Joel Quirk
@joelquirk
Followers
1,982
Following
994
Media
132
Statuses
3,606
Enslavement and Abolition, Mobility and Work, Social Movements, Gender and Violence, Historical Repair, the Politics and History of Africa. Wits Politics Prof
Johannesburg
Joined August 2011
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
#LoveBullyรักให้ร้ายEP2
• 992784 Tweets
#MyLoveMixUpTHep2
• 775018 Tweets
Germany
• 175778 Tweets
Scotland
• 154632 Tweets
#HorangiHOSHIday
• 117675 Tweets
#호시의_생일에맞춰_푸쳐판쵸산쵸
• 116773 Tweets
WATCH THE ROOM
• 108291 Tweets
SCOTUS
• 96635 Tweets
Kabir Is Supreme God
• 89318 Tweets
Happy Birthday President Trump
• 51261 Tweets
#ガルクラ
• 47631 Tweets
Squeezie
• 43209 Tweets
FOREVER WITH JISOO
• 33736 Tweets
#ساعه_استجابه
• 28614 Tweets
奥川くん
• 28415 Tweets
#乙宗梢生誕祭2024
• 27347 Tweets
$STRUMP
• 23103 Tweets
#HappyBirthdayJuri
• 21426 Tweets
エルマーのぼうけん
• 21209 Tweets
Arundhati Roy
• 18819 Tweets
#田中樹誕生祭2024
• 17417 Tweets
あーりー
• 16939 Tweets
Nuri Şahin
• 15058 Tweets
SUPERNATURAL TEASER OUT NOW
• 13940 Tweets
Havertz
• 12800 Tweets
Wirtz
• 11850 Tweets
Fonsi
• 10269 Tweets
Last year a bunch of professors signed a letter supporting a sexual predator and abuser: Boaventura de Sousa Santos
They did not expect the letter to be made public, but it came out.
Now Coimbra University has finalised its report on this case. 1/4
3
63
133
New Book: The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History. Edited by Damian Pargas and Juliane Schiel
Entirely open access (including a chapter of my own on modern slavery and political strategy at the very end)
1
24
75
Coming very soon!
Our special issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review on ‘everyday abuse in the global economy’.
Edited with
@CaroRobins0n
,
@cthibos
and Borislav Gerasimov.
A snapshot of the final table of contents can be found below.
2
15
51
I shudder to think how many years of emotional, intellectual and institutional labour went into holding de Sousa Santos and others (somewhat) accountable
This still isn't over, but we can at least be confident that that it was really horrible idea to sign that stupid letter
4/4
3
6
50
Please join us to celebrate the online launch of our new collection next Monday:
Research as More than Extraction: Knowledge Production and Gender-based Violence in African Societies
Details below
...
Meeting ID: 951 6401 3187
Passcode: 997028
3
22
49
For four or five years now I've been playing around with writing a piece on 'nepo-babies' of anti-trafficking. I made a start on a draft a while back, but stopped because it felt like I was punching down, since the kinds of people I have in mind aren't really experts. 1/10
5
11
49
My entire family was more than a little sick with covid, including two small children. My two and a half year old son was especially effected, making for a very anxious couple of weeks.
Today is the end of our isolation. Very happy to be rejoining the world.
5
0
48
All migrants deserve protection as migrants. All workers deserve protections as workers. Modern slavery campaigns selectively focus upon a small minority of migrants (trafficking), and a minority of workers (forced labour). These cases are the tip of the iceberg
#AntiSlaveryDay
1
17
46
New piece I wrote with Karmini Pillay for the
@mailandguardian
.
We here make the case that public universities in South Africa should name staff and students found guilty of serious cases of gender-based harms
5
24
43
"in South Africa a consensus is fast building that foreigners are a threat to the hard-won fruits of the post-apartheid period ... the demand inherent in right-wing populism today is not for economic redistribution. If anything, it is to obscure class-based antagonism."
That reactionary politics today lack a mass character is what makes them so dangerous. A new letter from our deputy editor,
@shokispeare
.
