This thesis seeks to explore the ways in which anxieties and ambivalences surrounding slavery were constructed, reflected and challenged in French writing from the period between the French Revolution and the abolition of slavery in 1848. It draws on historical and literary analyses, and an informed understanding of the sociopolitical currents of the early nineteenth century, to highlight the important role literature and journalism have to play in helping us to understand the multifarious complexities of slavery. It offers close analysis of a selection of key literary and journalistic texts from the period, including work by Olympe de Gouges, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Gabrielle de Paban, Sophie Doin, Jean-Baptiste Picquenard, Victor Hugo, Cyrille Charles Auguste Bissetteand Adolphe Granier de Cassagnac. This thesis contributes to a growing body of academic work on slavery by developing three broad perspectives on the institution: it examines the metaphorization of slavery in women's writing, and takes issue with the view that women necessarily privilege entertainment in their narratives; it considers the usefulness of a transactional model of violence as a framework through which to read early nineteenth-century men's revolutionary writing, interrogates the use of 'proportionality' as justification for the (il)legitimacy of violent acts, and investigates the (non-)representation of violence in texts; finally, it offers the first in-depth analysis of the slavery polemic that emerged between Bissette and Granier, and highlights how polarizing debates around slavery were mobilized in the press. This thesis therefore expands current research by demonstrating how the post-Revolutionary social and political conflicts, and racial prejudice cultivated under slavery, suffused nineteenth-century writing in both France and the French Caribbean.

This thesis is concerned with the debate on 'trafficking in persons' as a new form of slavery. It will explore the concept of slavery both historically and in its links with contemporary migration and connected issues of gender, sexuality, and labour exploitation. Within the contemporary debate on 'trafficking', attention has focused in fact predominantly on migrant women and girls involved in sex work and described as 'victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation'. This thesis will explore the meaning of slavery in such debate. For this purpose, a research study will be carried out in three Italian cities, focusing on the ways in which such terms as 'slavery', 'trafficking in persons', and 'sexual slavery' are understood and applied within social protection programmes for victims of trafficking which, under Article 18 of the immigration law, grant a special residence permit and opportunities for such victims to work and stay permanently in Italy. The study is based on interviews with key actors working in social protection programmes such as judges, NGO workers, social workers, psychologists, lawyers, and police officers, on interviews with migrant women working in the sex industry and women using protection programmes, and on the analysis of parliamentary speeches and press articles. It will seek to critically assess the validity of 'new slavery' - as 'trafficking' is usually understood - as an expression to understand problems related to contemporary exploitative labour practices within the context of global poverty, dislocation of capital and labour, and restrictive immigration regimes. It will focus on the gender, 'racial', and sexuality aspects of anti-trafficking policies in Italy and how they get linked to citizenship within the socio-legal process enacted by Article 18 of the Italian immigration law. It will finally ask what kind of citizenship is granted to subjects who have been Otherised as 'slaves' on the basis of their gender and sexuality and who, through a postcolonial process of discipline and social control, are incorporated into the Italian society via their 'domestication' within 'proper' sexual, gender, and labour roles (i.e. as domestic workers in Italian families or as wives).

À La Réunion (île colonisée par la France à partir de 1663), le marronnage - ou résistance active à l'esclavage par la fuite volontaire des asservis - était jusqu'alors uniquement dépeint par des sources écrites, desquelles subsistent d'importants vides documentaires concernant le mode de vie des fugitifs et la localisation de leurs camps. Afin de combler ces lacunes, des travaux d'archéologie inédits ont été réalisés. La démarche s' est d'abord basée sur le réexamen de la documentation existante sous un angle archéospatial, puis sur l'acquisition de données matérielles originales par la conduite de prospections pédestres et sondages archéologiques. Le croisement de diverses sources a permis de dresser un inventaire critique des lieux du marronnage connus et de leur potentiel de relocalisation. Par les résultats des prospections corrélés aux archives, plusieurs sites d'habitat attribuables aux « Petits-Blancs» (groupe de paysans en quête de terres qui succédèrent aux marrons) ont été mis au jour. Des sondages effectués sur trois sites ont révélés des occupations représentatives du marronnage et du peuplement pérenne postérieur. Les résultats obtenus à la « vallée secrète», premier témoin matériel du marronnage, ont apporté un éclairage nouveau sur la survie d'esclaves fugitifs en milieu inhospitalier. Les occupations fouillées des Petits-Blancs ont mis en lumière l'importance de leur impact sur le milieu naturel et démontré que la recherche des traces de marronnage est fortement tributaire de leurs vestiges aujourd'hui visibles dans l'espace. L'ensemble des données recueillies a permis d'établir une première carte archéologique de la zone des Hauts de La Réunion. / In Reunion (island colonized by the French from 1663), marronage- or one of the active forms of resistance to slavery by the voluntary escape of slaves -was hitherto only documented by written sources, in which remain significant vacuums concerning maroon mate rial way oflife and the location of their camps. ln order to fil! these gaps, unprecedented archaeological work has been conducted. The approach was firstly based on the review of existing written documentation from an archeogeographic perspective, then on the acquisition of original mate rial data by the conduction of field surveys and excavations. The cross-checking of various sources has enabled a critical inventory of known maroon sites and the potential to rediscover their location. Based on the results of the surveys correlated with the archives, many "Petits Blancs" settlements (group of peasants in search for lands who succeeded the marnons) were discovered. Excavations carried out on three sites have revealed representative occupations of both marnons and posterior permanent settlement. The results yielded on the "secret valley" site, the obtaining of the first material evidence of marronage, have brought new insights about maroon survival strategies in an inhospitable environment. The excavated occupations of the "Petits Blancs" highlighted the importance of their impact on the natural environment and demonstrated that the search for maroon traces is heavily dependent on their remains that are visible in that area today. Overall, ail the data collected has led to the first archaeological mapping of the highland areas of Reunion.