professor of History, MIT History Faculty
David Theo Goldberg – Professor, Comparative Literature, University of California, Humanities Research Institute, Irvine, California
Christopher A. Graham – Visiting Assistant Professor, History, UNC-Greensboro
Cheryl Greenberg – Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of History, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
Melanie Griffiths – ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow, University of Bristol
Dean Grodzins – Visiting Scholar, Massachusetts Historical Society
Adrián Groglopo – Lecturer, Department of Social Work, Gothenburg university, Sweden
Juan Jesús Guanche Pérez – Miembro de la Junta Directiva y del Consejo Científico de la Fundación Fernando Ortiz, Coordinador de la Sección de Ciencias Sociales y Humanísticas de la Academia de Ciencias de Cuba en la especialidad de Antropología.
Pamila Gupta – Wiser, University of Witswatersrand, South Africa
Elise A. Guyette – Independent Scholar / Historian, Burlington, VT, USA
Edgar Hassan – Director of QSR2 Solutions Ltd (Social Enterprise)
Dr. Jeffrey Helgeson – Assistant Professor of History, Texas State University
Eureka Henrich – Wellcome Trust Research Fellow,
School of History, University of Leicester
Per Hernaes – Professor of History, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Graham Russell Gao Hodges – George Dorland Langdon, Jr. Professor of History and Africana Studies, Colgate University
Stephen Hodkinson – Director, Institute for the Study of Slavery, Department of Classics, University of Nottingham
Dirk Hoerder – Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University, formerly Universitaet Bremen
Liam Hogan – Independent researcher and historian, Limerick
John Holmwood – Professor of Sociology, University of Nottingham
Michael Honey – Fred and Dorothy Haley Professor of Humanities, University of Washington, Tacoma
Neil Howard – Marie Curie Research Fellow, European University Institute
Forrest Hylton – Northwestern University
Engin Isin – Professor of Politics, The Open University
Maurice Jackson – Georgetown University, Washington DC
Christine M. Jacobsen – Professor, University of Bergen
Yolande Jansen – Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Amsterdam
Thibaut Jaulin – Marie Curie Fellow, CERI – Sciences Po, Paris
Malarvizhi Jayanth – PhD Student, South Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago
Hiranthi Jayaweera – Researcher Migration, University of Oxford
Andrew M. Jefferson – Senior Researcher, Danish Institute Against Torture
Irmelin Joelsson – DPhil candidate, University of Oxford
Isabelle Johansson – PhD Candidate Social Anthropology, Department of Sociology, Lund University
Martin Ottovay Jorgensen – Joint Phd Fellow, Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University (Denmark) & Department of history, University of Ghent (Belgium)
Roberta Julian – Associate Professor School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Australia
Nisha Kapoor – Lecturer, University of York
Lena Karamanidou – Department of Sociology, City University
Maria Karaulova – Doctoral Researcher, University of Manchester
Shingo Kato – Assistant Professor, Keio University, Tokyo
Kerwin Kaye – Assistant Professor Sociology, Wesleyan University
Esra Kaytaz – Dphil candidate, University of Oxford
Kamala Kempadoo – Professor, Department of Social Science, York University, Canada
Dr. Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie – Associate Professor of History, Howard University
Suvi Keskinen – Academy Research Fellow, Department of Social Research, University of Turku, Finland
Khatija Khader – PhD Candidate, CIPOD, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Eric Kimball – Assistant Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg
Danielle Kinsey – Assistant Professor, Department of History, Carleton University, Ottawa
Martin Klein – Professor emeritus of History, University of Toronto
Nauja Kleist – Senior Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies
Louise W. Knight – Visiting Scholar, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, Northwestern University
Ifigeneia Kokkali – Politecnico di Milano, Dip. Architettura e Studi Urbani
Helga Konrad – Executive Director Anti-Trafficking, Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe IDM, Head/Coordinator of Regional Implementation Initiative on Preventing & Combating Human Trafficking
Prabha Kotiswaran – Senior Lecturer, Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College, London
Leena Kumarappan – Senior Research Fellow, London Metropolitan University
Dr Sarah Kyambi – Anti-Trafficking Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh
Benjamin N. Lawrance – Hon. Barber B. Conable, Jr. Endowed Chair in International Studies, Rochester Institute of Technology
Genevieve LeBaron – Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield
Clara Lecadet – Postdoctoral fellow, Social Anthropology, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris
