In ways both established and novel, reparatory justice struggles around the world have been gaining momentum in recent years. An expansive range of movements and communities are articulating claims for reparatory justice to, for instance, address the historical legacy of the transatlantic trade and enslavement of Africans, the genocide against indigenous people across the Americas, Germany’s war against Poland, victims of apartheid in South Africa, the actions of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and climate justice for countries of the Global South. While some of these struggles have been taking place for centuries, recent years have seen them expand beyond the scope of the regional or the national, connecting across countries and gaining recognition globally.

At the 9th Annual conference of the Memory Studies Association, the Global Memories Working Group invites advocates, artists and academics of reparatory justice as well as memory to map, analyze and theorize the meanings and functions of memories across these struggles. Submissions engaging with all contexts and time periods are welcome, and we encourage potential participants to engage with the framework of reparatory justice broadly. Important and timely contexts for doing so abound. There are, of course, the memories of preceding cases, such as the reparations paid by Haiti to France, Germany to Israel and the Jewish diaspora as well as Great Britain to the Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Countless other grassroots and transnational initiatives understand changes to commemoration practices as acts of reparatory justice, such as Columbus Day Must Fall, Rhodes Must Fall, and desaparecidos in Latin America. Such initiatives challenge, transform, and disseminate memory formations along global circuits. There are also continuing and growing efforts to reconstruct, analyze and conceptualize the complex, diverse and long-term effects caused by the lack of reparations. Such effects have been investigated not only in economic terms, but also in the realms of culture, politics, technology, biogenetics, and many other areas. The richness of such movements attests to the countless ways in which the past continues to impact the present as, what we call in a broad and preliminary sense, “global memories of reparatory justice.”

At this year’s annual meeting of the Memory Studies Association in Prague, Czech Republic, we aim to assemble a range of panels representative of the wide scope outlined above. Together we would like to ask, why are the memories of global reparatory justice struggles becoming so relevant now? Which pasts do these global reparatory justice struggles tap into and mobilize? In what ways do these pasts play out in the present across the reparatory justice movements, related societies and cultures? How can we conceptualize and theorize these kinds of memory constellations? At this important historical moment, the Global Memories Working Group seeks to offer a platform to these struggles and questions as they expand around the world, connect across movements and articulate their claims through memory in both long-established and creative new ways.

In bringing together people engaging with a wide range of movements, we hope to articulate new and impactful methods for thinking about the nature and role of reparatory justice in diverse historical and geographical contexts. In preparing submissions for these panels, potential participants should consider the possibility that these papers will be developed into a special issue in an academic journal in the field of Memory Studies. To this end, we invite contributions that address, but are certainly not limited to, the following topics:
- Global memories of reparatory justice
- Transnational pasts of reparatory justice struggles
- Global dimensions of reparatory justice movements in the Czech Republic
- The symbolic politics of icons, events, and key moments in these struggles
- Monuments and museums regarding questions of reparatory justice
- Important crises and successes of reparatory justice
- Reparatory justice movements’ commemoration practices
- Globalizing reparatory justice memories in the digital age
- Remembrance of connections across reparatory justice struggles
- Community injustices, diseases, and crises as long-term effects of stalled reparations
- Theoretical interventions in memory concepts for and of reparatory justice
Next year’s annual meeting in Prague is planned as a fully in-person event, and we ask that those interested in submitting proposals commit to traveling to the Czech Republic to attend. Unfortunately, we cannot accept requests for virtual presentations in any form.

Submissions will be accepted until Sunday, 13 October 2024. Proposals for contributions should be no more than 300 words, and must include a title and abstract. A short bio of 100 words or less should also be submitted at the same time. Please send all proposals to globalmemoriesworkinggroup@gmail.com. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out no later than 1st January 2025.