BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Sabre//Sabre VObject 4.6.1//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Zurich X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Zurich TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/Zurich BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19810329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19961027T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news5310@zasb.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20260909T164807 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20261021T161500 SUMMARY:Insa Lee Koch: "When liberal anti-racism is not enough: thinking fr om UK's slavery laws about authoritarian state making across the metropole " DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, Insa Lee Koch pleads for an anthropology of law attuned to the analytical and political challenges of an increasingly auth oritarian climate in liberal constitutional settings. Drawing on her book\ , “Drugs\, Race\, and the Politics of Modern Slavery Law” (to be publi shed with OUP in February 2026)\, she examines a new precedent in the maki ng – namely\, the application of UK ‘slavery laws’ to manage and pun ish its marginalised working-class and racialised populations. Originally conceived in the context of debates around international human trafficking \, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 became “domesticated” as police and the courts\, over the last ten years\, have applied it to those at the bottom rung of the street-level drugs economy within the country’s borders. Dr awing on ethnography with police\, the courts\, and crucially the families affected\, and situating this within histories of empire and their afterl ives\, the presenter reflects on how a juridical project in the making has become a political project\, as logics of liberal saviourism and the imag e of “slave” and “slave master” have been projected onto the bodie s of Black working class youth. In what ways has juridical victimhood beco me a site for the remaking of political statecraft in times of liberal and economic crisis? How do attempts to work against the liberal anti-racist grain become weaponised by unexpected publics\, generating backlash from b oth far-right and liberal audiences? To what extent are my ethnographic ob servations and their reception indicative of a liberal legal crisis in Eur opean metropoles writ large? And what chllenges do they pose for the anthr opologist of law to reconceive of ethnography not just as analytical work but as a form of political labour?\\r\\nInsa Lee Koch is Professor for Bri tish Cultures at the HSG St. Gallen. She is an interdisciplinary scholar w ho works ethnographically and collaboratively on questions of intersecting inequalities\, political economy and the state. X-ALT-DESC:

In this talk\, Insa Lee Koch pleads for an anthropology of law attun ed to the analytical and political challenges of an increasingly authorita rian climate in liberal constitutional settings. Drawing on her book\, “ Drugs\, Race\, and the Politics of Modern Slavery Law” (to be published with OUP in February 2026)\, she examines a new precedent in the making – namely\, the application of UK ‘slavery laws’ to manage and punish its marginalised working-class and racialised populations. Originally con ceived in the context of debates around international human trafficking\, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 became “domesticated” as police and the co urts\, over the last ten years\, have applied it to those at the bottom ru ng of the street-level drugs economy within the country’s borders. Drawi ng on ethnography with police\, the courts\, and crucially the families af fected\, and situating this within histories of empire and their afterlive s\, the presenter reflects on how a juridical project in the making has be come a political project\, as logics of liberal saviourism and the image o f “slave” and “slave master” have been projected onto the bodies o f Black working class youth. In what ways has juridical victimhood become a site for the remaking of political statecraft in times of liberal and ec onomic crisis? How do attempts to work against the liberal anti-racist gra in become weaponised by unexpected publics\, generating backlash from both far-right and liberal audiences? To what extent are my ethnographic obser vations and their reception indicative of a liberal legal crisis in Europe an metropoles writ large? And what chllenges do they pose for the anthropo logist of law to reconceive of ethnography not just as analytical work but as a form of political labour?

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Insa Lee Koch is Professor for British Cultures at the HSG St. Gallen. She is an interdisciplinary scholar w ho works ethnographically and collaboratively on questions of intersecting inequalities\, political economy and the state.

DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20261021T180000 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR