In 1890, Sultan Ali of Zanzibar declared in writing that “we wish by every means to stop the slave trade.” Statements like these, in addition to the actual passing of anti-slavery legislation, call into question the generally accepted scholarly understanding that the sultans of Zanzibar only agreed to pass and enforce anti-slavery legislation because they were under duress from European, mainly British, powers, who negotiated favorable political and economic benefits in return for (gradual) abolition. A close analysis of the sources tells a more complicated story of both collaboration and conflict between the Zanzibari sultans, their subjects, and the British agents. Moreover, each sultan had distinctive political and religious beliefs, as well as individual personal experiences and outlooks. This paper explores the anti-slavery legislation passed under three sultans of Zanzibar: Barghash bin Said (1870–1888) who prohibited the transport of slaves by sea in 1873, Ali bin Said (1890–1893) who passed the Slave Trade Prohibition Decree of 1890, and Hamoud bin Mohammed (1896–1902) who passed the Abolition Decree of 1897. By analyzing draft treaties and correspondence before and after the passing of legislation, this paper argues that the sultans and their advisors were not devoid of ideological interest in ending slavery; and that British agents and explorers in the region were too hastily hailed as abolitionists.

Slavery and the slave trade were fundamental institutions in Ethiopian history. Their abolition was a protracted process that involved developing, debating, passing, and applying multiple anti-slavery and anti-slave trade edicts and decrees under successive rulers. While slavery existed in various societies that were later integrated in the Abyssinian empire since the second half of the nineteenth century and took different forms based on different legal traditions, this article focuses specifically on the Christian kingdom and its successor empire. It analyzes changes and continuities in legal approaches to slavery and its suppression through consecutive Ethiopian governments starting with a discussion of slavery's regulation in the ancient Christian law code, the Fetha nagast (“The Law of the Kings”). The article then considers how successive Christian emperors developed anti-slavery policies in response to both local and global dynamics.

This introduction contextualizes the special issue's articles in the broader continental dynamics. It discusses the Eurocentric bias of the historiography and suggests that the view that Europe was responsible for the legal abolition of slavery in Africa should be nuanced and qualified. Some independent African polities abolished slavery before Europe's colonial occupation. Nowhere did European abolitionists encounter a tabula rasa: African polities had complex jurisdictions, oral or written, which formed the normative background against which slavery's abolition should be studied. To do so, however, it is misleading to imagine abolitionism as a unitary movement spreading globally out of Europe. What happened differed from context to context. Normative systems varied, and so did abolition's legal processes. This introduction examines the dynamics that led to the introduction and implementation of anti-slavery laws in African legal systems. It recenters the analysis of the legal abolition of slavery in Africa around particular African actors, concepts, strategies, and procedures.

Increased work connectivity and study mobility over national boundaries in recent decades has led to a shift in the kind of English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction implemented in many educational institutions. Instruction to develop learners’ general English language proficiency may appear as a time-consuming and abstract endeavour. Instead, many institutions implement English for Specific Purposes (ESP), including English for Academic Purposes (EAP) type instruction. In ESP, the aim is to help students develop the specialized academic and work-related linguistic registers they need to function in target settings where English is used as a medium of instruction or in businesses and workplace communication. A great deal of ESP research has now been conducted to build linguistic descriptions of specialized registers. Rather less research has focused on the learning of such specialized registers. This article identifies areas for a research agenda to develop an understanding of learning a specialized register. It sets out two sites for enquiry, namely, learning in a target workplace or disciplinary study setting and learning in instructed ESP, and four topics for enquiry, namely, processes of learning, conditions for learning, learning trajectories, and transfer of learning. Example tasks are suggested for research into learning in target settings.

