Project

Repair and Reparations, Black Transnationalism, and Speculative Futures: Investigating Repair Activism and Black Liberation in the Afro-Dutch Diaspora

Program

Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships

Department

Anthropology

Abstract

In the Afro-Dutch diaspora, Black activists arguing for repair and reparations for slavery and colonialism have been working on two levels: locally in Suriname, CuraƧao, and the Netherlands, and across borders by creating new transnational collaborations. This anthropology dissertation project uses activist ethnography in these three locations to answer the question: What does the movement of repair activisms in the Afro-Dutch diaspora reveal about new developments in global Black liberation politics? This project shows that anthropology can be done differently even in dissertation research by collaborating with community partners within and outside the diaspora, creating accessible and understandable forms of publication for the general public, and leveraging the multisited methods. Transforming the goals of anthropology, this project uses Black feminist, abolitionist theory and methods to support these activists and their work. Ultimately, this research changes anthropology into a useful tool for building different worlds and Black futures of liberation.