On research secondment: 2020-2025
Benedetta Rossiâs 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 Africaâs 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 lâesclavage: une histoire comparĂ©e (Seuil 2021, with Paulin Ismard and CĂ©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).Ìę
Benedetta has held visiting positions at the UniversitĂ© Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Humboldt University of Berlin, the Ecole des Ăcole des hautes Ă©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).Ìę
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PhD SupervisionÌę
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:Ìę
Sousan Ibrahim, âDe Facto Refugees or Labour Migrants? A Migrant-centred Historical Study of the Eritrean Diaspora in Jeddah (1970-2010)â; Isaac Crichlow, âBlack Troops and Resistance in the West India Regiments: Movement, Control and Freedom, 1795-1840â.
Recently completed:
- Eunice Apio, âChildren Born of War in Northern Uganda: Kinship, Marriage, and the Politics of Post-conflict Reintegration in Lango societyâ (PhD, 2016)
- Paul Jacob Naylor, âFrom Rebels to Rulers: Political and Religious Legitimacy in the writings of the Sokoto Fodiawa 1803-1837â (PhD, 2018)
- Eleanor Seymour, ââYou are Beaten if you are Bad⊠You Woman You have Made Your Husband Tiredâ: Investigating Gender Violence in Northern Ugandaâ (PhD, 2020)
- Toni Smith, âColonial Attitudes toward Women, Slavery and Gender Violence in the Congo, 1900-1930sâ (PhD, 2020)
- Irene Kamaratou, âSeeking Asylum in Greece: Institutional and Social Responses to African Migrant Women in Athensâ (MA by Research, 2020)
- Sophie KĂŒspert-Rakotondrainy, âTransformation of Hierarchies in Western Ethiopia: The Case of the Maoâ (PhD, 2023, winner of the Bradbury Memorial Prize for the best PhD thesis in African Studies)Ìę
Major publications
- Rossi, Benedetta, 2024. â'. Slavery & Abolition, 1-41, published in FirstView.
- Rossi, Benedetta, 2024. ââ. Law & History Review, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 1-29. Introduction to guest-edited by Benedetta Rossi.
- Paulin Ismard, Benedetta Rossi and CĂ©cile Vidal, eds. 2023. Welten der Sklaverei: Eine Vergleichende Geschichte. Berlin: Jacoby & Stuart. (German edition of: Paulin Ismard, Benedetta Rossi and CĂ©cile Vidal, eds., 2021 Les Mondes de lâEsclavage: Une Histoire ComparĂ©e. Co-edited with Paulin Ismard and CĂ©cile Vidal. Paris: Seuil.)
- Rossi, Benedetta, 2023. ââ. 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 CĂ©cile Vidal, eds., Les Mondes de l'Esclavage: Une Histoire ComparĂ©e. Paris: Le Seuil, 2021.Ìę
- Benedetta Rossi, âPĂ©riodiser la fin de lâesclavage: Le droit colonial, la SociĂ©tĂ© des Nations et la rĂ©sistance des esclaves dans le Sahel nigĂ©rien, 1920-1930â. 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, âWhat âDevelopmentâ Does to Workâ. International Labor and Working Class History, vol. 92 (2017), pp. 7-23. Introduction to Special Issue on âDevelopmentalism, Labor, and the Slow Death of Slavery in Twentieth Century Africaâ guest-edited by Benedetta Rossi. ÌęÌę
- Benedetta Rossi, ed. Reconfiguring Slavery: West African Trajectories. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 2016, paperback edition with new preface (first published 2009).
- Benedetta Rossi, âThe Agadez Chronicles and Y Tarichi: A Reinterpretationâ. 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 Rossiâs .Ìę
Active and recent grants/projects
Major research grantsÌę
- 10/2020-09/2025, European Commission Advanced Grant (ERC), PI: Benedetta Rossi. âAfrican Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africaâ (AFRAB).
- 10/2018-01/2020, AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund, Anti-slavery Knowledge Network Grant, PI: Benedetta Rossi. âLegacies of Slavery in Niger: Mobilising Memory, Heritage, and Politics to End Abuseâ ().Ìę
- 03/2018-02/2023, European Commission Starting Grant (ERC), PI: Camille Lefebvre. ÌęâHausa and Kanuri Languages as Archive for the History of Sahara and Sahel in 18th and 19th Centuryâ (). Benedetta Rossi is Senior Researcher in the project.
Collaborative and network grantsÌę
- 11/2019-10/2023, EU Horizon 2020 COST CA18205 âWorlds of Related Coercions in Workâ ()Ìę
- 01/2017-05/2021, European Commission Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE), Network Grant, âSlavery in Africa: A Dialogue between Europe and Africaâ (). PI: Marie-Pierre Ballarin (UniversitĂ© CĂŽte dâAzur, France).Ìę
- 09/2015-09/2020, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (), Partnership Grant, âConjugal Slavery in War: Partnership for the Study of Enslavement, Marriage, and Masculinitiesâ. PI: Annie Bunting (York, Canada).
Media appearancesÌę
- 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.Ìę