International Research Workshop: African Voices Against Slavery and the Slave Trade

Venue: Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang Auditorium (Amissah Arthur Centre) 

University of Cape Coast (UCC), Cape Coast, Ghana

Date: 9-10 June 2026

Organisers: Emmanuel Saboro, Anita Pobi, Michael Odijie, Alexander Meckelburg, Michelle Liebst, Benedetta Rossi 

Call for Papers

This call for proposals invites contributions to a reader of primary texts that will illustrate the ideas and strategies employed by African authors based in Africa to challenge the legitimacy of slavery and the slave trade in African societies from the eighteenth century to the present day. The deadline to submit proposals is 5 January 2026. Decisions on proposals will be announced in February 2026. A positive decision will not guarantee publication in the reader, but will be an invitation to submit a full and complete version of the proposed contribution for discussion at a research conference that will be held at the University of Cape Coast on 9-10 June 2026. The deadline for the first full drafts of contributions is 1 May 2026. Accepted contributions will be circulated amongst workshop presenters in advance of the workshop in June. If the contribution is selected for inclusion in the reader, it will undergo peer review in the summer following the workshop. Limited funding is available to support the travel and accommodation expenses of contributors who do not have access to institutional funds to finance their participation. 
 

About the Reader
The historiography of European and American abolitionism is extensive. By contrast, research on African abolitionism in Africa is a narrow field.[1] The historiography of abolition in Africa focuses primarily on the activities of Europeans in the decades leading up to the colonial occupation of Africa and during the period of colonial rule. Only recently have general questions concerning the development of anti-slavery ideas and movements in African societies and cultures begun to be investigated at the continental level.[2] Where, when, how, and why did moral perceptions of slavery change in African societies? Who were the key ideologues of African abolitionism? Among which groups did abolitionism spread in different African regions? What forms of political struggle did African anti-slavery ideas and movements give rise to in Africa? Detailed answers to these questions cannot be provided on a continental scale without critically analysing primary texts that reveal the logics followed, the normative values mobilised, and the strategies pursued by African actors who objected to the legitimacy of slavery in different parts of Africa and at different moments in time. The present call takes a step towards addressing these issues by bringing together a collection of primary sources, introduced and critically annotated by researchers specialising in the regional history to which these texts pertain.

This call for contributions aims to produce a reference volume enabling readers to trace the development of abolitionist ideas in different African cultures and regions. The volume is intended for African and global historians, historians of slavery and abolition, university students at graduate and undergraduate level, and interested members of the public. Contributions should therefore be written in clear, accessible language that is understandable to readers with no prior knowledge of the specialist regional historiography. Any specific terminology should be explained. When selecting primary texts and their authors, potential contributors are invited to consider influential arguments that were, or became, relevant to the history of a society, country, or region as a whole. Contributions focusing on anti-slavery in the same region will be limited to ensure broad continental geographical coverage. Contributors should therefore consider which voices against slavery they would like to see included in a general volume on anti-slavery in African history, bearing in mind that in order to maximise continental coverage only one or two texts per region may be selected. To facilitate coherent contextualisation, the volume will cover the period from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day. Proposed texts should fall within this chronological focus. 

It is envisaged that the final contributions to the volume will not exceed 10,000 words, including everything.[3] Each chapter of the planned reader will contain three parts, as follows: 

(1) One primary text excerpt of up to 7,000 words including footnotes. The primary texts may belong to a variety of genres, including public orations, political or policy briefs, activist pamphlets, biographical or autobiographical accounts, educational texts, cautionary tales, poems, songs, and other artistic compositions. The most important thing is their relevance to local and regional history, and their ability to give readers an understanding of the broader cultural context of local, regional, or national abolitionism. These texts may have been originally written or oral and subsequently transcribed.

(2) An introductory text providing contextual information of up to 5,000 words. If the primary excerpt is 7,000 words, the introduction should not exceed 3,000 words. 

(3) A list of up to six study questions for use in teaching, along with a bibliography of up to ten suggested readings on historical studies that provide relevant information on the context in which the primary text was developed, and on its author(s). 

Submit a Proposal

Proposals should be submitted via Google Form by 5 January 2026. Proposals should be about 1000 words in length. They should be structured as follows: 

• Bio-note of up to 200 words containing your name, institutional affiliation, and main publications on topics related to the proposed contribution.
• Short excerpt of the proposed primary text of ca 500 words. If the text in question is in a language other than English or French, both the original version and the English/French translation should be provided and the total length of the excerpt and translation together should be of ca 1000 words. Full bibliographic or archival references must be included. Please explain how you intend to acquire the right to reproduce the text for the purpose of this publication.
• The abstract proper should be about 300 words in length; it should:
• introduce the primary text, its author, and the archive(s) or bod(ies) of sources in which you accessed the text; state the original language of the text and, if a translation is necessary, who will make the translation;
• describe the method(s) that you use to work with these sources;
• explain why you consider this text significant for the purpose of the present publication project.

Please contact Ms Melanie Horstead for any questions (m.horstead@ucl.ac.uk )

Acknowledgement: This CfP has been developed in the framework of the AFRAB project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 885418).
 

[1] For example, Kwabena Akurang-Parry, ‘“We shall Rejoice to See the Day When Slavery Shall Cease to Exist”: The “Gold Coast Times”, the African Intelligentsia, and Abolition in the Gold Coast’, History in Africa, 31 (2004): 19-42; Sandra E. Greene, ‘Minority Voices: Abolitionism in West Africa’, Slavery & Abolition, 36/4 (2015): 642–61; Ismail Rashid, ‘“A Devotion to the Idea of Liberty at Any Price”: Rebellion and Antislavery in the Upper Guinea Coast in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, in Sylviane A. Diouf (ed.), Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies (Martlesham: Boydell & Brewer, 2004), pp. 132-51; Ismael Musah Montana, The Abolition of Slavery in Ottoman Tunisia (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013); Mahaman Tidjani Alou, ‘Démocratie, exclusion sociale et quête de citoyenneté: cas de l’association Timidria au Niger’, Journal des africanistes, 70/1-2 (2000): 173-95 ; Salma Hargal, ‘Ending Slavery in Imperial Peripheries: Ottoman Abolitionist Policy in Trablusgarp and Benghazi Provinces (1857–1911)’, Middle Eastern Studies, 1-16,  20 February 2024.

[2] For example, see Special Issue on ‘African Legal Abolitions’, Law & History Review, Volume 42/1 (February 2024); Special Issue on ‘African Approaches to the Abolition of Slavery’, Esclavages & Postesclavages / Slaveries & Postslaveries, 10 (2025).

[3] As an example of the final form of contributions, potential contributors can consult the volume African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade, edited by Alice Bellagamba, Sandra Greene and Martin Klein, and published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.