The global resurgence of calls for reparative justice animated by the Pan-African and global African reparations movement, the campaigns for restitution of African knowledge and cultural artefacts, the Black Lives Matter movement and the growing momentum for the decolonization of knowledge, has reignited debates on reparations for historical injustices, particularly those rooted in slavery, colonialism, apartheid and systemic racial oppression.

In Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe, the reparations discourse is increasingly framed within continuing struggles to redress historical injustices as well as to decolonize the Pan-African body politic and assert continental political and economic sovereignty through redistributive socio-economic justice. Yet, the agenda remains fragmented, contested, and often co-opted by competing interests. While some African and Caribbean governments, for example the CARICOM Community, and civil society actors have advanced bold claims, others remain hesitant or divided on the modalities, beneficiaries, and political implications of reparations. The African Union’s designation of 2026–2036 as the Decade of Justice for Africans and People of African Descent and the growing influence of Pan-African and global African advocacy networks signal a critical moment to consolidate scholarly research as well as policy and activist perspectives.

This research workshop titled “Towards a Pan-African reparations agenda: Contestations, disputations and prospects”, convened by the University of Cape Town (UCT) Centre for African Studies (CAS), Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), and UCT Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa (IDCPPA), seeks to interrogate the evolving contours of the Pan-African reparations agenda. It provides an academic platform to interrogate the contestations, disputations as well as the prospects for a Pan-African and global African reparations agenda.

Submission deadline: 30 April 2026