Lotte Pelckmans
I specialised in global issues related to human rights, inequality, migration, slavery, social movements, visuals and media in (conflict areas), mainly in francophone West Africa, with a special focus on Mali and Niger. I have also some experience in Nigeria and Ghana. I am currently working on a research project on the contemporary history of slavery and protracted displacements in Mali, with a documentary film and online fieldwork about social media, conflict and diaspora. (see also CV-short bio)
Phone: +4561713517
Address: Tornebakken 11,
3230 Græsted
Denmark
Phone: +4561713517
Address: Tornebakken 11,
3230 Græsted
Denmark
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Book chapters
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/invisibility-in-african-displacements-9781786999207/
See also a blogpost on this chapter:
https://ammodi.com/2021/06/23/post-slavery-and-the-invisibility-of-female-emotions-in-migration-displacement-and-refugee-studies/
This chapter analyses the flow – or ‘undercurrent’ – of forced displacement of low status women from central-south Niger who are contracted as ‘concubines’ in northern Nigeria. While these displacements are small scale, highly individual and low density in terms of quantity, I take a special interest in them for their ignored longue durée, intergenerational and qualitatively disruptive impact on families and more specifically women, with slave status. The practice of what I will call ‘concubinage’ can have different connotations and is valued differently by different individuals in the predominantly Islamic Sahel and beyond. While some strands in Islamic ideology describe ‘concubinage’ as the most honourable and dignified chance to marry up for slave women, legally offering viable ways to emancipation, reality seems to not always conform to this ideal to the women themselves, or to their offspring. Indeed, on the other side of the spectrum, some human...
(DOI to the chapter : 10.5040/9781350225510.ch.012)
Among the social groups in West Africa that have been undergoing rapid social changes in the twenty-first century are those categorized as descen-dants of slaves. Rossi has analyzed the ways in which these groups contin- ue to “reconfigure” power relations vis-à-vis their former masters. Here, I wish to demonstrate that scholars should add the analysis of individual naming and renaming practices as part and parcel of various other emancipation strategies. More specifically I address the name changes made by Fulɓe slave descendants in Central Mali.
Most existing work on West Africa focuses on differ-ences between so-called “related” versus “unrelated” domestic workers, the sexual abuse and violence against young female domestics who lack protection in the face of neo-liberalization or due to transnational migration, which makes some authors consider domestic workers as “modern slaves” or “disposable people.”
This text describes how Fulbe families of Central Mali who settled in urban areas have a preference for recruiting domestic labor among the most vulnerable families with slave status in their home villages. Slave status seems an anachronism in a country where slavery was officially abolished in 1905. However, several ethnic groups in the contemporary Sahel used to be slave societies in which around twenty to fifty percent of the economy was based on the surplus production by slaves. In these societies, slave descendants continue to be marginalized based on a dominant aristocratic ideology of slavery. Several studies repeatedly demonstrated that the marginalization of people of slave descent in West Africa did not end with either colonialism or with postcolonial policies. The story of domestic workers in this chapter, is in line with these findings and describes how the memory of slavery impacts the movements of young rural girls towards urban settings.
Papers
their societies faced and continue to face in a male-dominated world.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/invisibility-in-african-displacements-9781786999207/
See also a blogpost on this chapter:
https://ammodi.com/2021/06/23/post-slavery-and-the-invisibility-of-female-emotions-in-migration-displacement-and-refugee-studies/
This chapter analyses the flow – or ‘undercurrent’ – of forced displacement of low status women from central-south Niger who are contracted as ‘concubines’ in northern Nigeria. While these displacements are small scale, highly individual and low density in terms of quantity, I take a special interest in them for their ignored longue durée, intergenerational and qualitatively disruptive impact on families and more specifically women, with slave status. The practice of what I will call ‘concubinage’ can have different connotations and is valued differently by different individuals in the predominantly Islamic Sahel and beyond. While some strands in Islamic ideology describe ‘concubinage’ as the most honourable and dignified chance to marry up for slave women, legally offering viable ways to emancipation, reality seems to not always conform to this ideal to the women themselves, or to their offspring. Indeed, on the other side of the spectrum, some human...
