The Spectralized Camp: Cultural Representations of British New Slaveries

New forms of slavery in the UK, resulting from globalized migratory movements, constitute a recent and ever-increasing phenomenon. This essay aims to reflect on literary and cultural products around this topic, identifying two dominating tropes: the ghost and the concentration camp, originating from, respectively, postcolonial and Holocaust studies. In the wake of Michael Rothberg's studies, I argue that, in order to fully comprehend the imagery of British new slaveries, it is important to find an integrated approach between these two tropes/areas, and thus this essay identifies two kinds of interactions between them: symbolic conflation and the spectralization of the camp. The first type could be seen as embodied in the image of the hooded head present in two recent French films, Welcome and Qu'ils reposent en révolte. In the second type, the ghost and the concentration camp have been interconnected mystifyingly through a spectralization of the camp itself, in anti-immigration propaganda and in some cultural theory (namely, Augé's concept of ‘non-place’).