If the central role of memory in reparative justice processes has become better understood in recent years, the relation between these, as well as their historical transformations, are yet to be examined in-depth. The present moment of increasing claims highlights the importance of understanding how memories influence reparative justice discourse and shape the claims they make. Transnational distributions of wealth, statues of Western explorers, the consolidation of academic publications based in the Global North have all been considered indicators of imperial injustices capable of being addressed through reparations frameworks. This Global Memories Working Group panel will be exploring the many historical and imaginative ways that people and movements connect memory and reparative justice. At the 10th Annual conference of the Memory Studies Association, the GMWG panel brings together advocates, artists and academics working at the intersection of reparative justice and memory to map, analyze and theorize the meanings and functions of memories across these struggles. We aim to ask: why are the memories of reparative justice struggles becoming so relevant now? Which pasts do these reparative justice struggles tap into? In which ways do these pasts play out in the present across the reparative justice movements, related societies and cultures? How can we conceptualize and theorize these reparative justice memories? At this important historical juncture, the working group seeks to create a platform for these struggles and questions as they expand around the world, connect across movements, and articulate their claims through material, embodied, digital, and symbolic memory formations — in proven as well as creative new ways. Astrid Rasch will chair the panel on reparative memories around the world. Guy Emerson Mount in "Centering Pu'uhonua: State, Society, and Reparative Justice in Pre-Colonial Hawai'I" will challenge the resurgence of universalist approaches to reparations by zooming in on Hawai'ian pre-colonial concepts of pu'uhonua. Heather Proctor in "Decolonising the curriculum? That's so 2021: reparative justice in UK Higher Education" will historicize the reparative pursuits in Britain to discuss its current tendency to demote decolonisation for seemingly economically more feasible strategies. Shohei Sato and Navneet Pratap in "Erased at Exit: Britain's Archival Destruction at the Partition of India" trace in detail how imperial Britain destroyed traces relevant for contemporary reparative justice. Jarula MI Wegner in "Beyond the Binary: Are there Backward Looking and Forward-Looking Reparations?" returns to a long-standing divide in reparative justice debates to argue against the idea that a return to the past cannot or will not orient us towards a better future for all
Guy Emerson Mount, Wake Forest University, "Centering Pu'uhonua: State, Society, and Reparative Justice in Pre-Colonial Hawai‘i" As scholars, practitioners, and theorists attempt to articulate a set of best practices to guide reparative justice processes, a tendency towards singular (even universalizing) frameworks has emerged. From the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights to Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò’s meta-analysis of various reparations practices, the temptation towards a unified prescriptive framework remains alluring. While some of these totalizing models gesture towards indigenous epistemologies and the need to be attentive to local cultural specificities, these caveats typically constitute an addendum to an otherwise decontextualized universal conceptualization of what reparations are (and should be). This paper attempts to demonstrate the insufficiency of these models while arguing for a diverse indigenous centered ‘framework of frameworks’ for reparations. Through a deep dive into the pre-colonial pu'uhonua (spaces of refuge) that the kānaka maoli (native Hawaiians) established throughout the Hawaiian Islands this paper will argue that preserving, remembering, and recovering these ancient indigenous practices can help to both complicate existing reparative justice frameworks as well as challenge the utility of singular frameworks themselves. By taking account of various indigenous justice making systems throughout the world, the wider hope is that scholars, activists, and practitioners in narrating the history of reparations can center their own often forgotten cultural norms in their work while also gaining new insight and inspiration from the practices of other societies around the world.
Shohei Sato and Navneet Pratap, Waseda University and University Grants Commission, Government of India, "Erased at Exit: Britain’s Archival Destruction at the Partition of India" Why are calls for reparative justice often hindered by the lack of hard evidence? We address this question by examining the history of colonial archives in South Asia. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Britain started to destroy sensitive documents in India in preparation for its eventual departure from the region. Isolated traces of paper burning in Delhi have been pointed out in previous studies. Our research project traces the fire behind the smoke by examining primary sources left in both Britain and India. Evidence suggests that Britain’s colonial cover-up was far more extensive than previously estimated and was carried out not only in Delhi but throughout the subcontinent. The destruction of records had begun in the Intelligence Bureau in Delhi by September 1945, later expanding to various arms of the British Raj. When Indian leaders noticed and protested, British officials and the Viceroys denied any wrongdoing while continuing the practice behind closed doors right up to the departure from India and its partition in August 1947. Although rarely articulated, the core purpose was to avoid ‘embarrassment’ and protect British interests at the expense of local knowledge of their own history. This experience in India set a precedent for Britain’s later global policy, the destruction and concealment of sensitive records across 37 colonies, codenamed ‘Operation Legacy’. For some British officials, the exercise might have been a bureaucratic weeding of inconvenient material. But for the people in South Asia, it meant a mass destruction of their memory. Britain not only burned what could have become historical records but also destroyed the very evidence of such destruction. The erasure was so successful that today in South Asia the story is largely forgotten. Archival destruction has perpetuated injustice—an enduring asymmetry of power and knowledge.
Heather Proctor, Newcastle University, "Decolonising the curriculum? That’s so 2021: reparative justice in UK Higher Education" In the early 2020s, ‘decolonising the curriculum’ was all the rage, with UK universities proclaiming initiatives aimed at reckoning with race, embedding anti-racism, and addressing historical colonial legacies. Now, as UK universities encounter significant financial challenges, the refrain of ‘there is no money’ haunts the departments, meetings, and curricula in place of these ‘decolonising’ initiatives. This paper critically examines the neoliberal logics underpinning the strategic amnesia in UK Higher Education, that sidelines reparatory justice in favour of institutional self-preservation. Crucially, this strategic amnesia extends beyond the simple financial constraint of failing to fund reparatory initiatives, reflecting a failure to properly embed commitments to anti-racism and decolonisation from the beginning of such initiatives. Drawing on reflections from a series of projects concerned with belonging, heritage, and neocolonialism in university contexts, I explore the disjuncture between the symbolic gestures of ‘decolonising’ and the material realities of university structures still deeply embedded in colonial histories. Rather than merely critiquing the performative nature of past reparatory initiatives, this paper interrogates how memory itself is managed, curated, and ultimately commodified within the neoliberal university. What happens when institutional memories of colonialism becomes inconvenient - economically, politically, or reputationally? I argue that the current retreat from reparatory discourse is not merely a result of financial constraint but a deeper ideological commitment to depoliticising institutional memory. In doing so, universities enact a form of reparatory theatre, where acknowledgment substitutes for action, and visibility replaces structural change - until the moment of ideological and/or economic inconvenience, where even tokenistic visibility can vanish. Situating these dynamics in historical and contemporary contexts, I ask how higher education might move beyond symbolic engagement to materially reparative practices.
20260729T140020260729T1530America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires2.6. Reparative Memories Around the WorldSV403 (ART)MSA Buenos Aires 2026buenosairesconference@memorystudiesassociation.org
