Please join us Spring 2021 IES Migration Series Events AY 2020-21 Theme: Repair and Reparations
The theme of reparations has a newfound relevance today as multifaceted healing from public health and related crises became increasingly pressing around the world. The Black Lives Matter movement accentuated demands for accountability, and the question of repairs from climate-change related disasters continues to loom in our planet’s future. The multidisciplinary panels in IES’ Migration Series with AY 2020-21 theme “Repair and Reparations” bring together scholars and professionals to discuss the topics of repair, reparation, restitution and transitional justice by drawing from the past and present experiences of Europe in a global context.
Panels
Belgium to Congo: Colonialism Reparation and Truth & Reconciliation Commissions
February 24, 10:30 a.m.—1:00 p.m. EST
This panel will explore the theme of reparations and restitutions to bring justice to the residual inequalities caused by slavery and colonization. It will focus on the recent developments to institute a sort of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Belgium, which was approved in Summer 2020 in the form of a parliamentary Special Commission to scrutinize the country’s colonial past. The multidisciplinary panel puts into conversation scholars who will comment on the history of Belgium colonization in Congo, on the recent movements in conjunction with Black Lives Matter including the toppling of the King Leopold II Monument that sparked the demand for accountability, and on the current debate around truth and reconciliation in Belgium, as well as its place in other transitional justice processes around the world.
Speakers Pablo de Greiff | New York University Pedro Monaville | New York University Abu Dhabi Amah Edoh | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Liliane Umubyeyi | Avocats Sans Frontières
Moderated by Esra Akcan, Cornell University
Germany to Germany: New Perspectives on Postwar, Post-Unification and Postcolonial Reparations
March 15, 11:00a.m.—1:30p.m.
This panel will bring together scholars who provide new perspectives on the historical reparations of the postcolonial, post-Nazi and post-communist eras in Germany, as well as the significance of these restitutions in serving as a model for transitional justice and international law. It will explore both material and moral reparations, such as return and restitution of property that had been confiscated, monetary payments as compensation and educational steps to take accountability for the past. The panel will not only acknowledge these reparations to ex-citizens and refugees, but also question the limits of established formulas and the lack or inequality of restitutions throughout the history of today’s Germany.
Speakers Ruti Teitel | New York Law School Rebecca Boehling | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Nicholas Mulder | Cornell University Tiffany Florvil | The University of New Mexico
Moderated by Esra Akcan, Cornell University
USSR to Post-Soviet Russia: Reparations or Repression for Stalin’s Victims?
March 29, 10:30 a.m.—1:00 p.m.
This panel will explore the proposals in the early post-Soviet period to honor the memory of, and perhaps provide reparations to, the victims of Stalinist repression and how they have been replaced by official government efforts to rehabilitate Stalin’s reputation and even rewrite the history of World War II to that end. Organizations such as Memorial, formed to maintain the memory of Stalin’s crimes have been declared as “foreign agents” and obliged to curb their activities. The panel will bring together political scientists, historians and artists to discuss the initiatives and missed opportunities in post-Soviet reparations.
Speakers Nikolay Epplee | Independent Researcher Ivan Kurilla | European University at St. Petersburg Egle Rindzevičiūtė | Kingston University London Nina Tumarkinn | Wellesley College
Moderated by Matthew Evangelista | Cornell University
North to South: Repair and Reparations for Climate Refugees?
April 2, 2:30—5:00
The displacement of populations due to climate change forecasts an unprecedented phenomenon in human history. Neither international law nor nations are prepared to face up to this challenge in a way that would secure refugee’s human rights or their appropriate resettlement. This panel brings together different academic disciplines to bear on the question of rehabilitation and resettlement as a form of reparation to current and future climate refugees. How is it possible to think of restitutions to climate refugees by acknowledging the accountability of the first industrializing countries of the Global North in imposing this displacement on the peoples of the Global South? The intention is to start a conversation with scholars working in the areas of migration, transitional justice, art, architecture, and environmental humanities on the possibility of a just response to the displacement of climate refugees.
Speakers Anne Mc Clintock | Princeton University Ashley Dawson | City University of New York Billy Fleming | University of Pennsylvania Bronwyn Leebaw | University of California, Riverside Anooradha Siddiqui | Barnard College
Moderated by Esra Akcan, Cornell University
EU to Bosnia: Refuge, Reparations, and Global Apartheid
TBD in April
Moderated by Saida Hodzic, Cornell University
MESA Global Academy Event
April 30, TBD Utku Balaban | MESA Global Academy Fellow | Amherst College Pamela Karimi | University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Ijlal Muzaffar | Rhode Island School of Design
