Benedetta Rossi

Dr Benedetta Rossi of DASA currently holds a visiting fellowship at Re:Work, a research unit devoted to the study of global labour in Humboldt University, Berlin. 

During her Re:Work fellowship, Dr Rossi has published a piece on openDemocracy exploring modern slavery, Brexit, migration and development. Dr Rossi asks "What happens if we consider the modern slavery campaign, Brexit, and migration and development policies all at the same time … and then connect the dots? It becomes apparent that national workers and (willing or unwilling) labour migrants are linked together into global hierarchies that generate a large supply of cheap and vulnerable labour. This pool of vulnerable workers is internally diverse and contains multiple groups struggling with different constraints. They all deserve attention. And yet official campaigns and policies obfuscate the picture by focusing on narrow issues with high media-shock potential and compartmentalising connected problems."

Dr Rossi has also recently guest-edited a special issue of the journal International Labor and Working Class History. The special issue focuses on 'Developmentalism, Labor, and the Slow Death of Slavery in Twentieth Century Africa' and features an introduction  exploring 'What "Development" Does to Work', and an article on 'From Unfree Work to Working for Free: Labor, Aid, and Gender in the Nigerien Sahel, 1930–2000', both by Benedetta  and articles by Christine Whyte, Reuben Loffman, Annalisa Urbano, Alice Wiemers, Elisabeth McMahon, Zachary Kagan Guthrie. The special issue is available online