Pringlea antiscorbutica (Brassicaceae) and Azorella polaris (syn. Stilbocarpa polaris, Apiaceae) are endemic sub-Antarctic flowering plants of significant ecological and historical importance. Pringlea antiscorbutica occurs on Îles Kerguelen and Crozet, Prince Edward, and the Heard and MacDonald Islands; A. polaris on Auckland, Campbell, and Macquarie Islands. We examine the use of these unrelated species of “wild cabbage,” as scurvy remedies and sustenance for eighteenth–nineteenth-century sailors. We trace their European discovery, taxonomic treatment, morphological representation, and cultural association through the historical record. Scurvy killed more sailors during the sixteenth-nineteenth centuries than armed conflict and shipwrecks combined. Both plants were essential to the survival of sailors and formed a nutritious, carbohydrate-rich staple of their diets, however, attitudes to these plants were strongly influenced by cultural background. Use of P. antiscorbutica as a scurvy remedy was promoted by Cook and Anderson, leading to a greater historical legacy than A. polaris, and a unique contemporary research focus on the plant’s nutritional value and cultivation potential. In contrast, contemporary studies of A. polaris have been directed primarily at the plant’s protection. Pringlea antiscorbutica and A. polaris are intrinsically linked to human associations with the sub-Antarctic islands, which further increases their cultural and conservation value.

When the anthropologist R. R. Marett affirmed that certain forms of religion are ‘not so much thought out as danced out’ (1914, xxxi), he was, in effect, anticipating a criticism that has been levelled at philosophy of religion in recent decades – namely, the criticism that this branch of philosophy has frequently underplayed the extent to which religions often prioritize ritual activities (including dance) over intellectual matters. Taking Marett's observation as a point of departure, this article reflects philosophically on the Afro-Brazilian tradition of Candomblé as an exemplary case. Special attention is given to the themes of (a) dance as a mode of ‘gestural language’ (Wafer 1991, 178) and (b) ‘embodied knowledge’ (Daniel 2005). It is argued that these themes supply opportunities to enrich our understanding not only of a significant dimension of religion – that is, the dimension of dance – but also of what communication and knowledge can amount to in both religious and non-religious contexts.

Few details are known about the fate of the Franklin Expedition after it departed England in 1845. What we do know is derived from the archaeological record, Inuit testimony and brief communications written in 1847 and 1848 from the Expedition. During the 1860s, Charles Francis Hall went to the Arctic in search of survivors, papers, and relics. During Hall’s second expedition, two Inuit testimonies emerged which reported unusual site(s) on the Westcoast of King William Island which were reputedly built by the Expedition. Hall believed these sites were either a burial site or a cemented document vault(s). The first testimony, recorded by Hall himself, was obtained from a Pelly Bay Inuk, Sŭ-pung-er, in 1866. The second was collected from Pelly Bay Inuit by members of Hall’s support team, including Peter Bayne, in Hall’s absence in 1868. Eventually, the second testimony was sold to the Canadian Government in the form of a report written by George Jamme after Bayne’s death in 1928. Until now, only extracts of the Jamme Report have been available. This paper describes the background to the Jamme report and presents it in its entirety along with critiques so that scholars in the future may have this tool.

The Allied occupation of İstanbul after World War I had a transformative impact on the city’s musical entertainment sector. The arrival of large numbers of military personnel created additional demand for music halls, cabarets, cafe-chantants, and concert venues. Servicemen’s musical preferences were catered for by resident İstanbulites and others who found refuge in the city, creating opportunities for musicians and entertainment entrepreneurs to benefit from new and existing patrons. This buoyant market was further harnessed for charitable causes directed at new categories of people in need. The distinct political climate introduced with occupation also made its mark on musical performance, with nationalist and socialist groups using concerts to promote messages of salvation. The end of the occupation led to the dispersal of these musicians to new locations, such as the new Republican capital of Ankara, which attracted talents intent on staying in Turkey, and Athens and Thessaloniki, which received Greek Orthodox musicians fleeing the new Turkish nationalist regime, and still further afield. Using British, French, and Ottoman government documents, memoirs, and newspapers, the article investigates this process of musical convergence and divergence and analyses the local and global impact of the aural encounters of this overlooked period in İstanbul’s cultural history.