The University of the West Indies

Reflection on Repair Conference 2025

Reflections on Repair, Responsibility, Resistance and Reform: New Pathways

What traumas, distortions, rebellions and forms of repair must we calibrate within a world where  centuries of intense colonisation and associated extractivist capitalism have attempted to erase millenia of sustainable traditional ways of being and knowing? 

As we enter the second International Decade for People of African Descent (2025-2034), and acknowledge the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) we face a world defined by layered crises and persistent systemic inequities.  Communities across the globe continue to grapple with the legacies of colonialism, racial injustice, economic inequality, and ecological degradation. This conference invites critical engagements and creative expressions that address the themes of repair, responsibility, resistance, and reform and how these principles can be, and have been, understood, embodied, and put into action. We seek to foreground not only what we do but how we do it, affirming methodologies and approaches that exemplify collective healing and social transformation through anticolonial, decolonial, and transformative lenses. We also recognise the significance of such approaches across fields of study and activism that have dominantly and traditionally obscured diverse expressions of Black life from across the globe - this includes queer, disability, and gender studies.   This conference will be a space to not only critique but to dream, to strategise, and to act together.  

In this pivotal moment, we invite scholars, activists, artists, and practitioners to contribute to a rich and interdisciplinary dialogue. Submissions should engage with the ways in which Africa and its diasporas have historically and contemporarily responded to structural oppression and propose innovative visions for a future grounded in justice, equity, and sustainability. We are particularly interested in work that moves beyond abstract theorization and grapples with actionable pathways for real-world transformation. 

Let us collectively imagine and build extant realities and futures worthy of our ancestors’ sacrifices and our descendants’ hopes. 

Conference Themes: 

Repair and Responsibility: What does repair look like in a post-pandemic world, particularly in the context of communities and nations affected by colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism? What responsibilities do African nations, diasporic communities, and global powers have in addressing past wrongs and building a future of justice? 

  • Sub-themes include: 
  • Alternative Approaches/New Pathways to Repair 
  • Indigenous Knowledges for Repair 
  • The Politics of Responsibility 
  • An Ethic of Economic Repair: New Financial Orders 

 

Response and Reform: How do African and diasporic communities respond to crises of identity, power, and survival? What kinds of reforms—both internal and external—are necessary to create systems of governance, social structures, and cultural practices that uphold dignity, equity, and sustainability? How can we move from theory to praxis in meaningful and impactful ways? 

  • Sub-themes include: 
  • Strategies for Black Wellness 
  • Health and Reparatory Justice 
  • Health; a post-COVID era; intersecting with climate & education 
  • Violence Response, Prevention, and Elimination (as a Public Health Issue) 
  • Social and Health System Policies for Repair and Reform: What is Working 
  • Re-engaging/re-examining educational systems for youth and communities 
  • The Role of the University 
  • (Apathy around higher education; young peoples’ decision to disengage in formal education; educational enterprise in a historical, colonial/postcolonial context) 

 

Resistance and Collective Power: How have African communities historically responded to oppression and how can those legacies inform contemporary movements for justice? What does collective resistance look like in a world shaped by digital technologies, global activism, and transnational solidarity? What does it mean to "reform" from the inside out, embracing both individual and collective power? 

  • Sub-themes include: 
  • New Paths for Maroon and Indigenous Studies  
  • Reparatory Justice for African, Indigenous and Modern Slavery 
  • Centering Grassroots in Repair 
  • Feminist Solidarities and Resistance 
  • Strategies/Approaches for Countering Misinformation 
  • AI, social media 
  • Reparation investigates every facet of life; colonial injustice affects the life of every transported peoples’ from the way we walk to the way we talk 

 

Imagining and Building a More Just World: How can African and diasporic artists, intellectuals, and activists imagine a world of justice beyond colonial frameworks? How do creative, spiritual, and intellectual practices embody the work of reform? What new forms of collective action and solidarity are needed to move toward a more just and equitable global planetary future? 

  • Sub-themes include: 
  • Honouring the Spirit of Repair: Somatics, Ethics, Praxis 
  • Disability, Accessibility, and Pathways for Justice 
  • Climate Justice and Age of the Anthropocene 
  • New Forms / Avenues of Global solidarity 

Register here  https://www.uwi.edu/alumnionline/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=100