GCSJ seminar series: Wrongs not righted: how might we think about repair?

This talk explores the troubling history of the entanglements between Britain and Jamaica, through the establishment of a slave society from the late seventeenth century, the time of abolition and emancipation, and moments of crisis in 1865 and 1938. It will argue that there are colonial wrongs to be righted: there is a debt. Who carries responsibility? What would recognition mean? How might we think about repair?

Catherine Hall is Emerita Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History, and Chair of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London. She is a historian of Britain and its empire, with her work particularly exploring issues of gender, class, race and colonialism. She is the author of numerous monographs, most recently Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism published by Cambridge University Press in 2024.