FOREWORD.

• Author: Alexander, Ryan

Following on the success of our spring 2021 special issue dedicated to Brazil, I am pleased to present to you a special issue dedicated to the topic of human trafficking in the Global South. Organized by Professor of Political Science Sabella Abidde at Alabama State University, Professor of Political Science Jose de Arimateia da Cruz at Georgia Southern University, and Professor of History Michael R. Hall at Georgia Southern University, this issue looks at various dynamics of human trafficking in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The collection was inspired in part by the 7th INTERPOL Global Conference on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, just months before the Association of Global South Studies held its own annual meeting there. The editors of this collection have provided a brief introduction, which follows this foreword, to the project and the individual articles contained within it.

As always, I want to express my thanks to the many people who make this journal possible, including the anonymous peer reviewers who review manuscripts; the volunteer associate editors (Joseph Bangura for Africa, Srobana Battacharya for Asia, Sonia Farid for the Middle East, Tyler Ralston for the Americas, Jason Strakes for Eurasia, and Michael Hall for book reviews); Sara Abernathy, JGSS editorial assistant; Lauren Phillips, manager of journals at the University of Florida Press; Raven Hudson, the press's editorial assistant for journals; and the copy editors at the press.

Our parent organization, the Association of Global South Studies, was established in order to provide an international structure for the humane and scientific study of peoples, problems, and issues in the world's developing countries, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life in those places. The late Dr. Harold Isaacs, professor emeritus of history at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, Georgia, founded the Association of Third World Studies (ATWS), Inc., in 1983. The association now has a global membership and chapters in South Asia and Africa. In the summer of 2016, following a vote of the members of the association, ATWS was renamed the Association of Global South Studies (AGSS).

As ATWS, the association began its history as an institution in 1991 when, under the newly ratified ATWS...