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3 - Ephemeral Africa

Essentialized Odors and the Slave Ship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

Andrew Kettler
Andrew Kettler
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

The opening epigraph of James Scott’s Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990) introduces an Ethiopian proverb to exemplify the concepts of “hidden transcripts” and “weapons of the weak,” two notions now essential to understanding subaltern resistance. In this adage, a nobleman walks in front of an Ethiopian serf: “When the great lord passes the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.”1 African slaves in the Atlantic littoral applied similarly rebellious ideas about odor as both “hidden transcripts” and “weapons of the weak” to respond to the conditions of different slave systems.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Smell of Slavery
Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World
 , pp. 123 - 154
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Ephemeral Africa
  • Andrew Kettler, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: The Smell of Slavery
  • Online publication: 30 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108854740.005
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  • Ephemeral Africa
  • Andrew Kettler, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: The Smell of Slavery
  • Online publication: 30 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108854740.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Ephemeral Africa
  • Andrew Kettler, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: The Smell of Slavery
  • Online publication: 30 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108854740.005
Available formats
×