Reparations and historical injustice

Pre-SAP Annual Conference 2016 workshop
On 30th June 2016, Queen’s University Belfast, in conjunction with the SAP, will be hosting a pre-conference workshop on the theme of reparations and historical injustice, details of which can be found here.
If you are interested in attending the workshop, and/or the public outreach and awareness-raising “forum” that will take place on 29th June, please email Jeremy Watkins (j.​watkins@​qub.​ac.​uk).
The event is free, but registration is required.
From the Transatlantic Slave Trade to Engaging the Maangamizi:
Historical Injustice and Reparations
 
Forum / Workshop
29 and 30 June 2016
Queen’s University Belfast
At the international and domestic level, issues of intergenerational justice and repair are increasingly being brought to the fore, reflecting a deeper, ongoing struggle of people and organisations within Africa and the Diaspora for reparations for the Maangamizi – the African holocaust of chattel, colonial and neo-colonial enslavement perpetrated by Europeans and their prodigy. The increasingly visible movement for reparative justice raises fundamental, philosophical, questions about repair: for what, for and by whom, how and when. In light of the recognition by the United Nations that “slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been so”, the call for reparations for historic enslavement and its aftermath must be addressed.
The Centre for Human Rights at Queen’s University, Belfast and the African & Caribbean Support Northern Ireland (ASCONI) are hosting a two-day event meant to explore these issues.
On Wednesday, 29 June, members of the African Diaspora are invited to engage with the Maangamizi and to address fundamental questions as to the way forward, including consideration of local, national, and international reparations movements.  The Forum will focus on empowering local communities, raising awareness and building capacity through participation.
On Thursday, 30 June, a workshop of academics will delve deeper into those fundamental questions. As Belfast will be hosting the Society of Applied Philosophy Annual Conference 2016 (1–3 July), this pre-Conference Workshop seeks to give further context, both philosophical and also historical and legal to issues of inter-generational justice, contemporary wrongs, and future approaches to acknowledgement and repair.
Following on from the November 2015 International, Interdisciplinary Event at the University of Edinburgh: Repairing the Past, Imagining the Future: Reparations and Beyond…; this two-day event hosted at Queen’s University, Belfast provides an opportunity to settle the Maangamizi into the academic discourse, to develop networks, and to consider future avenues for change and strategies for acknowledging the past and repairing the present.

SCHEDULE

What is the Maangamizi?

5:45 – 6:15pm

Presented and moderated by Esther Stanford-Xosei

Africans are not Black

6:15 – 6:30pm

Presented and moderated by Kwesi Tsri (tbc)

Dismantling the Master’s Museum

7:00–7:30pm

Presented and moderated by Nathaniel Tobias Coleman

Contemporary/Local Issues

7:30–8:30pm

Dr Christopher Stange – Consul for St Vincent and the Grenadines in Northern Ireland, Chairperson of Fairtrade Belfast

MLA Máirtín ó Muilleoir – Minister of Finance NI Assembly, 58^th Lord Mayor of Belfast

Dr Michael McEachrane

Mrs Siobhan Brown (tbc)

Debrief – the Forum and its Questions

     9:30 – 10:30am                  

Chair: Jean Allain

Esther Stanford-Xosei – What is the Maangamizi?

Joseph Ricketts – Debrief: Outcomes of the Forum

Nathaniel Tobias Coleman – What are the Questions to be considered?

Q&A Session

Panel 1 – Historical and Legal Issues

10:45 – 12:45 pm

Chair: Jeremy Watkins

Luke Moffett – Justice for Victims in Northern Ireland

Esther Stanford-Xosei – History of the Reparations Movement for the Maangamizi

Nora Wittmann – Maangamizi: International Legal Responsibility and Reparations

Katarina Schwarz – Wrong to Remedy? Evolving Law to Redress ‘Historical’ Injustices

Panel 2 – The Case for Reparations: Normative Foundations

     2:00 – 4:00pm       

Chair: Dave Archard

Michael McEachrane – The Past Is Still With Us: Reparatory Justice and the Reckoning of European Colonialism — A Structural Analysis

Maeve McKeown – Reparations for Caribbean Slavery: A Moral Justification Based on Crimes against Humanity

Jeremy Watkins – Historical Injustice and the Rectification of Disrespect

Panel 3 – Implementing Reparative Justice: Philosophical Questions

     4:15pm – 6:15 pm              

Chair: Josh Milburn

Nathaniel Tobias Coleman – Why’s Whitewashing Wrong?

Daniel Butt — Settling Claims For Reparations

Alasia Nuti – The Activism of the Present-Past Beyond Reparations Claims

Locations:

Meetings:

29 June – Forum, Lecture Theatre 1, Medical Biology Centre

30 June – Workshop – Newark Room, Lanyon Building

Hotel:  Best Western Crescent Townhouse

Dinners: 29 June at the Medical Biology Centre (6:30pm); 30 June at Deane’s (7pm)

THE HUMAN RIGHTS CENTRE at Queen’s University Belfast supports a community of researchers based in the School of Law who have a well-developed reputation for leading scholarship in the area of human rights law. Under the auspices of the Human Rights Centre, staff have developed research which has informed and continues to impact human rights debates, policy formation, and judicial reasoning.

AFRICAN & CARIBBEAN SUPPORT ORGANISATION NORTHERN IRELAND: ACSONI’s Mission is to promote the capabilities and interests of the African and Caribbean Community in Northern Ireland, and to ensure that all individuals from this community are empowered and given equal opportunity to contribute to civic and community life in Northern Ireland.

SOCIETY OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY: The scholarly Society promotes philosophical study and research that has a direct bearing on areas of practical concern. The Society emerged from an increasing awareness that many topics of public debate are capable of being illuminated by the critical, analytic approach characteristic of philosophy, and by direct consideration of questions of value.

Contacts: 

Jean Allain mobile: 07536 095020 ; email: j.​allain@​qub.​ac.​uk

Jeremy Watkins mobile: 07766 194062; email: j.​watkins@​qub.​ac.​uk

Katarina Schwarz mobile: 07804 932573; email: kschwarz01@​qub.​ac.​uk

Sponsors:

AHRC

Royal Institute of Philosophy