Summary

Despite the dominant visibility of international organizations fighting against slavery in Africa (and elsewhere), antislavery activism is not the preserve of social actors external to the African continent. In the early years of independence in a few African countries (e.g., Tunisia, Madagascar), antislavery mobilization animated public scenes without much success. This was followed by a long period when the theme was relatively absent from African public debates. The issue of slavery was then revitalized in the context of political reforms such as democratic decentralization (in the 1990s and 2000s in West Africa) and the Arab Spring (post-2011 contexts in North Africa). Since then, various mobilizations to contest slavery and its long-lasting legacies are gaining public visibility in some African nation-states. African antislavery movements are defined as various forms of resistance against African slavery and its legacies manifested in the form of collective actions initiated by Africans on the continent. In North Africa, the West African Sahel, and Central and Eastern Africa, as well as in Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, antislavery activism is embodied by antiracist movements, antislavery associations, civil society organizations, cultural and linguistic associations, political parties, and so forth. Social exclusion related to slavery is being discussed and contested on digital platforms and in fierce social media debates.