ABSTRACT
Global efforts to combat human trafficking are ubiquitous and reference particular ideas about unfreedom and abject suffering in ways that have justified rescue for decades. The US State Department’s Trafficking in Person’s report along with other global North ranking mechanisms have emerged, seeking to measure human trafficking according to global North paradigms. Human trafficking and all the solutions that have been envisaged to stop it, are strapped tightly to the political and economic hegemony of western Europe and the United States, to western liberal notions of modernity, democracy and (un)freedom, and to “philanthrocapitalism,” venture capitalism and market-based solutions. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book extends the global sheriff metaphor to understand how white supremacy, racism, and coloniality fortify US and global North empire.
