Reparations, Reconciliation, and Social Justice

Can the literature shed light on how to advance the popular desire for moving human society forward?

Posted on May 18, 2023 in Hot Topic

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Araujo, Ana Lucia. Reparations for slavery and the slave trade: a transnational and comparative history. Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. 276p bibl index ISBN 9781350010598, $88.00; ISBN 9781350010604 pbk, 29.95; ISBN 9781350010581 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE May 2018

Harvard historian Araujo surveys the long history of demands by slaves and their descendants for symbolic, financial, and material reparations for their enslavement. Whether as formal apologies, compensation in land, cash payments, pensions, or tax credits, over centuries bonded laborers and their offspring across the Atlantic world have sought forms of redress for their unpaid labor and heinous treatment by masters. Claimants for reparations have publicized their grievances and demands via petitions, slave narratives, speeches, litigation, pamphlets, newspaper articles, public protest, and the establishment of reparations organizations. Araujo is the first scholar to examine reparations for slavery and the Atlantic slave trade comparatively and transnationally, drawing on a broad range of texts in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The first demands for reparations emerged between the late 18th and 19th centuries, when abolitionists called for various forms of reparation. During the age of emancipation, individuals and groups clamored for diverse reparations. The main drive for compensation occurred from the Great Depression through the Cold War, culminating in the US during the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. By the late 20th century, robust calls for slave reparations had spread to West Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. An important book for all collections. Summing Up: Essential. All libraries. —J. D. Smith, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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Beckles, Hilary. How Britain underdeveloped the Caribbean: a reparation response to Europe’s legacy of plunder and poverty. University of the West Indies Press, 2022 (c2021). 292p bibl index ISBN 9789766408695 pbk, $45.00; ISBN 9789766408718 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE December 2022

Beckles (economic and social history, University of the West Indies, Jamaica) explores Britain’s economic, military, and political exploitation of the Caribbean at different points in time across three centuries. Part 1 examines the exploitative nature of British colonialism in the West Indies, part 2 traces the trajectory of this exploitation from the onset of colonialism up to the period leading to independence in the 1960s, and part 3 continues the narrative from independence to the present. Beckles makes clear that independence has not meant the end of colonialism. Many social, political, and economic problems the various islands still face are the lasting consequences of colonialism. Hence, throughout this sweeping narrative, Beckles insists on Britain’s responsibility to make reparations to the islands for its longstanding exploitation—a responsibility the colonial power has always rejected. This broad, detailed narrative told by a local voice very familiar with key island personalities and characteristics should be of particular interest to students and practitioners of Caribbean affairs. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and practitioners. —M. A. Morris, emeritus, Clemson University

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Hatamiya, Leslie T. Righting a wrong: Japanese Americans and the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Stanford, 1993. 257p ISBN 0804721440, $29.50.
Reviewed in CHOICE March 1994

Hatamiya has melded an intense personal interest with a clear, well-organized writing style to produce a valuable work on the history of the Japanese American experience. This study enhances the reader’s awareness of the internment experience, pointing out the ever-present danger of wartime hysteria coupled with underlying prejudices. Like William Hohri (Repairing America: An Account of the Movement for Japanese-American Redress, 1988), Hatamiya demonstrates the assertive postwar activity for reparation, a struggle that continued until 1992. Hohri’s book was written from the perspective of a former internee seeking justice for himself, his family, and his community. Hatamiya’s work is a retrospective examination of a combination of “grass-roots and ‘inside-the beltway’” maneuvering that culminated in the passage of H.R. 442 and S. 1009 in 1988 and the final appropriation (H.R. 4551) in 1992. The author has pieced together a legislative story that will greatly interest political scientists. Other social scientists will be gratified that Hatamiya has placed the story within the historical context of Asian Americans in general and Japanese Americans in particular. Summing Up: Advanced undergraduates and above. —A. L. Nieves, Wheaton College (IL)

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Katherine Dunham: recovering an anthropological legacy, choreographing ethnographic futures, ed. by Elizabeth Chin. School for Advanced Research (SAR), 2014. 164p ISBN 9781938645129 pbk, $29.95.
Reviewed in CHOICE May 2015