3
25
45
1
11
39
superb piece by
@Limerick1914
on the politics and growth of the ‘Irish slaves’ myth as defensive white supremacism
0
26
36
Marking assignments and getting irritated about how many students causally refer to accomplished women by their first name (Chimamanda, Malala) while men are uniformly by surname (Obama, Lumumba). They had only small number of texts to select from, so the pattern is very clear.
3
19
37
95 percent of everything I now read is a pdf on a screen. It is so refreshing to actually read a real book…..
2
3
36
“The failure of South African universities to call out Israel’s genocide challenges the assumption that South Africans have a deep appreciation of injustice in Palestine.”
@ProfSrilaRoy
and I wrote something for
@africasacountry
1
16
38
.
@BeyondSlavery
launches a new feature on the politics of survivor engagement and human trafficking
Something I wrote to introduce the series.
1
8
36
Many of the most popular 'solutions' to modern slavery and human trafficking are both politically appealing and practically ineffective for the same basic reason: they rarely challenge key political and economic interests.
0
14
35
The Center for Social Studies has finally issued a public apology to "victims of harassment or abuse ... for the experience they have been through, for the personal suffering that may have resulted, and for the silence that they have had to face".
2/4
1
10
35
Launch Today: Contemporary Slavery: Popular Rhetoric and Political Practice Solarium Falconer Hall UniToronto 5-7pm
0
4
31
Yesterday
@BeyondSlavery
launched a new feature on the politics of survivor engagement. We will have new pieces coming out throughout June.
As part of the launch I wrote an intro piece which tried to capture some of the underlying political dynamics. 1/9
1
14
36
Must read article: "Trafficking rhetoric transforms migrants—often fleeing for their lives—into people Americans should not worry about or protect.
1
24
32
So our collection on ethics, methods and knowledge economies in Africa finally exists in the world....
The introduction can be read for free here:
The official version is here:
2
11
33
.
@SlaveryMuseum
the images for your ARTXFREEDOM exhibit are catastrophically bad in representational terms. There are all kinds of guidelines regarding how to sensitively and effectively represent this stuff, and your collection is a crash course in what NOT to do.
3
3
32
Something I wrote for our
@BeyondSlavery
feature reflecting on twenty years of Palermo.
Do the practical and political benefits of taking up the cause of ending modern slavery and trafficking outweigh the costs and complications that arise along the way?
0
6
32
Check out our latest ebook.
It makes the case for getting off the fence and strongly supporting sex worker rights and decrim.
A whole bunch of people and organisations try and stick their heads in the sand on sex work. This ‘don’t rock the boat’ shit really needs to end.
NEW: We've made our latest series on
#sexwork
and
#humantrafficking
into a beautiful downloadable e-book.
A unique and compelling collection of articles & interviews from anti-traffickers and activists. Click the link to read and download.
6
44
79
0
18
31
Quick reminder. States in the North are hoarding vaccines, blocking changes to patent protections to help people in the South get vaccines, and regularly throwing away millions of vaccines that have expired, rather than redirecting them to people in need.
This is an atrocity
1
11
30
So this garbage pile apparently began as private communication which was never meant to be made public, but was quietly sent to Coimbra in June.
Exactly like Kutcher and Kunis. We here have academics wanting to perform purity in public while sticking up for abusers in private
Since Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis are trending, check out the names of the professors who signed an open letter supporting Boaventura de Sousa Santos. This just shows that decolonial "theory's cool but theory with no practice ain't shit."
36
108
510
1
7
30
Israeli academics not only claim bystander status, but argue that their universities must be distinguished from the state.
Yet a study of Israeli universities reveals that they are directly complicit
Essential reading from
@africasacountry
0
16
30
Last year I started some new research with
@ayushmanbhagat
looking at the effects of funding streams in shaping how academics and civil society classify and respond to exploitation. The focus here is the financial incentives associated with talking about “modern slavery. 1/7
1
11
29
Having edited a bunch of pieces on exploitation for our feature on exploitation for
@BeyondSlavery
I felt inspired to write something.
