Scholarly Sparks: Insights from the PhD Seminar in Leiden 2024

On the importance of international networks and PhD seminars

Laura Hartmann (BCDSS PhD Coordinator)

Over the past six years, the BCDSS has built a growing network of partnerships with international institutions and researchers. These collaborations have become a cornerstone of our work, allowing us to connect with like-minded scholars and broaden our impact. One of the best examples of these expanding connections is the annual International PhD Seminar on Slavery, Servitude, & Extreme Dependency. This event is a joint effort organized by the BCDSS, the Leiden Slavery Studies Association (LSSA) at Leiden University (NL), and the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull (UK). This year the seminar was also supported by funding from the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS).

The event was held at the Johan Huizinga Building of the University of Leiden. (Photo by Bahar Bayraktaroğlu)

The seminar provides an invaluable opportunity for emerging scholars to present their research and engage in critical discussions on their work. Over the years, it has become a vital component of our PhD program. Each year, it brings together a diverse group of researchers from different disciplines, all exploring various forms of (strong) asymmetrical dependency. This interdisciplinary exchange offers a wide range of perspectives on the research presented, encouraging PhD researchers to view their own work from new angles, which enhances both the scope and depth of their studies.

The supportive environment of the seminar fosters open dialogue, inviting participants to ask questions and engage in thoughtful discussions. The constructive feedback from fellow PhD candidates and experienced professors creates a space where participants feel free to explore ideas without judgment.

To our deepest regret, we had to cope without the expertise of Professor Trevor Burnard from the Wilberforce Institute, who passed away this summer. We will remember his valuable contributions to the PhD seminar and his dedication to supporting early-career researchers!

Thoughts and impressions of BCDSS participants

Bahar Bayraktaroğlu (BCDSS PhD Researcher)

My discussion, “What Was A Child?” focused on children in dependence in nineteenth-century Ottoman Constantinople, emphasizing the richness and complexity of historical childhood experiences. I addressed the difficulties of speaking about a singular “child” archetype, especially under differing forms of dependencies. I hope that the historical trajectories of “John,” “Reşe,” and “Yasemin” illustrated to us how childhoods could have differed greatly; they were indeed complex and peculiar. Undoubtedly, the gender and interwoven identities of these children played a crucial role there. Instead of seeking to define a single notion of the child, we need to historicise each one and engage critically with sources to better grasp each child's peculiar case.

Through the questions and feedback offered by my fellow participants, I was able to identify the limitations of my project and refine my argument. I also had my intellectual horizons expanded by listening to presentations that were outside the scope of my field. I believe the same was true for other speakers!

Slavery walking tour through Leiden. (Photo by Laura Hartmann)

My favorite parts of the seminar include the “slavery walking tour” on the first day. Being physically in the streets and visiting certain places where the history of slavery in the Dutch Empire touched the city of Leiden was a well-thought-out activity for the gathering.

Amalia S. Levi (BCDSS PhD Researcher)

This was the third year I participated in the PhD seminar, having attended the seminars at Hull (2022) and Bonn (2023). This year, the absence of Prof. Trevor Burnard, whose role in and contributions to this seminar have been instrumental, was felt by all participants. For me, the value of the seminar lies in the opportunity of getting feedback from renowned faculty in slavery studies, as well as being together with a community of other PhD students. Learning about forms of dependency in different parts of the world and different periods of time is an enriching experience, and the different methodological approaches are inspirational. I find the seminar a great learning opportunity because of the casual, collegial, and safe environment for cross-pollination that it offers.

Amalia S. Levi, introducing her research. (Photo by Bahar Bayraktaroğlu)

In previous years, I presented specific chapters from my dissertation that were life stories of enslaved people in Jewish households in early modern Bridgetown, Barbados. This year, I chose to focus on a specific concept that is central to my research, that of the household. I explored the ways that Jewish particularities in these households shape the experience of the free and unfree members living within, particularly that of the enslaved people. Additionally, I examined how record-keeping aspects and archival trajectories of documents that are tied to the household define what primary sources we locate—and why.

Mariana Kelly da Costa Rezende (BCDSS Doctoral Guest Researcher)

The Bonn/Leiden/Hull PhD Seminar was my first PhD seminar during my second (of four) years of the PhD at the Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In Leiden, I was able to share part of my dissertation on anti-vagrancy policies over minors in the beginning of the Brazilian Republic (1890–1927). In the paper, I presented about the construction of anti-vagrancy legislation and the creation of institutions to collect vagrant children in the turn of the XIX to the XX century Brazil, highlighting the racial aspect of both as part of the abolition and post-abolition process.

