Transformative Justice, Reparations and Transatlantic Slavery

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12282983
AutoresMatthew Evans (0000-0002-6464-5161, University of Sussex, UK; University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, autor de correspondencia), David Wilkins (0000-0003-2780-0385, University of the Witwatersrand), David B Wilkins (0000-0002-7634-4243, University of the Witwatersrand)
Año2017
Volumen28
Número2
Páginas137-157
Fecha de publicación2017-12-26
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial & Legal Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0964-6639 • E-ISSN: 1461-7390
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0964663917746490
OpenAlexW2768554881
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas56

This article considers lessons recent debates concerning transitional and transformative justice, and surrounding transformative reparations, could offer to discussions regarding reparations for transatlantic slavery. Even transitional justice programmes aiming to provide transformative reparations in the form of development programmes (such as healthcare, education and housing provision) have enabled governments to avoid addressing structural causes of inequalities. The article argues that calling for reparations for transatlantic slavery in the form of development projects is potentially regressive. Framing development programmes as reparations, as parts of the Caribbean Community Ten-Point Plan for reparations do, risks presenting these as necessary only because of powerful states’ duty to make amends for past wrongdoing. The article calls for advocates of reparations for transatlantic slavery to be more explicit in demarcating the backward- and forward-looking foundations of their claims. The importance of symbolic and non-financial reparations ought to be more explicitly highlighted as a potential contributor to the social repair of transatlantic slavery’s harmful legacies. Moreover, distributive justice should be explicitly emphasized as being necessary to realize the present-day and future rights of people suffering from the historical legacy of transatlantic slavery and not simply because the present situation is the result of historical injustice

Duty · Economic Justice · Framing (construction · Injustice · Just society · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Transformative learning · Transitional justice · Wrongdoing · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Human Rights and Development · Law · Religion, Society, and Development