Life rarely features choices between forced or free labour. The far more common question is are you worse or better off?
0
13
29
The investigative report into years of abuse is 117 pages long, and points to "patterns of conduct involving abuse of power and harassment on the part of some people who held senior positions in the CES hierarchy."
3/4
1
6
28
Launched today: Roundtable on the Future of Work
Current labour systems are leaving huge numbers of workers in vulnerable and precarious conditions. How can workers and their allies shape a better future for work?
0
20
27
.
@WitsPolitics
is hiring!
We are looking for a colleague with expertise in gender, sexuality and feminism. Please spread the word!
Call closes 29 September. This is a permanent position at Associate Professor level.
Details below and in this link:
0
31
28
Research and activism focusing upon modern slavery has been going for over two decades, yet many people in the field still want to declare that ‘it’s all very new’ and that a true evaluation will only be possible in the future. This is the middle of something, not the beginning
2
6
28
So I recently talked to
@jafferlatief
for his
@GlobalDevRev
podcast.
One theme I am trying to develop at the moment concerns the inherent conservatism of “modern slavery” politics. Some thoughts on that here.
"Modern slavery is an inherently conservative cause...We should be talking about the rights and protection of migrants/workers as migrants/workers need", says
@joelquirk
Tune in to our new episode on
#modernslavery
&
#HumanTrafficking
@BeyondSlavery
0
7
14
0
9
28
Lots of academics who position themselves as ‘radical’ theorists are actually deeply conservative when it comes to practical politics.
You cannot be ‘radical’ if you defend hierarchies, regard precarious labour as a ‘resource’ and consistently side with senior management
0
1
27
There are many people who work on MS and trafficking who try their best to avoid ‘taking a side’ on sex work. They instead try to change the conversation, saying that they don’t want to ‘derail’ anti-trafficking, which must be prioritised no matter how you feel about sex work 1/8
2
9
25
Essential reading from
@SarahGeoKL
and Espérant Mwishamali Lukobo
“European explorers are notorious for ‘discovering’ things which were already well known. This is largely how Kara approaches the Congo and cobalt.”
0
10
26
Starting tomorrow
@BeyondSlavery
will be launching a major two part feature reflecting on the 20th anniversary of the Palermo human trafficking protocol. We are seeking to answer two questions:
1) what is exploitation?
2) are we better off on the inside?
Cover art for 2) below
0
13
27
My contribution to the fantastic
@CSociologies
project.
The main role of anti-slavery in the age of high imperialism was to legitimate deeply rooted hierarchies that saw European states and their peoples position themselves at the moral and racial apex of ‘civilization’.
New session from
@joelquirk
Anti-Slavery, European Imperialism, and Paternalistic ‘Protection’
What does the close relationship between anti-slavery & European colonialism say about the politics and prospects of humanitarianism & altruism more broadly?
1
11
35
0
10
26
Yesterday
@ayushmanbhagat
and I published a piece with
@openDemocracy
on the Global Slavery Commission.
Today I got a response from an FOI request which revealed that the UK government is spending 500,000 pounds on the Commission. 1/3
1
15
26
New special issue on “Slavery and Marriage in African Societies”
The right to make decisions over marriage is one of the core powers which masters have historically exercised over individuals whom they enslaved.
Many articles open access. Thread below.
2
12
26
Please circulate
Call for contributions for a special issue of the
@SAJHR_ZA
on Gender Based Violence and Higher Education, South Africa and beyond, guest edited by myself and
@JackieDugard
.
Deets in the link below. Please DM or email for further info.
0
17
24
.
@anniebunting
@philippahether
and I have a new IRC for the Chicago
@law_soc
meeting (online and in-person).
The focus is Marriage as Enslavement: Historical and Legal Entanglements. Some funding support available, especially for people from Low and Middle income countries.
2
11
25
I recently updated my course on 'The politics of slavery and human trafficking', after having not taught it for several years.
Would be interested to compare notes with others teaching similar courses.
Link to course guide here:
4
5
23
Please spread the news!
Call for papers: Everyday Abuse in the Global Economy.
