The collected volume "Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Red Sea Region, 7th – 20th c." will bring to light one of the oldest, most enduring and complex arenas of the slave trade on the globe. Linking the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean and forming a maritime interface between northeast Africa and western Asia, the Red Sea has been one of the busiest and most important arteries on the globe, a unique maritime space and among the first seas to be mentioned in recorded history. Positioned between what has been conventionally designated as the Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trades, both of which it overlaps, the Red Sea slave trade generally – though not exclusively – refers to a web of transregional commercial and transportation networks in which enslaved people from inland Northeast Africa were moved to areas in the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, Iran and South Asia.

We seek chapter proposals that explore themes related to the problematic of slavery and the slave trade in the Red Sea Region. We are especially interested in essays that draw on new sources, those that adopt approaches that are sensitive to regional, transregional/translocal dimensions, as well as essays employing microhistorical methods and approaches. In general, and as sources permit, our interest is more focused on the experiences of those involved and/or impacted by slavery and the trade (the enslaved, freedmen/freedwomen, their descendants, as well as agents, traders, and smugglers). Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

- Enslaved people and their descendants in the social, cultural, urban, political and religious histories of specific African and Arabian Red Sea and Gulf of Aden port towns (as well as towns in the close interior, such as Mecca, Medina, Zabid, Sana’a, Taizz, to name a few).
- Experiences, voices and agency of the enslaved / configurations of unfree and dependent conditions / occupations / family lives / gendered experiences / violence and abuse / owner-enslaved relationships/racialized categorizations and hierarchies / religious conversion / naming and re-naming / forms of resistance.
- Slavery and labor in the Red Sea marine industries / Arabian agriculture / mining.
- The relationship between slavery and the expansion of Islamic power and dominance (ca. 7th-13th c.)
- The complementarity/interdependence of overland and maritime trade routes (Nile Valley – Red Sea – Tihama/Asir/Hijaz).
- Maritime transshipment and terrestrial redistribution and re-exportation trajectories: across the Red Sea to Arabia … to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, India and beyond.
- Slavery and the slave trade in the Red Sea in Fatimid (10th-12th c.), Najahid (11th-12th c.), Mamluk (13th-16th c.), Rasulid (13th-15th c.), Ottoman (16th-20th c.), Zaidi (17th-19th c.), Portuguese (16th-17th c.), Dutch (17th-18th c.) and other European (notably British, French, German and Italian) and non-European sources (e.g. modern Saudi, Sudanese, Ethiopian).
- The role of polities in slaving (e.g. Mamluk, Ottoman, Rasulid, Christian Ethiopia, Adal).
- The hajj, slavery and the slave trade.
- Enslaved people from West and North-Central Africa / South and Southeast Asia / Madagascar, the Comoro Islands and East Africa in the Red Sea region.
- Slave traders, slave smugglers, and slaving/smuggling networks (both across the sea and overland).
- Piracy and slaving.
- The macro and microeconomics of the trade / economic actors / price fluctuations across time and space / methods of payment and exchange / impact on recipient societies as well as supply zones.
- Maritime and overland passages / caravans / mixed cargoes.
- Sailing vessels vs. steamships, 19th-20th c.
- The ‘island factor’ in the Red Sea slave trade.
- Colonialism, suppression efforts, and circumvention endeavors, 19th-20th c.
Manumission and post-manumission trajectories and experiences / the meanings of “freedom” and it implications.
- Micro-histories of enslaved individuals, slave merchants, a particular slave trade route.
The articulation of the Somali regions to slave trading networks in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and East Africa.
- Representations of slavery in the Red Sea region in literature, poetry, theatre, film, music, art.

We are in communication with the series editors of the ‘Studies in Global Slavery’ at Brill (Leiden and Boston) for this collection. Please submit a 400-500 word proposal with a potential title and a clear overview of the focus of the chapter. Please also add a brief biographical note of the author (100 word max.). Proposals should be sent to Jonathan Miran [Jonathan.Miran@wwu.edu] and Andreu Martínez d’Alos-Mòner [andreu.martinez@incipit.csic.es] by September 15, 2023.