Ms Sarah Zavaree; Assimilated or Relocated Black Iranians,African Slavery Post Slavery in Iran 1880

In this presentation, Ms. Zavaree will speak on the dynamics of African slavery in Iran. The subject of African slavery remains a societal taboo in Iran. In emerging scholarship, slavery and slave trade in the Islamic world are portrayed as 'benign' and more 'humane' in comparison to chattel slavery in the Atlantic. Slaves are said to have gradually be assimilated into the Iranian society. However, the perplexing void in social discourse and relativising narratives in academia is still more astonishing when we consider that many former slaves are alive and, with few exceptions, hardly consulted in these modes of knowledge production. In this presentation, Ms. Zavaree will discuss common tropes about African slavery by deconstructing and supplementing the written archive. Biographical accounts of contemporary witness teach us the subject positions of black Iranians. Our understanding of slave realities and the post-slavery process is enriched by oral histories and performative archive of spirit possession rituals.