Stereotypes of Past-Slavery and "Stereo-Styles" in Post-Slavery: A Multidimensional, Interactionist Perspective on Contemporary Hierarchies

... Several post-slavery societies in francophone West Africa may not quite be as "post" as the term suggests. Does the "post" refer to the two key moments of 1) legal abolition in 1898 (abolition of the economic institution of slave trade and markets), and 2) the 1905 French colonial abolition of domestic slavery as a societal system of organization? If it does, then what of the argument made by some scholars that the 1905 abolition hardly impacted existing social norms1 and that domestic slavery continued well into the twentyfirst century2 in certain areas and often among nomadic groups? The majority of scholars working on nomadic groups in different parts of francophone Sahel areas confirm this. My first argument then is that the term post-slavery reduces the possibility of including continuities, complexity, and diversity of past-slavery forms in present African contexts. It obfuscates even further, for example, the already existing amalgamation of an extreme variety of institutions of inequality (human trafficking, prostitution, human bondage, forced labor)-discursively referred to as "modern slavery"-and the persistence in some areas of historical forms of slavery.