Cluster of Excellence 'Beyond Slavery and Freedom'

Cooperation

The Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory is participating in the recently created Cluster of Excellence Beyond Slavery and Freedom at the University of Bonn. The aim of the Cluster is to overcome the established analytical slavery / freedom dichotomy by promoting 'asymmetrical dependency' as a more precise concept for historical analyses of inequalities concerning the distribution of power and resources in different societies.

The mpilhlt joins the Cluster with Thomas Duve as Principal Investigator and with the Research Group Mutual Dependencies and Normative Production in Africa, led by Raquel Razente Sirotti. By focusing on the legal dimension of the interactions between colonial agents, local intermediaries, and indigenous peoples in Africa, the group asks how relations of mutual dependence were constituted and how they produced normativities at a global level. The research being conducted by the coordinator and the PhD students consists of several case studies, which aim to localize the dependencies in different contexts and territories.