Who are the traffickers? A cultural criminological analysis of traffickers as represented in the Al Jazeera documentary series modern slavery: A twenty-first century evil

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to analyse and interrogate the identities of 'traffickers' as represented within a series of television documentaries on modern slavery. The chapter data set is a series of seven 25-minute documentaries entitled Modern Slavery: A Twenty-first Century Evil (2011) produced by Al Jazeera. Sections on trafficker identities and the usage of the term 'trafficker' within the different typologies represented in the documentary series are shown, that is, bridal, charcoal, prison, sex, food, child, bonded slavery/trafficking. These are represented within a complex geocultural televisual gaze (Al Jazeera English) upon the global north/west as ultimately the source of the slavery problem.