Special Issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review
Edited by
@CaroRobins0n
,
@cthibos
, Borislav Gerasimov, and myself.
0
24
23
Starting monday
@BeyondSlavery
will be launching a major two part feature reflecting on the 20th anniversary of the Palermo human trafficking protocol. We are seeking to answer two questions:
1) what is exploitation?
2) are we better off on the inside?
Cover art for 1) below
1
10
24
Now available for pre-order and coming in October with
@OhioUnivPress
Research as more than extraction: Knowledge Production and Gender-Based Violence in African societies
With
@anniebunting
and
@Kiconcoa
Decent promo code discount in the flyer.
1
12
24
States in the Global North are hoarding life saving vaccinations via stockpiling, patent protections, and now prioritising booster shots. Elderly and vulnerable people in the Global South are dying as a consequence.
This is a moral abomination.
0
13
24
new piece with
@ayushmanbhagat
for
@BeyondSlavery
No one asked for a Global Commission on Modern Slavery. Theresa May should have stayed at home, rather than trying to put the band back together to sing the old classics yet one more time....
0
13
23
Recent scandals involving
#humantrafficking
focus attention on spectacular cases, rather than underlying legal systems. This can result in the awful distracting from the lawful. Must read from
@walte010
for
@BeyondSlavery
0
10
22
ExodusCry are fundamentalists with absolutely atrocious ideas regarding gender. Please reconsider this association.
Giving a voice to the voiceless. That’s what our partnership with
@ExodusCry
is about in our new, powerful display which campaigns against human trafficking in porn. You can see the three shortlisted artworks from today in our gallery
#ARTXFREEDOM
115
29
94
1
5
22
Research as more than extraction?
@Kiconcoa
,
@dr_bws
and
@Otim_Patrick
on navigating methods and ethics when researching wartime experiences in Uganda.
It isn’t just the war, it is also what happens many years after the war ends…
#asa2021
0
6
22
Campaigners against ‘modern slavery’ have calculated that the political gains from framing problems in this way will offset any collateral damages. It isn’t automatically a bad call, but it is frustrating that so many insiders try their best to ignore this strategic calculus 1/10
2
13
21
I agreed to do a review for a Taylor and Francis journal just before they introduced their new pay to publish scheme. I now want to withdraw from the review, to call into question their conduct, but I also worry about leaving the editors in the lurch...
This is how they get you
6
2
21
All of the pieces which we published for our latest feature on the politics of survivor engagement can be found in the thread below.
Two more pieces still to come next week
Check it out
📢 Stories of suffering fuel the anti-trafficking sector. But does storytelling translate into actual power for survivors?
Survivors and advocates take a hard look at this in our latest series 🧵⤵️ 1/11
1
14
19
1
5
22
Somalia is on the brink of catastrophe. A recent assessment suggests that 7.7 million Somalis need emergency aid right now, a similar number to those affected by the Ethiopian famine in 1984, one of the worst humanitarian disasters in history.
0
12
22
New Ebook (free download)
Research as more than extraction?
Whenever knowledge about sexual violence gets produced we need to inquire about the story behind its collection and dissemination. How is knowledge produced? Who speaks? To what audience?
2
10
21
It has been a very rough week, so truly glad to finally have some good news to share
#Covid19SA
Still not too late for a
#PeoplesVaccine
.
1
0
21
This is the latest piece for our 'get off the fence' on sex work feature for
@BeyondSlavery
It focuses upon "a neoliberal bargain which has seen the Portuguese state elevate and incorporate civil society voices who have tacitly agreed to not be ‘too political’.
Check it out
In Portugal, anti-trafficking organisations find it increasingly difficult to speak up regarding ‘controversial’ topics such as commercial sex or the harm of securitisation
(via
@BeyondSlavery
)
0
4
10
0
7
20
“The tech industry is effectively co-opting human trafficking as a means to justify eroding privacy rights for everyone”.
Must read from
@SabraMBoyd
as part of a our politics of survivor engagement feature
How big tech and AI are putting trafficking survivors at risk
0
16
26
0
12
21
So my two and a half year old son sits down at my desk, opens up my laptop, and declares: I'm marking!
