ABSTRACT
The recent surge in public attention around human trafficking has been met by a formidable critical literature, questioning the efficacy, motivations, and consequences of attempts to curtail these practices. This chapter argues that state-driven anti-trafficking has a long imperial history that can shed light on the long-term consequences of relying on racial categories in modern anti-trafficking interventions. In British India agents of the crown casually labeled and “rescued” Afro-Asian men and women – also known as Shidis – categorizing them as trafficked “slaves.” This not only distracted from indigenous Indian forms of servitude and bondage but created a lasting narrative and stigma around this group. Deploying racial categories to render subjects legible as trafficked “slaves” or “modern slaves” thus sets into motion complex processes that constrain and shape the limits of identity formation and inclusion in the modern state. Highlighting these processes as both resilient and pernicious, this chapter asks us to reflect on the longue durée – to think carefully not only about the present, but also about the harmful futures anti-trafficking regimes may be setting in motion.
