Welcome to the Cluster of Excellence at the
Bonn Center for Dependency & Slavery Studies
"Beyond Slavery and Freedom:
Asymmetrical Dependencies in Pre-Modern Societies"
We are a research cluster within the framework of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments. In May 2025, we were awarded a further seven years of funding by the German Research Foundation. Hence, as of January 2026, we will be starting our SECOND FUNDING PERIOD (2026-2032).
We investigate profound social dependencies such as slavery, serfdom, debt bondage, and other forms of permanent dependency across epochs, regions and cultures.
Our focus lies "beyond slavery and freedom", i.e., we aim to overcome the binary opposition of "free" and "unfree".
Instead, we propose the new key concept of "asymmetrical dependency" to explore all forms of bondages across time and space.
BCDSS 2024: A Year in Highlights
Bild © Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies / YouTube
BCDSS 2024: A Year in Highlights
2024 was filled with milestones. Watch our highlights video to see what we accomplished together – thank you for being part of our journey!
Enmeshed & Entwined: FABRICS OF DEPENDENCY
Bild © Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies / YouTube
BCDSS exhibition launches digitally!
What can textiles – coarse cloth or fine silks, work and household linen, clothes in different styles and fashions – tell us about different forms of dependency: enslavement, serfdom, forced labour, or in our own day, factory work in the Global South?
Visit our digital exhibition ‘Enmeshed and Entwined: Fabrics of Dependency/Verstrickt und Verwoben: Texturen der Abhängigkeit’ and let our "quilted narratives" help you explore these and further questions.
News
Dies Academicus Lecture by Christian Mader
As part of the Dies academicus at the University of Bonn, Christian Mader Researcher and Coordinator of the Research Group The Archaeology of Dependency (ArchDepth): Resources, Power and Status Differentiation will talk about whether slavery and colonialism have a tangible, material signature that can still be perceived today. Focusing on Fort William in Ghana, an important site in the British slave trade, the lecture will introduce the first results of a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project. By combining material culture studies, digital archaeology, historical research, community engagement, and sensory ethnography, the project reinterprets European forts on the West African coast as lasting architectures of exploitation that continue to influence postcolonial societies.
Wednesday, 03.December 2025
02:15 PM - 03:00 PM
Uni Main BuildingHörsaal IV
Time is of the essence: temporal (in)justice, extractivisms, and dispossessions in the “green transition"
As part of Pollen conference 2026, the Panel P102 Time is of the essence: temporal (in)justice, extractivisms, and dispossessions in the ‘green transition, invites researchers to explore how changing temporalities are central to extractive and renewable-energy projects. The panel will select 5-8 papers for oral presentation, with a view to a subsequent special journal issue. The call for contributions is open now; the deadline for submitting a paper proposal is 5 December 2025.
The conference will take place in Barcelona, Spain, from 29 June to 3 July 2026
Volume 24 of the DSS Series is out now: New Publication by Zeynep Y. Gökçe and Jennifer Leetsch
Congratulations to BCDSS PhD Researcher Zeynep Y. Gökçe and Junior Professor and BCDSS Alumna Jennifer Leetsch, editors of the new publication Ecological Interdependencies: Strong Asymmetrical Relations and More-than-Human Worlds in our DSS Series with De Gruyter.
New Article by Research Group Leader Sinah Kloß
Congratulations to BCDSS Researcher and Coordinator of Research Group "Marking Power: Embodied Dependencies, Haptic Regimes and Body Modification," Sinah Kloß on the publication of her new article, entitled “Hair as Sensory Skin: Sensitive Bodies, Ritual Shaving, and the Maintenance of Bodily Boundaries in Hindu Suriname,” recently released in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Film Screening and Discussion: Sugar Island
This November, the WHO'S GOT THE POWER film and discussion series continues in collaboration with the Förderverein Filmkultur at Kino in der Brotfabrik in Bonn. In addition, Sugar Island is also part of this year's Cinescuela Film Festival.On 6 November 2025 at 19:00, we will be screening and discussing Sugar Island, a hybrid documentary fiction film by Johanné Gómez Terrero (Dominican Republic/Spain, 2024, 91 min). Sugar Island explores identity, memory, and the enduring legacies of colonialism — weaving together family struggles, Afro-Dominican spirituality, and collective resistance against exploitation.
Director Johanné Gómez Terrero has kindly agreed to send us a video greeting to offer some food for thought for our post-screening discussion.
New DSS Publication by Nina Schneider
On Child Labour Opponents and Their Campaigns in the Americas by Dr. Nina Schneider.
Sinah Kloß Appointed Associate Editor of Journal 'Material Religion'
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Sinah Kloß, BCDSS Researcher and Coordinator of the Research Group “Marking Power: Embodied Dependencies, Haptic Regimes and Body Modification,” has joined the editorial board of the peer-reviewed journal Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief (Taylor & Francis) as Associate Editor.
CfP: Pregnancy, Birth, and (Non)Parenthood: Critical Approaches to Reproduction
The one-day workshop will take place on Friday, May 8, 2026, at the University of Bonn and is organized by the "ReCAP - Reproduction: Critical Approaches and Perspectives on Pregnancy, Birth, and (Non)Parenthood " network, including Sinah Kloß (Bonn), Luvena Kopp (Bonn), Christina Lammer (Duisburg-Essen), Isabel Kalous (Erlangen-Nuremberg), and Lisa Krall (Cologne).
Events
Longue Durée Approaches to the Global Plantation Complex
Hybrid: Niebuhrstraße 5 ...
10:00 AM - 06:30 PM
Hybrid Workshop:
What can we learn by rethinking plantations beyond the Atlantic world?
From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, plantations in the ...
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Randy M. Browne
Online event via Zoom
05:30 PM - 07:00 PM
Beyond chattel slavery, who really built the global plantation complex?
This lecture takes a global, longue durée approach, challenging the assumption that ...
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Alan Rice
HYBRID event: On site ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
How have African Atlantic artists transformed our understanding of slavery’s legacy?
Drawing on Rice’s three decades of experience as an academic and curator, ...
Dies Academicus Lecture by Christian Mader
Uni Main Building
02:15 PM - 03:00 PM
Is there a material signature for slavery and colonialism? The West African coast, with its European forts and castles that were involved in the transatlantic ...
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Marçal de Menezes Paredes
HYBRID event: On site ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
What does 50 years of Angolan independence really mean? This lecture revisits Angola’s complex history beyond nationalist or Western narratives, exploring how ...
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Evelyn Hu-DeHart
HYBRID event: On site ...
04:15 PM - 05:45 PM
What happens when 125,000 Chinese indentured men and enslaved African men and women work side by side on Cuban sugar plantations in the late nineteenth ...
Contact Us
Managing Director: Sarah Dusend
Email: dependency@uni-bonn.de
Press and PR Manager: Cécile Jeblawei
Email: pr@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Address
University of Bonn
Niebuhrstraße 5
53113 Bonn
BCDSS Fellowship Programs
Coordination: Laura Hartmann
Email: l.hartmann@dependency.uni-bonn.de
Address
University of Bonn
Niebuhrstraße 5
53113 Bonn