The contributors to Chin’s edited volume provide critical essays that reflect on the life and work of Katherine Dunham, one of the pioneering African American anthropologists.  The book makes scholars question why they do not read and seriously engage more of Dunham’s works in anthropology, African diaspora studies, and performance studies courses, considering the breadth of her ethnographic writing and the continued relevance of her methodological approaches.  As A. Lynn Bolles highlights, “not only is Katherine Dunham observing dance, but she is also participating in the cultural experience.”  For black anthropologists and performance artists and theorists, Dunham’s emphasis on participant observation and research-to-performance methods encouraged greater solidarity and intellectual collaborations that enriched ethnographic and theoretical insights as well as cultural work generated out of African-descended communities for generations that followed.  The “Dunham Technique” and the “Dunham Way,” as Elizabeth Chin, Aimee Meredith Cox, and Dána-Ain Davis illustrate in their chapters, necessarily pushed African diaspora anthropology and performance to practice social justice as its principal intellectual and cultural aim.  This book does more than recover Dunham’s anthropological legacy; the authors establish her rightful place in the black radical tradition through her research, writing, and dancing. Summing Up: Essential. All academic levels/libraries. —K. Y. Perry, Brown University

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Mass trauma and emotional healing around the world: rituals and practices for resilience and meaning-making: v.1: Natural disasters; v.2: Human-made disasters, ed. by Ani Kalayjian and Dominique Eugene. Praeger, 2009. 210p ISBN 9780313375408, $104.95.
Reviewed in CHOICE August 2010

This provocative two-volume work comprises 23 case studies compiled with care by Kalayjian (psychology, Fordham Univ.) and Eugene (practicing therapist based in California). Coauthor of several of the essays in the first volume in the set, Kalayjian has written extensively on the traumatic aftermath of natural disasters and is founder and director of various nongovernmental agencies specializing in trauma-service delivery across the globe. In covering the topics and cultures it does, this resource provides a comprehensive, in-depth examination of the impact of disasters while juxtaposing the reconciliation, commemoration, and resiliency of the communities that survive them. And by offering perspectives on natural- and human-made disaster in parallel volumes, the editors provide a distinct yet integrated study of the topic. Anyone interested in social justice within trauma psychology will want to consult these volumes. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. —A. N. Douglas, Mount Holyoke College

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Nelson, Alondra. The social life of DNA: race, reparations, and reconciliation after the genome. Beacon Press, 2016. 200p index afp ISBN 9780807033012, $27.95; ISBN 9780807027189 pbk, $20.00; ISBN 9780807033029 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE October 2016

Nelson’s slim and subtle book weaves the personal and sociological into an analysis of the use of DNA information in African American identity projects, including reparation and reconciliation initiatives. She clearly lays out the sometimes contradictory uses and meanings of genetic heritage information, as well as a rich historical description of the genetic science, legal precedents, and organizations engaged with traditional and genetic genealogical projects. Downplayed are some sociological and critical questions—how does genetic genealogy compare and contrast with other studies in the public understanding of science? What insights do we gain about the ambivalence that African Americans often have about science, besides its apparently paradoxical quality? How do feelings about genetic ancestry, or science, vary along what dimensions? How are commercial firms exploiting the uncertainty of genetic information and lack of public understanding of genetics? What sense could be made of the failure of genetics in establishing legal grounds for reparations from the government or private firms (e.g., the insurance industry, where still-operating firms made money by insuring slaves for owners)? Despite some weaknesses, a marvelous book. For science studies, Africana studies, and sociology. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most levels/libraries. —J. L. Croissant, University of Arizona

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Patel, Raj. A history of the world in seven cheap things: a guide to capitalism, nature, and the future of the planet, by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore. California, 2017. 312p bibl index ISBN 9780520293137, $24.95; ISBN 9780520966376 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE March 2018

