Naming Slavery in a Digital Public History Project in Mali in the Context of Increased Violence Against Those Who Refuse to Be Called Slaves

Digital public history has emerged as a powerful tool for addressing difficult pasts with concerned communities in an ethical way. This paper focuses on the ethical issues at stake in co-producing digital historical knowledge about resistance to slavery in a web documentary that involved identifying and naming marginalised populations in Mali, increasingly at risk of violence. The web documentary aims to bridge the gap between endogenous historical resistance to slavery and modern anti-slavery activism, while also addressing issues of funding, authority tensions, and asymmetrical relations, in which the digital gap presented specific challenges. In the process, we report on a case of dialogue among researchers, practitioners, and village participants, and we expose the ethical implications of digital research and citizen intervention related to past and present slavery in Africa.