Avi Boukli (Social Policy and Criminology): Coloniality and human trafficking

In this talk, Dr Avi Boukli discusses the knowledge production process embedded in the US Department of State Trafficking in Persons (TIP) reports, using coloniality as an analytical framework. Starting from the premise that knowledge production particularly in relation to human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’ is fundamentally problematic in its construction of victims and instances of victimisation, this presentation proceeds to explore three key analytical dimensions: firstly, it interrogates the history of the US TIP reports, by asking: how was this reporting process instigated and why? Secondly, through a two-stage content analysis of the US TIP reports, it further explores the specific constructions of the ‘indigenous victim of trafficking’ between the years 2001-2020. Thirdly, by utilising the concept of coloniality as used by the Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano, it offers an outline of the knowledge production process and the material and institutional circuits involved in the proliferation of inherently biased knowledge on human trafficking.

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