Panelists:
Jeff Eden, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University
Sun Joo Kim, Harvard-Yenching Professor of Korean History, Harvard University
Moderator: Ahmad Sikainga, Professor of History, The Ohio State University
Panel Abstract: This panel explores how enslaved individuals in nineteenth-century Central Asia and early modern Korea resisted their bondage and reshaped the trajectories of slavery in their regions.
Presenter: Jeff Eden
Presentation: "How Persian Slaves Freed Themselves in Nineteenth-Century Central Asia: Two Case-Studies of Emancipation"
Presentation Abstract: When the Russian Empire conquered Central Asia in the 1860s-1870s, the conquest was hailed across Europe as the event that ended Central Asia’s vast slave trade and liberated its slaves– a claim that has rarely, if ever, been challenged by historians. In this presentation, Jeff Eden challenges that claim through two dramatic case studies. The first case study shows how, on the eve of Russia’s conquest of the capital city of Khiva in 1873, the city’s slaves fomented the largest slave uprisregion’sing in the history, which prompted the abolition of slavery throughout Central Asia. The second case study reveals what happened to former slaves who escaped their Central Asian owners, fled to the Russian border, and sought protection from the purportedly “abolitionist” Tsar--only to find a surprising fate awaiting them.
About Jeff Eden:
Jeff Eden is Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. His books include Slavery and Empire in Central Asia (Cambridge) and God Save the USSR: Soviet Muslims and the Second World War (Oxford).
Presenter: Sun Joo Kim
Presentation Abstract:
Slavery was a dominant socioeconomic system in Korea for several centuries until it began to spontaneously decline in the eighteenth century. This paper seeks to understand the two unique features of Korean slavery—its longevity and spontaneous decline—by analyzing the phenomenon of runaway slaves, which has a history as long as slavery itself. Early modern Korean slaves did not openly rebel against their owners or the state, which allowed slavery to persist and thrive. However, they consistently ran away from slavery. Some were successful, some were recaptured and returned to slavery, and some were killed while fleeing. Some scholars argue that the widespread fleeing caused the eventual decline of slavery. Others see it as passive resistance. This paper examines a few cases of runaway slaves, slave hunting, and the state’s efforts to curb the illegal use of violence resulting in the deaths of captured slaves. These cases illustrate how the recognition of slaves’ humanity inadvertently enabled the longevity of slavery while unleashing a slow process of the institution’s decline.
About Sun Joo Kim:
Sun Joo Kim is the Harvard-Yenching Professor of Korean History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yonsei University in Korea and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington.
Her research focuses on the socio-cultural history of Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910). Both her college experience in 1980s Korea and a broad interest in the world history of revolutions and rebellions influenced her study of popular movements in nineteenth-century Korea, which in turn led her to analyze regional discrimination and the ways in which marginalized groups of people coped with their compromised conditions in history. Her interest in ordinary but forgotten people, including women, led her to study legal records that inadvertently preserved their voices. Other topics she has studied include slavery, kinship and genealogy, and art history. She is also dedicated to making underused yet illuminating primary sources available in English through conventional and digital publishing.
She is the author of several books. Her peer-reviewed articles have appeared in disciplinary journals such as Social History, Journal of Social History, and Historische Anthropologie, as well as in regional studies journals such as Journal of Asian Studies, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, and Journal of Korean Studies. She has also published in the Korean-language journals. She is the recipient of various fellowships and grants, most notably the American Council of Learned Societies Collaborative Research Fellowship, the Korea Foundation Advanced Research Grant, and the Social Science Research Council Doctoral Research Fellowship.
