Paper short abstract:

My paper analyzes how former slaves used migration and diasporic practices to rebuild autonomous communities and social networks in Mali and Senegal from the end of the 19th century.

Paper long abstract:

West Africa experienced extensive warfare and enslavement in the second half of the nineteenth century. Populations were scattered along the main slave trade routes in Western Sudan. This article analyzes how former slaves used migration and diasporic practices to rebuild autonomous communities and social networks, and to overcome legacies of slavery away from their region of origin. This entailed renegotiations of kinship, marriage and religious practices in the Kayes region (Mali) and the Siin (Senegal) where 'othering' and vulnerability were deeply rooted in the history of slavery.