果冻影院

On research secondment: 2020-2025

Benedetta Rossi鈥檚 research focuses on the African and global history of slavery and other forms of unfreedom, abolition and abolitionism, labour, migration, planned development, and gender in the nineteenth and twentieth century. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Slavery and Abolition in Africa鈥檚 Modern History (contracted to CUP). She is the author of From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour, and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800-2000 (CUP 2015) and the editor of numerous edited volumes and special issues, including special issues on the legal abolition of slavery in African history (Law & History Review 2024), on slavery and marriage in African societies (Slavery & Abolition 2022, co-edited with Joel Quirk), and on developmentalism, labour, and the slow death of slavery in twentieth century Africa (International Labour and Working Class History Journal 2017). She edited the volumes Les mondes de l鈥檈sclavage: une histoire compar茅e (Seuil 2021, with Paulin Ismard and C茅cile Vidal); Landscapes, Sources, and Intellectual Projects in West African History (Brill 2018, with Toby Green); Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Brill 2010, with Anne Haour) and Reconfiguring Slavery: West African Trajectories (LUP 2009, 2nd ed. 2016).听

Benedetta has held visiting positions at the Universit茅 Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Humboldt University of Berlin, the Ecole des 脡cole des hautes 茅tudes en sciences sociales in Paris, and China Agricultural University in Beijing. She is the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded research project African Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africa (AFRAB, ERC-AdG-885418, 2020-2025) and of the AHRC-funded project Legacies of Slavery in Niger (LESLAN, AH/V01210X/1, 2018-2022). She is senior researcher in the ERC-funded project Language as Archive: European Linguistics and the Social History of the Sahara and Sahel in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century (LANGARCHIV, ERC-StG-759390, PI Camille Lefebvre, 2018-2025).听
听

PhD Supervision听

Benedetta supervises students in areas related to the historical experience of coercion, African and global slavery, abolition, and emancipation and free and unfree labour (nineteenth and twentieth centuries).

Current students:听

Sousan Ibrahim, 鈥楧e Facto Refugees or Labour Migrants? A Migrant-centred Historical Study of the Eritrean Diaspora in Jeddah (1970-2010)鈥�; Isaac Crichlow, 鈥楤lack Troops and Resistance in the West India Regiments: Movement, Control and Freedom, 1795-1840鈥�.

Recently completed:

• Eunice Apio, 鈥楥hildren Born of War in Northern Uganda: Kinship, Marriage, and the Politics of Post-conflict Reintegration in Lango society鈥� (PhD, 2016)
• Paul Jacob Naylor, 鈥楩rom Rebels to Rulers: Political and Religious Legitimacy in the writings of the Sokoto Fodiawa 1803-1837鈥� (PhD, 2018)
• Eleanor Seymour, 鈥樷�淵ou are Beaten if you are Bad鈥� You Woman You have Made Your Husband Tired鈥�: Investigating Gender Violence in Northern Uganda鈥� (PhD, 2020)
• Toni Smith, 鈥楥olonial Attitudes toward Women, Slavery and Gender Violence in the Congo, 1900-1930s鈥� (PhD, 2020)
• Irene Kamaratou, 鈥楽eeking Asylum in Greece: Institutional and Social Responses to African Migrant Women in Athens鈥� (MA by Research, 2020)
• Sophie K眉spert-Rakotondrainy, 鈥楾ransformation of Hierarchies in Western Ethiopia: The Case of the Mao鈥� (PhD, 2023, winner of the Bradbury Memorial Prize for the best PhD thesis in African Studies)听