Prof. Dr. Baz Lecocq – Chair African History, Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin
Rob Lemkin – Film maker, Oxford
Katharina Lenner – Postdoctoral fellow, Prince Al Hussein Bin Abdullah II School of International Studies, Jordan University, & Associated Researcher, Institut Français du Proche-Orient (ifpo), Amman
Jens Lerche – Reader in Agrarian and Labour Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Giulia Liberatore – Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Oxford
Peter Linebaugh – Professor of History, University of Toledo
Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi – Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics & Philology, Uppsala University, Sweden
Paul E. Lovejoy FRSC – Distinguished Research Professor, Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, York University, Toronto
Richard K. MacMaster – (retired) University of Florida
Cetta Mainwaring – Assistant Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada
Bharat Malkani – Lecturer, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham
Virginia Mantouvalou – Reader in Human Rights and Labour Law, Co-Director of the Institute for Human Rights, University College London
Faith Marchal – PhD Candidate, School of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London
Abdeslam Marfouk – International Migration Researcher, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Yvonni Markaki – Research Officer, Migration Observatory, University of Oxford
Martina Martignoni – PhD student, University of Leicester
Scott C. Martin – Professor of History and American Culture Studies Chair, Dept. of History, Bowling Green State University
Enrique Martino – PhD Research Fellow, Humboldt University of Berlin
Lucy Mayblin – Research Fellow, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield
Achille Mbembe – Research Professor in History and Politics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
W. Caleb McDaniel – Assistant Professor of History, Rice University
Siobhán McGrath – Lecturer in Human Geography, Durham University
John R. McKivigan – Editor Frederick Douglass Papers, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Aidan McQuade – Anti-Slavery International
Alexander Meckelburg – Ph.D. Student, Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies, University of Hamburg
Kathryn Medien – ESRC Doctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology and Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Warwick
Dario Melossi – Department of Legal Studies, School of Law, University of Bologna
Sandro Mezzadra – Professor, Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, University of Bologna
Alessandra Mezzadri – Lecturer in Development Studies, SOAS, London
Fabiola Mieres – Research Associate, Durham University
Randall Miller – Professor of History, Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia
Margot Minardi – Associate Professor of History and Humanities, Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Sverre Molland – Lecturer in Anthropology, Development Studies, Australian National University
Ismael Montana – Northern Illinois University
Anne Elizabeth Moore – independent journalist, Chicago Illinois
Laura Morales – Professor in Comparative Politics, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester
Ian Morrison – Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Egyptology (SAPE), The American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt
Yasser Moullan – International Migration Institute, University of Oxford
Michael Nausner – Vice Dean and Professor of Systematic Theology, Reutlingen School of Theology
Anders Neergaard – Associate Professor, Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), ISV, Linköping University
Antonio Luigi Negro – Associate Professor of History at UFBa
Melanie J. Newton – Director of Caribbean Studies at New College & Associate Professor of History, University of Toronto
Dr. Abdarahmane Ngaide – Enseingant-chercheur au département d’histoire de la FLSH/UCAD (Dakar, Sénégal)
Amy Niang – Lecturer in international Relations, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Sian Nicholas – Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University
Jessica Ayesha Northey – Research Associate, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University
Ninna Nyberg Sørensen – Senior researcher, Research Coordinator, DIIS, Denmark
Mary Nyquist – Professor of English, University of Toronto
Julia O’Connell Davidson – Professor of Sociology, University of Nottingham
Samuel Okyere – Lecturer in Sociology, University of Nottingham
Caroline Oliver – Senior Researcher, COMPAS, University of Oxford
Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome – Professor of Political Science, African & Women’s Studies, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Ann Ostendorf – Assistant Professor of History, Gonzaga University
Elisavet Pakis – Independent Researcher
Polly Pallister-Wilkins – Department of Politics, University of Amsterdam
Dimitris Papadopoulos – Reader in Sociology and Organization, Management School, University of Leicester
