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'Adoption, Captivity, and Slavery:
Changing Meanings in Early Colonial America'
The British Museum, London,
Sackler Rooms,
Clore Education Centre,
February 17th and 18th, 2008.
10,30 AM- 5 PM
£10 for two days
£5 students/concessions
This is the first conference in the UK that addresses the shifting meanings
associated with complex notions such as slavery and captivity that, although
seemingly self-explanatory, may hide implicit assumptions about the nature
of these categories as popularly understood. Intended as a forum for these
topics, the conference is particularly relevant at this time (2007 – 08) on
the 200th anniversary of the formal abolition of the slave trade in the UK.
Both academe and the public are becoming aware of the continued problems of
captivity and forced labour of children, women and/or immigrants occurring
in the world today. The organizers aim to receive interest from a diverse
audience because of the relevance of the issues being raised. In particular,
the symposium offers a forum to explore the shifting meanings of concepts
associated with the exchange and incorporation of people into different
social groups in the many contexts, including the Amerindian and African
slave trades, engendered by the colonial encounter between Amerindians,
Africans, and Europeans. More specifically, we want to address the question
of what happens when two or more parties with different value systems
entertain exchange relations, with particular emphasis on the exchange of
human beings. We aim to investigate not only the social roles and positions
of individuals and groups that were integrated in totally new socio-cultural
contexts across ethnic boundaries, but also to analyse the meanings
attributed to practices associated with social incorporation by the parties
involved in forced, invited, and voluntary transactions resulting from new
social contexts. The unprecedented intermingling of cultures during the
colonial period in North America is exemplary in this regard. It brought
together different perspectives and understandings on power relationships
that are well illustrated in captivity narratives, documents on hostage
exchange, accounts of slave-hunting, ethnography of intertribal adoption,
and accounts of various forms of kidnap, and/or captivity between different
groups.
The conference website is hosted by the University of Plymouth. The
conference was sponsored by the University of Plymouth, the British Museum
Centre for Anthropology, the Royal Anthropological Institute and the
generous support of the Thaw Foundation/Sosland family.
www.plymouth.ac.uk/adoptionandslaveryinamerica
For further information about this conference please contact the organisers:
Dr Stephanie Pratt [log in to unmask]
Dr Max Carocci [log in to unmask] .
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