45 - Introduction:

Summary

In the past decade, research on the legacy of slavery has expanded significantly. A new field of investigation, which focuses on current relationships between the descendants of slaves and masters and the different ways they look at their shared past, has emerged at the intersection of social and cultural anthropology and African history. The contributions of Benedetta Rossi and Paolo Gaibazzi are excellent examples of this trend. Rossi introduces sources from the Hausa and Tuareg groups of the Ader region (Republic of Niger), while Gaibazzi focuses on two slave descendants' narratives from the Soninke communities of the Upper River Gambia. Rossi and Gaibazzi explain how masters strove to maintain their privileges after the legal ending of slavery in the colonial period. In both contexts, former masters have subjected slave descendants to belittling discourses about their social role, and they continue making humiliating references to their ancestry.