Events - Conference/Workshop

Christian missionaries pressured women in colonial contact zones to dress more ‘appropriately’ according to European understandings of Christian modesty. At the same time, access to new material goods was one of the attractions to convert. New converts and missionaries actively negotiated the re-composition of local and European fashion styles and, related to this, new forms of body and gender norms and identities. The recomposed forms of dress evolved constantly, gradually acquiring the status of ‘traditional’ dress and becoming materialisations of cultural identity and belonging. Yet, against the backdrop of postcolonial critique and the latest decolonization movements worldwide, the perception of these on-going fashions is currently shifting and being questioned as part of colonial legacies. Given these historical processes, how can we rethink dress and fashion not only as cultural expressions but also as archives of lived experiences, contestations, and resistances?

Tuli Mekondjo’s performance "Saara Omulaule/Black Saara" (2023) was improvised & inspired by Kari Miettinen’s book "On the Way to Whiteness – Christianization, Conflict, and Change in Colonial Owamboland, 1910-1965". The Finnish Sunday school song about “Black Saara – the little Negro girl” prompted a visceral response and an avenue of questioning for Mekondjo. She asks: “What made my ancestors (Aawambo people) convert to Christianity during the period 1910-1965?” The artwork evokes the need for ritual practices on living bodies as an attempt to awaken their souls from spiritual death in order to connect to our ancestors. This practice insists on the imperative performative action carried forward by ancestors, whose remains are still kept in the bondage of colonially created museums and missionary-made cemeteries. Mekondjo’s use of food, ritual and medicinal items to install the performance video are a way to connect ancestral spirits with the digital manifestation. PW: olukonda

Amid escalating geopolitical instability, authoritarian retrenchments, and the deepening securitisation of knowledge-making, this conference critically examines how entrenched knowledge dependencies continue to shape practices of future-making—and how more equitable futures might still be (re)imagined. From the weaponisation of AI to the erosion of indigenous, activist, and academic freedoms, and the constraints of donor-driven agendas, we ask: How is knowledge circulation mediated? Under what conditions have alternative epistemic futures emerged—in the longue durée and within present formations?

The workshop is sponsored by the "Transdisciplinary Research Area 5 - Presents Pasts" and the “Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies” of the University of Bonn. Funded as part of the Excellence Strategy of the federal and state governments. No registration needed for in person attendance

We are pleased to invite you to a keynote lecture by Indrani Chatterjee from the University of Virginia as part of the conference Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies: Perspectives from Asia, Past & Present. Chatterjee’s lecture, titled "Intersecting Subjections in South Asian Pasts," will begin with an introduction by Dr. Emma Kalb and will be followed by a reception at 18:00 CET. Please send an email to asiaconference@dependency.uni-bonn.de in order to register for the event.

Workshop "Slave Labor, Strong Asymmetric Dependency and Social Mobility in the Transition from Slavery to Freedom in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Cuba 1820-1900" The workshop will focus on three areas (based on Research Area D "Work and Spatiality" of the BCDSS): 1) The work of slaves, former slaves as well as other people in strong asymmetrical dependencies in the world's largest sugar factories in the Cienfuegos region (before and after formal abolition); 2) Memory/Heritage of Slavery in three dimensions: people (Tomás Terry), current representation in museums, life histories and family histories in one of the sugar factories near Cienfuegos and in the town itself; 3) Historiography of slavery in Latin America and (possible) social mobility during an era of the great anti-colonial revolutions in Spanish-America and the Caribbean (1790-1902). - in person event only - Find the program below. To register, please click on the link under "Registration/Ticket".

In light of recent conceptual discussions on intersectionality and (im)mobility in Forced Migration Studies, the micro-sociology and embodiment of violence in Peace and Conflict Studies as well as precarity and strong asymmetrical dependencies in Dependency and Slavery Studies, the workshop invites selected scholars from these interlinked fields to jointly reflect on the intersections between gender, violence and dependencies.

This workshop is organised in honour of two medieval historians – Alheydis Plassmann and Björn Weiler – who spent their careers championing comparative approaches to the political culture of high medieval Europe (c. 1000-1300). Compared to earlier centuries, historians tend to remain in their own national academic ‘sub-tribes’ for this part of the Middle Ages, a consequence of the sheer variety and amount of evidence that scholars have access to from the turn of the millennium, but also of a legacy of national historical narratives, inherited from the nineteenth century, concerned with the development of the nation state. The workshop will aim to honour the legacy of these two historians by bringing together established and early-career scholars to consider how we can further our understanding of the relationship between power and dependency in medieval politics beyond a national framework.

Conference: "Children, Dependency, and Emotions in the Early Modern World, 1500-1800: Archival and Visual Narratives" Throughout history children have been subjected to violence, coercion, forced labor and separation. Children also developed strategies to cope with their oftentimes deplorable living conditions. This conference is interested in the archival, visual, and material traces some of these children have left - aiming at reconstructing social and emotional worlds of children in early modern global history. For the full program, see the link below.

In recent times, research has increasingly focused on the previously often neglected phenomena of transition from violence and war to peacemaking and peace consolidation. The thematic contexts and spatial and chronological contexts of such studies are extremely diverse, as are the terms typically used: Gray areas between peace and war, transformation processes, intermediate worlds, transitions, simultaneity phenomena, reconstruction and post-war periods, Cold War/Cold Peace, "neither/nor", "both/and" - all these paraphrases aim to question the premises of Cicero's classic quote "inter bellum et pacem medium nihil sit" and at the same time accentuate the ideal-typical construct character of "war" and "peace". The aim of the conference is to examine the various transitions from violence/war to peacemaking/consolidation across epochs in a specific area, namely the Rhenish region.

