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Paper short abstract

This is an examination of the Caribbean reparatory justice movement as a case study of how social movements and decolonial thoughts, buttressed by scholar activism, challenge hegemonic epistemologies related to colonialism and colonial legacies impacting the Caribbean and Caribbean development.

Paper long abstract

The Caribbean reparatory justice movement represents a long genealogy of activism that began with the resistance of Indigenous and enslaved African people, deepened with the calls for repatriation by the Rastafari community and has, in the contemporary, been strengthened by Caribbean academic scholars and activists. Caribbean academics such as Sir Arthur Lewis, Sir Eric Williams, Dr Walter Rodney, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles and Professor Verene Shepherd, have all contributed to this social movement by challenging colonial narratives in history, economics and development, arguing that contemporary development realities of post-colonial societies are as a direct consequence of European colonialism.

The University of the West Indies (UWI), whose three main campuses are housed on former plantations in the Caribbean, represents a site of resistance, solidarity, and transformative learning. This is perhaps most evidenced through its historical anti-colonial teachings, its contemporary housing of the world's first Centre for Reparation Research and its ongoing collaborative teaching of the world's first Masters in Reparatory Justice.

This paper, seeks to examine two fundamental questions: How do academic identities intersect and diverge with activism to nurture a sense of self? How are social movements and decolonial thoughts shaped to challenge hegemonic epistemologies? To do so, the reflections of a Caribbean academic activist, UWI graduate, and PhD student researching the roles of British universities in chattel enslavement and colonialism and their consequent reparatory justice initiatives in the Caribbean will be examined. Ultimately, this paper will ultimately examine the ways in which Caribbean Activist-scholars have historically challenged colonial legacies.