4
0
20
0
20
20
Speaking tomorrow at the House of Lords:
The Devil in the Details: Evaluating policy responses to modern slavery and trafficking
13:00 – 14:00, Tuesday 17th April 2018.
@HJS_Org
2
2
20
“Thorn and OUR, their founders publicly shamed and now in quasi-voluntary exile from the anti-trafficking movement, each served as vehicles for a specific kind of guy”
Essential reading
My new story on Ashton Kutcher and Tim Ballard’s recent exits from the anti-trafficking groups they each founded begins with a 2011 anti-trafficking PSA from Kutcher’s group, starring Donald Trump:
2
384
1K
0
5
20
Getting university ethics approval has become a gauntlet of petty bureaucracy and legalese.
I still believe that this is necessary and important process. I just wish it didn't suck quite so much...
Tired....
4
1
20
Whenever academics, organisations and various others give public presentations on modern slavery and human trafficking they should be asked directly regarding their position on sex work. This ‘sitting on the fence’ garbage needs to end. 8/8
0
2
19
"One cannot ignore opportunities and career paths this category enables ... a whole knowledge industry of expert technical reports that recycle self-serving analyses and prescriptions."
"Combatting gender violence no longer can be seen simply as a feminist project gone global"
"The Cunning of Gender Violence," edited by Lila Abu-Lughod, Rema Hammami, & Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, details how a visionary feminist project folded into modern world affairs that harm the people it seeks to protect. Read the free intro!
#AnthroTwitter
2
63
231
0
4
19
Governments and corporations have embraced campaigns targeting
#modernslavery
– rather than migrant or worker rights – since they focus on deviant criminals and ‘bad apples’, pushing systems of exploitation and privilege to the margins
@UnacceptableFoW
0
13
19
@ProfSrilaRoy
@vijayprashad
@capassomat
@JeffreyStClair3
@amaBhungane
That
@amaBhungane
report is looking better and better the more time passes.
And there are a bunch of former staff still gagged by NDAs….
1
5
17
I’ve been hearing that South African doctors should not have raised the alarm about the new strain.
I can understand the logic, given the travel bans that followed, but there is still an obligation here.
It just sucks that such a key public service has triggered racist garbage
1
1
19
"Whatever opportunities Palermo might have initially presented, it is now inextricably aligned with harmful ideological agendas that sex workers are obliged to resist and reject"
@sexworkeurope
for
@beyondslavery
1
7
19
Worth repeating over and over again until the message finally gets through: "Adult women should not be institutionalised against their will. They should have a choice in the kinds of support services they receive after rescue".
#RedraftTraffickingBill2018
0
18
18
Anti trafficking policies have been tremendously damaging for sex workers, yet a significant number of people who work on MS and trafficking still remain on the sidelines, afraid to get off the fence. This makes it much easier for abusive practices to continues. 4/8
1
2
18
"Many anti-trafficking staff in the United Kingdom recognise that the legal status of sex work has important policy ramifications, yet they nonetheless work for organisations that have not taken a public position regarding sex work policy".
Time to get off the fence on sex work
📢 SURVEY RESULTS: we surveyed the UK anti-
#humantrafficking
sector about their personal views & organisational positions on commercial regulation of
#sexwork
. Here's what we found:
2
13
16
0
6
18
This is utterly bizarre. Academic journals are now sending honour certificates when you do peer review.
Wiley is a billion dollar company.
4
1
18
People who only mention the war in Yemen in order to muddy the waters around the invasion of Ukraine don’t really care about the war in Yemen.
0
3
18
One of my postgraduate students, whom I have never met in person, is about to submit their MA dissertation, having never once set foot on the university campus...
Covid really sucks
1
1
17
Two years of online teaching have had an absolutely ruinous effect on students as researchers. They now expect to be given a batch of pdfs to work off, and assume that all problems can be solved through google.
Only a minority will have set foot in a library this year.