Patel (Univ. of Texas at Austin) and Moore (SUNY Binghamton) are concerned with social justice and developing a better world ecology. Their brief, highly accessible world history describes processes intertwined with capitalism’s growth and many resulting negative effects leading to crises. Their “ecology of capitalism” depends on seven highly interdependent “things”: nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives. But they include Roman, feudal, Soviet, and Chinese examples. They use “cheapening” to denote how capitalists have gained and maintained power and profit. In their history, the benefits of growth are briefly mentioned, like increased food supplies and incomes, but most of the emphasis is on harms, especially to indigenous peoples, slaves, women, and nature. Well-selected quotes from historic documents and literature, some art, a few charts, and many references provide support. The authors discuss historical and philosophical rationalizations of harms that lead to crises. In their view, which doesn’t fit most economists’ approaches, crises of hunger, slavery, and climate change can lead over time to revolutionary reimagining of life after capitalism, which may include briefly described “reparation ecology.” Summing Up: Optional. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. —E. J. Peterson, California State University Stanislaus

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Reparations for victims of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity: systems in place and systems in the making, ed. by Carla Ferstman and Mariana Goetz. 2nd rev. ed. Brill, 2020. 770p ISBN 9789004377158, $162.00; ISBN 9789004377196 ebook, $162.00.
Reviewed in CHOICE March 2021

Ferstman (Univ. of Essex, UK) and Goetz (founder and director, Rights for Peace) bring together 28 essays grouped around five major themes: reparations for victims; reparations and the Holocaust; reparations and mass victimization; reparations in international criminal law adjudication; and reparations in national contexts. Written by reputable legal and transitional justice experts, the essays cover a range of reparations programs, categories of victims, countries and regions, and domestic and international courts. The essays’ theoretical strength, methodological rigor, and accessibility make the volume a significant addition to the literature and an indispensable tool for anyone interested in transitional justice, or in deepening their understanding of the advantages and shortcomings of various reparation programs implemented to date. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers. —L. Stan, St. Francis Xavier University

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Romano, Renee C. Racial reckoning: prosecuting America’s civil rights murders. Harvard, 2014. 268p index afp ISBN 9780674050426, $35.00.
Reviewed in CHOICE February 2015

Since 1990, varied agendas have intersected to push for reopening the more than 100 unsolved, racially motivated murders from the civil rights era.  These efforts—on the parts of family members, local groups, journalists, prosecutors, and law professors—have led not only to convictions of murderers like Edgar Ray Killen and Byron De La Beckwith, but also to commemoration, dialog—through truth commissions such as the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation—and legislation, most notably the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.  In a splendid cultural and intellectual history of this movement, Romano (history, Oberlin College) explores what it means.  For some, the closure is about identifying who was legally responsible for murder.  But for many, closure has meant distancing the present from the past, the culpable community from individual violent perpetrators, and the exceptional US from the racist south.  By its very nature, prosecution opens doors for understanding but narrows the analysis to identifying legal, as opposed to societal, responsibility and allows interested elites to distance themselves from the ongoing residual of the Jim Crow past.  Romano observes that legal justice, even when it leads to successful prosecution, does not equal social justice. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers. —E. R. Crowther, Adams State University

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Staub, Ervin. The roots of goodness and resistance to evil: inclusive caring, moral courage, altruism born of suffering, active bystandership, and heroism. Oxford, 2015. 389p bibl indexes afp ISBN 9780195382037, $59.95.
Reviewed in CHOICE September 2015

What factors, whether personal, situational, or experiential, lead some to take action by aiding or rescuing others from harm?  A Holocaust survivor, Staub (emer., Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst; founder of the doctoral program in the psychology of peace and violence) spent his scholarly career exploring why some people act with humility and humanity and others stand by and do nothing in the face of suffering or, worse, perpetrate it.  Staub conducted extensive theoretical and empirical work on the nature of good and evil, and his findings have advanced social, clinical, and developmental psychology and the psychology of peace and social justice.  This fine book, made up of 28 chapters (2 are coauthored and 2 others are authored by others), is a victory lap of sorts for a distinguished career, but the book is also forward looking because it includes not only the author’s major and recent articles but also newly written material dealing with ways to prevent violence and promote peace.  Those interested in learning a programmatic approach to addressing matters of moral courage and compassion will be drawn to this book, as will those who want to apply psychological insights to advancing reconciliation and creating caring societies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. —D. S. Dunn, Moravian College

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