(DOI to the chapter : 10.5040/9781350225510.ch.012)
Among the social groups in West Africa that have been undergoing rapid social changes in the twenty-first century are those categorized as descen-dants of slaves. Rossi has analyzed the ways in which these groups contin- ue to “reconfigure” power relations vis-à-vis their former masters. Here, I wish to demonstrate that scholars should add the analysis of individual naming and renaming practices as part and parcel of various other emancipation strategies. More specifically I address the name changes made by Fulɓe slave descendants in Central Mali.
Most existing work on West Africa focuses on differ-ences between so-called “related” versus “unrelated” domestic workers, the sexual abuse and violence against young female domestics who lack protection in the face of neo-liberalization or due to transnational migration, which makes some authors consider domestic workers as “modern slaves” or “disposable people.”
This text describes how Fulbe families of Central Mali who settled in urban areas have a preference for recruiting domestic labor among the most vulnerable families with slave status in their home villages. Slave status seems an anachronism in a country where slavery was officially abolished in 1905. However, several ethnic groups in the contemporary Sahel used to be slave societies in which around twenty to fifty percent of the economy was based on the surplus production by slaves. In these societies, slave descendants continue to be marginalized based on a dominant aristocratic ideology of slavery. Several studies repeatedly demonstrated that the marginalization of people of slave descent in West Africa did not end with either colonialism or with postcolonial policies. The story of domestic workers in this chapter, is in line with these findings and describes how the memory of slavery impacts the movements of young rural girls towards urban settings.
their societies faced and continue to face in a male-dominated world.
'With her published dissertation, Travelling hierarchies, Lotte Pelckmans makes an important contribution to the study of slavery and dependency relations in West Africa. Pelckmans must be praised for the detail and thoroughness of her research. She presents the reader with a comprehensive methodological framework, in which the intricacies of slave trade and slavery studies are discussed. An important conclusion here is the scarcity of studies addressing indigenous African slavery in both an historical and contemporary context, due to the fact that the commemoration of slavery both inside and outside Africa focusses strongly on the victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Indigenous African slavery is not a priority in terms of African national policies, nor with international policy makers. Academically, the field has received ample historical attention, but not-perhaps with the exception of child slavery-in a more contemporary and social-institutional setting....'
read online here:
https://theconversation.com/mali-fails-to-face-up-to-the-persistence-of-slavery-147636
https://theconversation.com/pourquoi-l-esclavage-par-ascendance-subsiste-encore-au-mali-155226
in English:
https://theconversation.com/mali-fails-to-face-up-to-the-persistence-of-slavery-147636
Voir aussi le lien ci-dessous.
Website of Point sud: http://pointsud.org/upcoming-conferences/?lang=en
for the Journal Anthropology and Development,
In English see:
http://apad-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CFP_AnthropologyDevlopment_Deridder_Pelckmans_2019.pdf
In French: http://apad-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CFP_AnthropologyDevlopment_Deridder_Pelckmans_2019.pdf
The documentary movie River Nomads visualizes one group of nomadic fishermen that have moved internationally within West Africa for decades but seem to face increased challenges to continue doing so..
It documents internal African migrations and follows a group of about 200
(semi-)nomadic fishermen in their yearly seasonal/ circular migration towards their fishing grounds in Mali and Niger. Amongst the many fishermen that inhabit the riverbanks and islands scattered along the 4200 kilometers of the Niger river, the Kebbawa stand out for their peculiar transnational nomadic lifestyle. The central question is why they are giving up this lifestyle and the answers point towards multiple factors ranging from illiteracy to corruption, overfishing, shifts in religion and climate change.
For more background info: http://www.rivernomads.dk/river-nomads/