Damian Alan Pargas – Associate Professor of History, Leiden University
Michael Parrish – Professor of History, Baylor University
Diana Paton – Reader in Caribbean History, Newcastle University
Lotte Pelckmans – Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies
Nicola Phillips – Professor of Political Economy, University of Sheffield
Jo Phoenix – Professor of Criminology, University of Leicester
Teresa Piacentini – Sociology, University of Glasgow
Linda Pitelka – Professor of History, Maryville University
Tamara Plakins – Thornton Professor, Department of History, State University of New York, Buffalo
Jessica R. Pliley – Texas State University
George R. Price – Lecturer, Depts. of Native American Studies and History and the African American Studies Program, University of Montana
Keith Pringle – Professor Emeritus in Sociology, Uppsala University, Honorary Professor, University of Warwick, Professor Emeritus in Social Policy and Social work, London Metropolitan University
Lara Putnam – Professor and Chair, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh
Joel Quirk – Associate Professor in Political Studies, University of the Witwatersrand
John W. Quist – Professor, Shippensburg University
Parvati Raghuram – Director of OpenSpace Research Centre, Geography Department, The Open University,
Victoria Redclift – Lecturer in Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, University of Surrey
Marcus Rediker – Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History, University of Pittsburgh
João José Reis – Professor of History, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil
Rita Ribeiro – Assistant Professor, University of Minho, Portugal
David Richardson – Professor Emeritus, Economic History, University of Hull
Marlise Richter – Sonke Gender Justice, South Africa
Georgia Rigg – Leadership Lead, RECLAIM Project, Manchester
Kate Roberts – Community Advocate, Kalayaan, London
Stacey Robertson – Central Washington University
Caroline Robinson – Policy Director, Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX)
Stephen J. Rockel – Associate Professor, History, Director, African Studies, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, University of Toronto
Cathy Rodabaugh – Professional and Graduate Studies, Hiram College (Ohio)
Dr Marie Rodet – Lecturer in the History of Africa, School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS)
David R. Roediger – Foundation Distinguished Professor of American Studies and History, Kansas University
Ben Rogaly – Professor of Human Geography, University of Sussex
Pernille Røge – Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh, PA
Mary Romero – Carnegie Scholar, Professor, Justice & Social Inquiry, Arizona State University
Benedetta Rossi – Lecturer in African Studies, University of Birmingham
Stephen L. Rozman – Professor of Political Science, Tougaloo College
Vincenzo Ruggiero – Professor, School of Law, Middlesex University
Anita Rupprecht – Senior Lecturer, University of Brighton
Alex Sager – Assistant Professor, Portland State University
Chandler B. Saint – President, Beecher House Center for the Study of Equal Rights, Co-director Documenting Venture Smith Project
Mohammed Bashir Salau – Associate Professor of history, University of Mississippi
Kerstin Sandell – Associate Professor, Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden
Lena Sawyer – Associate Professor of Social Work, Gothenburg University, Sweden
Marta Scaglioni – PhD Candidate at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and Milano-BIcocca, Italy
Carl-Ulrik Schierup – Professor, REMESO
Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society, Linköping University, Sweden
Annelie Schlaug – PhD candidate Peace and Conflict Research, Lund University, Sweden
Camille Schmoll – Laboratoire CNRS Géographie-cités, Université Paris
Patricia Schor – Utrecht University
Rebecca J. Scott – Professor of History and Law, University of Michigan
Ahmadou Sehou – Enseignant chercheur, Département d’histoire, Université de Maroua, Cameroun
Giorgia Serughetti – University of Milano-Bicocca
Svati P. Shah – Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Nandita Sharma – Director, International Cultural Studies Program and Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hawaii at Mānoa
Eva Sheppard Wolf – Professor of History, San Francisco State University
Robbie Shilliam – Reader in International Relations, Queen Mary University of London
Isabel Shutes – Assistant Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science
James Sidbury – Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Rice University
Nando Sigona – Senior Lecturer & Birmingham Fellow, Deputy Director, Institute for Research into Superdiversity, School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham
Stephanie Silverman – The Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa
Ibrahim Sirkeci – Ria Financial Professor, Regent’s Centre for Transnational Studies, Regent’s University London
