Rossi, B;
(2021)
Reflections on public slavery and social death.
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
, 64
(2)
pp. 92-104.
10.1093/bics/qbab024.
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Abstract
It is tempting to see public slaves as sharing characteristics of both slave and free and, therefore, as embodying an intermediate position that proves binary approaches to slavery and freedom wrong. This article argues that this temptation should be resisted. Based on an analysis of cases from different regions and periods, it agrees broadly with Patterson's clear distinction between slave and free statuses, but not with his interpretation of elite slaves as 'the ultimate slaves'. Public slaves were unusual slaves. A close analysis of their circumstances, and of the circumstances of other categories of slaves endowed with particular influence or autonomy in their societies, reveals that the social death metaphor suits certain contexts better than other. It does not accurately capture the historical diversity of the statuses and conditions of enslaved persons through time, and hence is unhelpful for the purpose of comparative generalisation.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Reflections on public slavery and social death |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/bics/qbab024 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/bics/qbab024 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Institute of Classical Studies. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Slavery, public slavery, social death, dependence, unfreedom, comparative method |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10134979 |
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