1
2
17
First article in a fantastic new series from
@sexworkeurope
on rights not rescue for
#migrant
#sexworkers
at
@openDemocracy
.
"How do a Nigerian woman working the streets of Milan, a trans woman from Mexico advertising online in Barcelona, and a Syrian refugee boy selling sex to survive in a park in Athens compare?"
0
28
32
0
10
18
The ethics of research with children at
#CSiWJozi18
. Ethical conduct cannot be a one time sign off for legal liability purposes, but must be a continuous and reflexive.
@WitsPolitics
@JIAS_UJ
@TubmanInstitute
@anniebunting
@Kiconcoa
0
5
17
Both US neocons and the tankie left are massively overstating the level of coherence and common purpose within BRICS and the effects of its expansion. India and China hate each other. Saudi Arabia and Iran hate each other. This is not a fully formed political project.
1
2
17
Starting September 2019
Forced and Precarious Labor in the Global Economy
This free online course explains how global economic systems manufacture vulnerability, and how worker and migrant rights can be strengthened.
Click here to register:
0
15
16
Surprisingly sharp review: "The UK’s work to tackle modern slavery in developing countries has had limited long-term impact, did not build on existing international efforts and experience, and failed to adequately involve survivors."
0
10
17
New book coming soon with
@CornellPress
. Contemporary Slavery: The Rhetoric of Global Human Rights Campaigns. Featuring
@anniebunting
@achoifitz
@Kwasidagbe
@ethicscrane
@FuyukiKurasawa
@darshanvv
@profjallain
plus more
1
9
17
“The Coast Guard, he says, towed the vessel at a rapid speed, first to the right, then the left, and then back to the right – and then it capsized”.
Every time this story gets reported it gets worse and worse.
0
7
17
Lyndsey Beutin at
@YaleGLC
conference.
#Modernslavery
displaces racial justice, obscures the roots of privilege, inequality, and vulnerability, and advances a cause which supports, rather than challenges, racial capitalism
0
11
17
Great piece by
@melissagira
. The fight against human trafficking is a political and ethical disaster zone, which horrible people are once again using to justify horrible things.
For years, Cindy McCain warned of dangerous men coming to enslave American women and girls. Now Trump is running with it.
1
16
32
1
10
16
As part of our
@BeyondSlavery
feature on the politics of survivor engagement I interviewed
@christianashnc
about the work of the
@NtlSurvivorNet
Check it out:
1
5
16
Looking forward to this one. Come and join us!
Join us for a webinar to discuss precarious work,
#migration
regimes and 'everyday abuses' vs
#HumanTrafficking
and
#modernslavery
on 29 Oct at 1 pm UTC👉🏽 with
@joelquirk
@LeanneMMc
@EllaParryDavies
@bathreya1
@abiehunt
@WIEGOGLOBAL
and Ben Harkins
0
22
29
0
2
16
.
@cthibos
is absolutely integral to
@BeyondSlavery
as our managing editor, but he only rarely comes out front to write on his own.
He really needs his own byline on a more regular basis.
This piece is superb.
0
7
16
The United States refused to be party to the International Criminal Court, and established the 'Hague Invasion Act' to stop it arresting US citizens.
So they are now trying to dictate the policies of an institution which they refused to join....
2
10
16
.
@Paydirt_Media
is putting together a conference on Africa in 2021 with the following line up of presenters.
The problem should be self-evident, but apparently they missed it.....
1
1
16
Corporate social responsibility has always been self-serving garbage. Covid has confirmed this, with supply chains being closed down and workers being fired. Efforts will be made to revive the corpse of CSR when the smoke clears. Can we finally agree the emperor has no clothes?
0
7
15
Can the US journalists and talking heads please stop comparing events in the US to 'backward Third World' countries. The 'how can this happen here' and not 'there' shit is really tiresome.
0
3
15
Check out Aubrey Lloyd and
@EYAlbright
's excellent review of Sound of Freedom for
@BeyondSlavery
Portraying anti-trafficking work as an adventure story is just as likely to create believers in vigilante justice as supporters of anti-trafficking
0
8
15