Episode 362

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Our latest podcast in collaboration with The Southeast Passage examines how slavery flourished in the Ottoman Mediterranean in the wake of growing connectivity with other world regions and territorial expansion. The discussion draws out the ambiguity between slavery and servitude in the case of the Mamluks of the Tunisian Beylik during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Which economic processes, legal interpretations, and geographic routes impacted the evolution of the slave trade from the sixteenth century until its abolition? What are the possibilities for and problems in retracing the self-narratives of those directly involved in the slave trade?

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Contributor Bios

M’hamed Oualdi is an assistant professor of History and Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His research covers early modern and modern North Africa, with a focus on slavery in Ottoman Tunisia during the shift from Ottoman to French colonial rule. His current project deals with slave testimonies in nineteenth-century North Africa, when European and Ottoman states implemented the abolition of slavery around the Mediterranean. Hayri Gökşin Özkoray is teaching assistant (ATER) at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and associated member of the Center for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan and Central Asian Studies. He has received his Ph.D in History from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris). Hayri Gökşin has worked on Ottoman captivity narratives in the early-modern Mediterranean and slavery in the Ottoman Empire. He pursues his research endeavours on Ottoman labour history and also is a fan of improvised and creative music. Andreas Guidi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the EHESS in Paris researching on networks, generations, and capital transmission in late and post-Ottoman Rhodes. He is also the creator of the Southeast Passage podcast.

Credits



Release Date: 15 May 2018

Recording Location: Paris

Audio editing by

Music: "The Southeast Passage Theme," by Giulio Stermieri;

Images and bibliography courtesy of M'hamed Oualdi & Hayri Gökşin Özkoray Episode No. 362Release Date: 15 May 2018Recording Location: ParisAudio editing by Andreas Guidi Music: "The Southeast Passage Theme," by Giulio Stermieri; "Chekhlaâni Ya Farch Ennoum," performed by Falida Khetmi; "Cheghel Hssine: Malouf," performed by Ahmed Ellouz.Images and bibliography courtesy of M'hamed Oualdi & Hayri Gökşin Özkoray

Images

Joseph taken out of the well by Madianite merchants before getting sold into slavery. Ḳalender Paşa (compiler), Fālnāme, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi, Hazine MS 1703 (detail).

War captives brought before the tent of a pasha (ca. 1618-1622). Miniature attributed to Naḳşī. Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi, Hazine MS 889.

Muhammad al-Sādiq Bāshā Bey of Tunis and some of his mamluks (1860). Ksar al-Sa'id Museum, Tunis.

Select Bibliography

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