This conference "Romani Feminisms: Intersectionality in the Context of Dependencies" aims to support and elevate the work of Romani women feminists, breaking the barriers that confine Romani feminisms to the periphery of mainstream spaces. The insights and outcomes from the conference will be disseminated by the Romnja Feminist Library, ensuring a broader impact and continued dialogue on these critical issues.

This workshop offers the opportunity to explore theoretical approaches to intersectionality and their applications in slavery and dependency studies. Guided by four renowned experts in the fields of anthropology (Laurie A. Wilkie, UK Berkeley), theology (Keri L. Day, Princeton), sociology (Zine Magubane, Boston College), and history (Karen Graubart, University of Notre Dame), we will examine how slavery and dependency studies might benefit from a greater emphasis on intersectionality, and how intersectionality theory might profit from research on asymmetrical dependencies. How might the comparative approach employed by researchers at the BCDSS complement classic legal and sociological conceptions of intersectionality that follow along the lines of race, gender, and class? How might both theoretical frameworks be strengthened by a greater emphasis on questions of sexuality, gender identity beyond the binary, (dis)ability, or religious experience in modern and pre-modern societies?

This workshop explores the intersection of archaeology and genetics, the power and complexities of archaeogenetics, a field that's reshaping our understanding of the past, using ancient and modern DNA to understand migration, societal structures, and power dynamics in history.

Why would someone give a human being as a gift? Who are the giver and the taker? How does the gift-giving affect the life and status of the gifted human? The two-day conference "Humans as Gifts" at the University of Bonn in May 2024 will bring historians and anthropologists together to find answers to these question.

We are delighted that Professor Steeve Buckridge (Grand Valley State University, Michigan) will give the keynote lecture "Beyond the Classical Archives: Dress as Embodied Histories, Memory, and Orality in and from the Caribbean". How did dress as a visual language and expressive form of culture articulate differences in slave society? Or how did dress empower or disempower slave women within the colonial plantocracy? The talk aims to demonstrate how dress is parallel to written archival materials and is a source for historical analysis. Find the full abstract below.

In-person event. Please note that all talks are based on papers that have been pre-circulated to speakers. Please register by 15 April via Email to: events@dependency.uni-bonn.de This colloquium examines how and why segregation has been used as a tool for constructing and policing gender boundaries, at the intersection with race, age, status, class, functionality, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, nationality and other historical ideas of human identity and categorization. Segregation is the physical, cultural, or legal separation of groups on the basis of self- or external demarcations of difference and can be observed in many different human societies of the past. This colloquium discusses segregation across time and space as both a framework of control through imposing binary and as an individual coping mechanism and a strategy of subversion.

This workshop aims to shed light on the underlying factors that reinforce the perpetuation of modern-day slavery in Nigeria, with a particular focus on the dynamics of asymmetrical dependency. The analysis begins by examining the historical and socioeconomic antecedents that predispose Nigeria to other forms dependency. These analytical categories such as poverty, corruption, weak governance, and socio-cultural practices have created an environment conducive to the exploitation and enslavement of individuals, particularly women, children, and the less privileged. The complex web of asymmetrical relations and diverse processes of enslavement are reproduced by institutions, beliefs, values and practices that maintain and enforce coercive relationships. The workshop will bring together renowned scholars and PhD students working in the field of asymmetrical dependency to discuss the historical, socioeconomic, and power dynamics at play.

This workshop considers how unequal social and labor relations were entangled with notions of difference between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Across South Asia during this period, articulations of difference – expressed across multiple registers of discourse and practice – produced and sustained asymmetrical relations and networks of dependencies. Through exploring the interplay of these factors during this period, as well as potential connections or disjunctures with prior and subsequent eras, the workshop hopes to contribute towards developing a comparative framework across distinct contexts from Mughal North India to Portuguese Goa to the Deccan under Maratha rule. Participants will examine how social categories such as caste, gender, origin, and ethnicity intersected with relations of slavery, servitude, and/or service, looking at examples such as military labor, domestic service, and corvée labor.

This international conference will explore asymmetrical dependencies and related phenomena in Latin America from an archaeological point of view. A recent paradigm shift has resulted in the study of diverse forms of dependency across space and time, including colonialism, slavery, political-ideological coercion, coerced tribute, servitude, serfdom, debt bondage, convict labor, indentured migration, labor migration, and forced relocation of groups of laborers. These new research foci also entail the development and application of new theoretical, methodological, and not least data-driven approaches, thereby analyzing and combining various lines of evidence. We intend this conference to be a forum for discussion, bringing together a wide range of perspectives and case studies from different regions and time periods in Latin America.

Prof. Dr. Michael Zeuske presents "A Global Historical Perspective on Slavery: Analyzing Capitalism, Labor, and Slavery in Cuba (Cienfuegos 1870-1920)" at the conference "Slavery and Asymmetrical Dependency in Cienfuegos' Global Labor History (1870-1900)" in Cuba, jointly organized by BCDSS and Provincial Committee UNEAC Cienfuegos. The event, titled "Slavery and Asymmetrical Dependency in the Global History of Labor: Cienfuegos 1870-1900", runs from September 27th to 30th, 2023, at UNEAC. It explores the historical context of slavery and asymmetric dependency in Cienfuegos' global labor history from 1870 to 1900. Topics encompass Cienfuegos' significance in global slavery, individuals like Tomas Terry Adams, coffee plantation development, Cuba's slavery history, and social and cultural aspects, including visits to historical sites. Conducted in Spanish and English.