Cutting freedom down to size

Freedom, as a concept and a value, presents limited prospects for anthropological comparison. The study of enslavement, much neglected in attempts to develop an anthropology of freedom, shows that freedom has been imagined by the enslaved as the opposite of their condition only under particular circumstances. An exploration of vernacular opposites to enslavement reveals obligations rather than freedom as having the potential to expand the scope of anthropological comparison. Drawing on both literary sources and fieldwork, a conceptual history of the Chichewa language in south‐central Africa uncovers interlocking semantic fields in which some lexical items predate the long‐distance slave trade, while others derive from the language of the nineteenth‐century slavers. Obligations appear not only as constraints but also as subjects of contentious claims within unequal relationships, coexisting with contemporary claims for personal freedom. As such, attention to obligations can advance topics of current anthropological interest – such as care and hospitality – in a way that is faithful to vernacular concepts and concerns.