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.
Dependency Blog
“Whose Prayers Did God Hear?”
Echoes of Questions from Cape Coast Castle and the 2024 World Christianity Conference in Ghana by David Smith
Children and Empire
A Report from Port Arthur, Lutruwita (Tasmania) by Joseph Biggerstaff
Through the Walls of Silence
Building Sensory Narratives and Countering History in Cameron Rowland’s “Amt 45i” in Frankfurt am Main by Sonia Tesfaye, Klaudia İnanç, Adiam Tadele Abadi, Prateeti Mukhopadhyay, Ishita Sarkar
Archives of Empires, Archives of Race
A Reflection on the 2023 Archives, Slavery & Race-Making Summer School by Amalia S. Levi
The World of Colonial Letters
by Mary Afolabi
as of 30.11.2025
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