This paper provokes questions of justice for scholars and practitioners working in policy, regulation and law by returning to reparations in anti-colonial thought and practice.
Much of the global reparations debate on colonisation and slavery has focused on important demands confronting the historic damages and ongoing accumulation of disadvantage from colonization in ex-colonies or from plantation slavery. Much less has been said about reparations for settler colonialism which is a specific form of ongoing colonization in the here and now.
Drawing on long-standing work around reparations for colonisation by Indigenous peoples in Australia, and the limited compensatory responses the state and judiciary have offered, this paper considers reparations as the critical domain of transformation that aim less to offset damage and reconcile suffering, but rather to comprehensively transform colonial relations in Australia.
Ultimately, this paper returns to the vast community and activist scholarship on reparations for colonisation, genocide and slavery in Australia and beyond, which offers ways of thinking, being and doing towards justice.
About the speaker
Dr Elise Klein is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Crawford School at the Australian National University. Her research is situated in the intersections (and cracks) of development, social policy, de(coloniality) and care.
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Image credit: Image of sign from Invasion Day protest 2021: “Imagine not paying rent for 233 years!”, by Matt Hrkac from flickr, used under CC BY 2.0 licence.