Event Details

The Pentland Centre is hosting a seminar exploring how Australia’s Modern Slavery Act (2018) addresses the issue of modern slavery in global supply chains and its implications for consumers, businesses, and policy.

Australia’s Modern Slavery Act (2018) (MSA) takes a decentralised, reflexive, and self-regulatory approach to governing modern slavery in global supply chains, positioning consumers as a key stakeholder responsible for influencing ethical corporate behaviour. Kyla Raby, PhD Candidate at the University of South Australia, will discuss her research which utilises a Foucault inspired critical policy analysis framework to question the way in which the legislation represents the ‘problem’ of modern slavery in global supply chains. Utilising Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach, Kyla argues that the MSA represents modern slavery in global supply chains as a problem of uninformed and unethical consumer behaviour. This frames modern slavery as a market and information problem, positioning businesses as non-offenders and shifting responsibility onto consumers. Kyla argues that by deflecting attention from economic structures and global systems of labour and production, this framing distorts the issue and highlights the need for alternative problem representations.

NB: The seminar runs from 10:00-11:00 in LUMS Lecture Theatre 14 and on Teams. Please note that this session will be recorded.

All welcome - registration required.

Photo at top of page by Joel Muniz at Unsplash.