Archived Bodies: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Abolition

In this contribution, I reflect on law and the body in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and abolition, focusing on law’s role in the commodifcation of the body, on the one hand, and the resistance of slaves and liberated Africans to and/or through law on the other. I draw on critical approaches to the archive, a body of literature which sheds vital light on silences in history, and provides inspiration for thinking about what is at stake in responding to silences. The contribution articulates some of the political, personal and ethical choices that underpin research and writing on a legal history of the body in this context and some of the contemporary implications of the narratives that might result.