Reparations typically have responded to atrocities inflicted upon a community or tribute extracted by a victorious nation from the losers in the aftermath of a war. Growing attention is being drawn to reparations as a redress mechanism for economic inequalities produced by historic and ongoing injustices. Analysis of the causes of and the magnitude of such disparities becomes a critical aspect of claims made for reparations on this basis. This semester, the Global Research Inequality seminar will explore multiple cases in which reparations have been paid and other cases in which there are active reparations demands, giving attention to the circumstances invoked for each claim. This includes those made by black American descendants of persons enslaved in the United States; Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Japanese Americans; victims of the Holocaust in Germany; caste oppression in India, and South Africa’s “reconciliation” movement since the fall of apartheid.
