'Between slavery and freedom': the expulsion and enslavement of free women of colour in the US South before the Civil War

For free black women in the pre-Civil War American South, the status offered by ‘freedom’ was uncertain and malleable. The conceptualization of bondage and freedom as two diametrically opposed conditions therefore fails to make sense of the complexities of life for these women. Instead, notions of enslavement and freedom are better framed as a spectrum. This article develops this idea by exploring two of the ways in which some black women negotiated their status before the law—namely though petitioning for residency or for enslavement. While these petitions are atypical numerically, and often offer tantalizingly scant evidence, when used in conjunction with evidence from the US census, it becomes clear that these women were highly pragmatic. Prioritizing their spousal and broader familial affective relationships above their legal status, they rejected the often theoretical distinction between slavery and liberation. As such, the petitions can be used to reach broader conclusions about the attitudes of women who have left little written testimony.

Globalization, economic freedom, and human rights

Using the KOF Index of Globalization and two indices of economic freedom, the authors empirically analyze whether globalization and economic liberalization affect governments’ respect for human rights in a panel of 106 countries over the 1981–2004 period. According to their results, physical integrity rights significantly and robustly increase with globalization and economic freedom, while empowerment rights are not robustly affected. Due to the lack of consensus about the appropriate level of empowerment rights as compared to the outright rejection of any violation of physical integrity rights, the global community is presumably less effective in promoting empowerment rights.

Towards (more) integrity in academia: transcending neo-liberal assumption of research and knowledge creation and the “rules” supressing academic freedom

European researchers across heterogeneous disciplines voice concerns and argue for new paths towards a brighter future regarding scientific and knowledge creation and communication. Recently, in biological and natural sciences concerns have been expressed that major threats are intentionally ignored. These threats are challenging Europe’s future sustainability towards creating knowledge that effectively deals with emerging social, environmental, health, and economic problems of a planetary scope. Within social science circles however, the root cause regarding the above challenges, have been linked with macro level forces of neo-liberal ways of valuing and relevant rules in academia and beyond which we take for granted. These concerns raised by heterogeneous scholars in natural and the applied social sciences concern the ethics of today’s research and academic integrity. Applying Bourdieu’s sociology may not allow an optimistic lens if change is possible. Rather than attributing the replication of neo-liberal habitus in intentional agent and institutional choices, Bourdieu’s work raises the importance of thoughtlessly internalised habits in human and social action. Accordingly, most action within a given paradigm (in this case, neo-liberalism) is understood as habituated, i.e. unconsciously reproducing external social fields, even ill-defined ways of valuing. This essay analyses these and how they may help critically analyse the current habitus surrounding research and knowledge production, evaluation, and communication and related aspects of academic freedom. Although it is acknowledged that transformation is not easy, the essay presents arguments and recent theory paths to suggest that change nevertheless may be a realistic hope once certain action logics are encouraged.

Basic Income, Republican Freedom, and Effective Market Power

This article examines republican arguments for a basic income that turn on a right to exit the labour market. It gives criteria for the maintenance of republican freedom in markets, arguing that a right to exit or effective market power will guarantee republican freedom in markets. The article then considers whether a basic income is either sufficient or necessary to protect republican freedom both in labour markets and elsewhere. If a basic income is necessary to protect republican freedom in the labour market, I argue it is not sufficient to protect that freedom elsewhere. If citizens lack the means to maintain their republican freedom in the labour market, then there may be other spheres of life where they are vulnerable to subordination, whether or not they have a basic income. Some sociological evidence on cultural consumption patterns is presented.