After the abolition of slavery in the Indian Ocean and Africa, the world of labor remained unequal, exploitative, and violent, straddling a fine line between freedom and unfreedom. This book explains why. Unseating the Atlantic paradigm of bondage and drawing from a rich array of colonial,...

Forced labor and forced movement in central Mozambique: "contract" labor and colonial rule, 1890-1960 -- The fruits of their labors: mobile workers from central Mozambique, 1942-1961 -- The ties that bind: gender, labor mobility, and social conflict -- Colonialism and its forms of control:...

This paper proposes a new explanation for the emergence of democratic institutions: elites may extend the right to vote to the masses in order to attract migrant workers. I argue that representative assemblies serve as a commitment device for any promises made to labourers by those in power, and...