Chapter 2 - Humanitarian Attachments: Contemporary Anti-slavery and Anti-trafficking Discourses

Summary

In this chapter, Hesford examines the humanitarian imperatives of contemporary anti-slavery and anti-trafficking campaigns and their calculated appropriations and parasitic logics. She considers in what contexts, under what conditions of visibility and legibility, and in support of what political investments are humanitarian tropes deployed? To better understand the contemporary anti-slavery movement’s perpetuation and parasitic appropriation of humanitarian tropes, Hesford turns to the rhetorical mediation of human trafficking subjects and their stories. Understanding these mediations, she argues, is important because how trafficking subjects and their stories are framed sets the parameters for public recognition and political action.