Description
As part of my doctoral research project that analyses the role of reparative justice for struggles in former metropoles of colonialism, this paper seeks to critically engage with both liberal and anti-colonial understandings of historical justice in international studies. Transitional Justice, formed in the heyday of global justice and human rights as an almost universal tool of conflict transformation, is now evolving into a possible analytical tool for postcolonial justice in the Global North. I argue that while the evolution of this current “transformative turn” fosters e.g., Young’s influential model of forward-looking social connectivity, long-lasting campaigns of anti-colonial movements seek justice through more backward-looking lenses of liability. In my case study, the reparations movement in the UK, this poses questions about power of knowledge production in political decision making. Based on data collected during fieldwork in April, May and October 2023 in London and Bristol, this paper seeks to emphasise activists’ views on reparations after colonialism and enslavement. As an interpretative reflection on the multifaceted range of data, from interviews and observations to archival documents, but also on the process of provincializing my own initial biases, this paper aims to encourage discussion of the complex ambiguities of historical justice in face of global crises and hegemonies of knowledge in international studies.