Ala Sirriyeh – Lecturer in Sociology, Keele University
Wolbert G.C. Smidt – Associate Professor in Ethnohistory, Department of History and Cultural Studies, Mekelle University, Ethiopia
Gretchen Soderlund – Associate Professor of Media History, School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon
Stacey Sommerdyk – University of the Witwatersrand
Tim Soriano – PhD Candidate in History, The University of Illinois at Chicago
Randy J. Sparks – Professor of History, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
Suzanne B. Spring – Senior Lecturer in Writing and Rhetoric, Colgate University
James Brewer Stewart – James Wallace Professor of History, Emeritus, Macalester College, Founder, Historians Against Slavery
Julia Suárez-Krabbe – Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Identity, Roskilde University
James H. Sweet – Vilas-Jartz Distinguished Professor, Department of History, University of Wisconsin
Sachi Takaya – Associate Professor, Okayama University, Japan
Stephanie Tamby – PhD Candidate, Faculty of Social Studies and Humanities, University of Mauritius
Dr. Anastasia Tataryn – Warwick Law School, University of Warwick
Mekonnen Tesfahuney – Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Media & Communication, Karlstads University, Sweden
Patrizia Testaì – researcher, Defence for Children Italy
Cameron Thibos – Migration specialist and Managing Editor of Beyond Trafficking and Slavery
Chuck Thiesson – Research Fellow in Peacebuilding, Coventry University
Ibrahima Thioub – Professor of History, Director of the Centre Africain de Recherches sur les Traites et les Esclavages (CARTE), Cheikh Anta Diop, University of Dakar – Senegal
Zoe Trodd – Professor and Chair of American Literature, University of Nottingham
Joseph Tsigbe – Maître-assistant d’histoire contemporaine, Université de Lomé
John R. Van Atta – The Brunswick School, Greenwich, CT
Huub Van Baar – Assistant Professor/Research Fellow, University of Giessen, University of Amsterdam
Nicholas Van Hear – Researcher on Migration, University of Oxford
Marieke van Houte – Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford
Henk van Houtum – Nijmegen Centre for Border Research, Radboud, University Nijmegen
William C. Van Norman – Associate Professor of History, James Madison University
Alex van Stipriaan – Professor of Caribbean History, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Eric Vanhaute – Professor Economic and World History, Ghent University, Belgium
Jo Vearey – Associate Professor and Postgraduate Coordinator: African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand
Alessandra Venturini – Deputy Director of the Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute (EUI), Florence
Simona Vezzoli – Research Officer, International Migration Institute, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford
Tom Vickers – Northumbria University
Dora-Olivia Vicol – Dphil Candidate
Maria Villares – Research Fellow, Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME), Birmingham Business School
Bastian Vollmer – Leverhulme Fellow, University of Oxford
Michael Vorenberg – Associate Professor of History, Brown University
Iain Walker – Migration researcher, University of Oxford
Dr. Kerry Ward – Associate Professor of History, Rice University
Klaus Weber – European University Viadrina, Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences, European Economic and Social History, Frankfurt (Oder)
Julia Welland – Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Susanne Wessendorf – Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS), School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham
Christine Whyte – Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, School of History, Kent University
Hanna Wikström – Researcher, Department of Law, Uppsala University; Department of Social Work, University of Gothenburg
John Alexander Williams – Professor, Department of History, Bradley University
David C. Williard – Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of St. Thomas
Sharon E. Wood – Professor of History, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Kirsten E. Wood – Associate Professor of History, Florida International University
Tryon P. Woods – Sociology/Anthropology/Crime & Justice Studies, Black Studies and Women & Gender Studies, affiliate University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Karen Woods Weierman – Professor of English, Worcester State University (Massachusetts, USA)
Agnes Woolley – Lecturer in Contemporary Literature, Royal Holloway, University of London
Robert E. Wright – Nef Family Chair of Political Economy,
Augustana College, South Dakota
Debbie Wright – Producer, From Liberty to Captivity, President, Do What’s Wright Production Company
Donald Yacovone – Associate, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University
Natalie Zemon Davis – Professor Emeritus, Princeton University and University of Toronto
Prof. Dr. Michael Zeuske – Iberische u Lateinamerikanische Abt, U zu Koeln

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