Major publications

• Rossi, Benedetta, 2024. 鈥�'. Slavery & Abolition, 1-41, published in FirstView.
• Rossi, Benedetta, 2024. 鈥樷��. Law & History Review, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 1-29. Introduction to guest-edited by Benedetta Rossi.
• Paulin Ismard, Benedetta Rossi and C茅cile Vidal, eds. 2023. Welten der Sklaverei: Eine Vergleichende Geschichte. Berlin: Jacoby & Stuart. (German edition of: Paulin Ismard, Benedetta Rossi and C茅cile Vidal, eds., 2021 Les Mondes de l鈥橢sclavage: Une Histoire Compar茅e. Co-edited with Paulin Ismard and C茅cile Vidal. Paris: Seuil.)
• Rossi, Benedetta, 2023. 鈥樷��. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History.
• Benedetta Rossi and Joel Quirk, eds., Special Issue: Slavery and Marriage in African Societies. Slavery & Abolition 43, no. 2 (2022).
• Paulin Ismard, Benedetta Rossi, and C茅cile Vidal, eds., Les Mondes de l'Esclavage: Une Histoire Compar茅e. Paris: Le Seuil, 2021.听
• Benedetta Rossi, 鈥楶茅riodiser la fin de l鈥檈sclavage: Le droit colonial, la Soci茅t茅 des Nations et la r茅sistance des esclaves dans le Sahel nig茅rien, 1920-1930鈥�. Les Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, vol. 72 (2018), no. 4, pp. 983-1021.
• Toby Green and Benedetta Rossi, eds., Landscapes, Sources, and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past. Co-edited with Toby Green. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
• Benedetta Rossi, 鈥榃hat 鈥淒evelopment鈥� Does to Work鈥�. International Labor and Working Class History, vol. 92 (2017), pp. 7-23. Introduction to Special Issue on 鈥楧evelopmentalism, Labor, and the Slow Death of Slavery in Twentieth Century Africa鈥� guest-edited by Benedetta Rossi. 听听
• Benedetta Rossi, ed. Reconfiguring Slavery: West African Trajectories. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 2016, paperback edition with new preface (first published 2009).
• Benedetta Rossi, 鈥楾he Agadez Chronicles and Y Tarichi: A Reinterpretation鈥�. History in Africa, vol. 43 (2016), pp. 95-140.
• Benedetta Rossi, From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour, and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800-2000. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press (African Studies series), 2015.
• Anne Haour and Benedetta Rossi, eds., Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Co-edited with Anne Haour. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

For a full list of publications see Benedetta Rossi鈥檚 .听

Active and recent grants/projects

Major research grants听

• 10/2020-09/2025, European Commission Advanced Grant (ERC), PI: Benedetta Rossi. 鈥楢frican Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africa鈥� (AFRAB).
• 10/2018-01/2020, AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund, Anti-slavery Knowledge Network Grant, PI: Benedetta Rossi. 鈥楲egacies of Slavery in Niger: Mobilising Memory, Heritage, and Politics to End Abuse鈥� ().听
• 03/2018-02/2023, European Commission Starting Grant (ERC), PI: Camille Lefebvre. 听鈥楬ausa and Kanuri Languages as Archive for the History of Sahara and Sahel in 18th and 19th Century鈥� (). Benedetta Rossi is Senior Researcher in the project.

Collaborative and network grants听

• 11/2019-10/2023, EU Horizon 2020 COST CA18205 鈥淲orlds of Related Coercions in Work鈥� ()听
• 01/2017-05/2021, European Commission Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE), Network Grant, 鈥楽lavery in Africa: A Dialogue between Europe and Africa鈥� (). PI: Marie-Pierre Ballarin (Universit茅 C么te d鈥橝zur, France).听
• 09/2015-09/2020, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (), Partnership Grant, 鈥楥onjugal Slavery in War: Partnership for the Study of Enslavement, Marriage, and Masculinities鈥�. PI: Annie Bunting (York, Canada).

Media appearances听

• 2019 , interview with Benedetta Rossi, Le Monde Afrique, 10 March 2019.
• 2017 , interview with Benedetta Rossi. Published online in the website of Humboldt University (Berlin), 18 December 2017.
• 2017 . Beyond Trafficking and Slavery, an Open Democracy blog, 21 November 2017.听

Teaching

• Slavery and Abolition in Africa, 19th-20th centuries (Masters module)