Presenting her research to the audience: Mariana Rezende (Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro). (Photo by Laura Hartmann)

Even though each researcher’s presentation was about a different place and time period, all of them dialogued, not only by the “slavery, servitude, and extreme dependency” aspects of their work, but also about intersectionality between gender, race, age and family issues. The pre-circulation of the papers allowed us to engage with each other’s research, even before the presentations. The long time for discussion allowed even further exchange between the candidates, where bibliography and sources were shared. The careful reading of the professors was also an important part of the seminar, bringing many suggestions and tips for our research. All collaborations added much to my current writing, helping with the path to go further in the global aspect of my research and with the discussions on the formation of national states, parenthood, mobility, and labour house discipline.

Being a part of the PhD Seminar in Leiden was a valuable experience for my academic life. Not only for enriching my research with new questions and perspectives, but also because this kind of space creates connections that are kept afterwards, where we’re still able to share the PhD experience with colleagues, which makes this journey less lonely.

“[S]har[ing] the PhD experience with colleagues [...] makes this journey less lonely." Mariana Kelly da Costa Rezende. (Photo by Bahar Bayraktaroğlu)

Joseph Biggerstaff (BCDSS PhD Researcher)

This was my second time as a participant in the Bonn-Leiden-Hull Graduate Seminar on Slavery, Servitude, and Dependency. I truly enjoyed my time in Leiden, a bustling college town with a thriving student population, and felt welcomed by our Dutch colleagues.

At the seminar, I was most impressed by the different ways early career researchers approach dependency and slavery in terms of scale. Fred Bricknell (Hull) focused on a single community of enslaved people on a plantation in Berbice, applying the novel theoretical framework of “moral ecology” to examine the different ways the community leveraged their knowledge of the environment and built infrastructure against overseers and colonial authorities. Benedetta Chizzolini (Tel Aviv University) and Amalia Levi (BCDSS) similarly looked to the level of the micro on galley ships in the Mediterranean and Jewish households in the eastern Caribbean to examine the importance, and sometimes ambivalence, of identity in these coercive and carceral settings. Pouwel van Schooten (Leiden) and Britt van Duijvenvoorde (IISH, Amsterdam) applied a geographical lens. Pouwel van Schooten took an actor-centered approach to manumission in an island-setting of Galle, Sri Lanka, whereas Britt van Duijenvoorde looked along the very long eastern “Coromandel coast” of south Asia (modern-day India) to pinpoint the entanglement of enslavability and access to vital resources.

These various approaches to scale seek to mediate the limits of evidence (archive) with an urgency to write an actor-centered histories of dependency and slavery. To me, these innovative approaches to scale also suggest an underlying critical reflex against larger, somewhat homogenizing frameworks of “Atlantic” or “American” slavery. To say the least, I left the seminar feeling inspired.

Joseph Biggerstaff receives feedback from historian Karwan Fatah-Black during the lively discussion following his presentation. (Photo by Bahar Bayraktaroğlu)

Like Bahar, I found one of the highlights of the experience to be the slavery walking tour provided by Britt van Duijenvoorde. One of the highlights of doing a PhD at the BCDSS is the support we are given to build networks with scholars in other institutes beyond the borders of Germany, which gives you an opportunity to reflect on your positionality as a researcher. In this regard, the “slavery walking tour” of Leiden was a unique opportunity to reflect on the political atmosphere in the Netherlands at this moment. Compared with the United Kingdom, the Netherlands is only beginning to fully confront its entanglement with slavery and colonialism, and the work being carried out by early career researchers, combined with the political activism in the form of the walking tour, is at the forefront of a potential reckoning.

So, what do we take with us from this year’s PhD seminar in Leiden?

Laura Hartmann (BCDSS PhD Coordinator)

Apart from the stimulating professional insights and academic debates, we were all once again reminded of the fact that, despite the diversity of participants and their research areas, there is one thing they all have in common: they are on their PhD journey. A journey that is exciting but also exhausting, inspiring, as well as isolating, challenging, and life-changing.

As the coordinator of the BCDSS PhD program, I'm here to support our PhDs on this journey. Drawing from my very own experience, I can say: Make the best of learning with and from each other on this journey, but also keep in mind that every journey is unique and individual - so make it YOUR journey!