How This Glossary Supports Reparative Futures Work
This glossary is designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, accessibility, and actionable change. It draws from diverse fields such as law, philosophy, ecology, feminist thought, and Indigenous knowledge, creating a shared foundation for understanding reparative futures. By offering clear definitions and contextual examples, it equips educators, students, and activists with a common language to engage in reparative work. Importantly, the glossary is action-oriented, linking theoretical concepts to tangible practices in justice, healing, and policy.
This glossary is a living resource, meant to evolve with the needs and insights of those working toward reparative futures. Let it serve as a starting point for meaningful conversations, collaborative projects, and visionary action.
Term |
Definition |
| Abolition | Dismantling oppressive systems and replacing them with community care structures. |
| Abolitionist Futures | A vision of the future that seeks to dismantle systems of oppression, particularly carceral and punitive structures, replacing them with community-based models of care and justice. |
| Afrofuturism | A cultural and intellectual movement that reimagines Black identity, history, and future through science fiction, technology, and speculative thought. |
| Anti-Racism | Actively opposing racist policies and ideologies. |
| Climate Reparations | The concept that nations and corporations most responsible for climate change should compensate communities disproportionately affected by environmental harm. |
| Coloniality of Power | A system of power relations established by colonialism that persists in global capitalism, knowledge production, and social hierarchies. |
| Co-liberation | Solidarity-based collective action to dismantle oppression. |
| Collective Repair | The process of communities coming together to acknowledge, address, and heal from historical and systemic injustices. |
| Decoloniality | A framework that seeks to undo colonial power structures, reclaim Indigenous knowledge systems, and create alternative ways of being and knowing. |
| Decolonial Pedagogy | An approach to education that challenges Eurocentric narratives, restores indigenous knowledge systems, and centers marginalized voices. |
| Decolonization | Undoing colonial structures to restore Indigenous sovereignty. |
| Environmental Justice | The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in environmental policies and practices, recognizing the disproportionate impact of climate change and pollution on marginalized communities. |
| Emergent Strategy | Adaptable organizing inspired by natural systems. |
| Epistemic Justice | The recognition and elevation of historically marginalized knowledge systems, ensuring equitable participation in knowledge production and dissemination. |
| Epistemic Reparation |
The process of addressing historical and systemic injustices in knowledge production by restoring marginalized voices, correcting historical distortions, and fostering more inclusive ways of knowing. |
| Extractivism | The large-scale removal of natural resources from the Global South for the benefit of the Global North, often causing ecological destruction and social displacement. |
| Feminist Futurism | A vision of the future that centers feminist principles, gender justice, and intersectionality to create more equitable societies. |
| Futurity | Marginalized communities shaping aspirational futures. |
| Futures Literacy | The ability to imagine, explore, and prepare for multiple possible futures by analyzing current trends and historical patterns. |
| Healing Justice | A framework that integrates political resistance with emotional, psychological, and spiritual healing to address the impacts of oppression. |
| Historical Reckoning | The act of acknowledging, confronting, and addressing past injustices through education, commemoration, and reparative policies. |
| Human Rights-Based Reparations | Policies and programs aimed at redressing historical injustices through financial compensation, legal reforms, and social recognition. |
| Indigenous Futurisms | A movement that imagines Indigenous sovereignty, resilience, and thriving futures through literature, art, and activism. |
| Intersectionality | A framework that examines how multiple social identities (e.g., race, gender, class) interact to produce unique experiences of oppression and privilege. |
| Just Transition | A principle that ensures the shift to sustainable economies does not leave behind workers or marginalized communities, advocating for economic and social justice in environmental policies. |
| Memory Work | The practice of preserving, narrating, and acknowledging histories of violence, trauma, and resistance, often used in transitional justice and reparations processes. |
| Mutual Aid | A voluntary, community-driven system of sharing resources and support outside of state institutions, based on solidarity rather than charity. |
| Non-Extractive Economy | Economic practices that do not exploit people or resources, focusing on sustainability, regeneration, and ethical labor relations. |
| Participatory Action Research (PAR) | Collaborative community-led research. |
| Radical Imagination | The ability to envision and work toward transformative social change beyond the constraints of existing systems. |
| Reparations | Compensation, material or symbolic, provided to communities harmed by historical injustices such as slavery, colonialism, or systemic discrimination. |
| Reparative Futures |
The importance of knowing, understanding, acknowledging, and bearing witness to the past to better shape and transform our future. It seeks to create a more just and equitable future free of Afriphobia through education, research, and civic partnership |
| Reparative Justice | A justice framework focused on acknowledging harm, providing restitution, and fostering healing through systemic and community-driven processes. |
| Reparative Knowledge | The development and dissemination of knowledge that acknowledges past injustices, centers marginalized voices, and promotes healing and transformation. |
| Restorative Ecology | A framework integrating ecological restoration with social and cultural repair, often led by Indigenous and local communities. |
| Restorative Justice | A conflict resolution approach that prioritizes healing and accountability over punishment, often involving facilitated dialogue between those harmed and those responsible. |
| Speculative Justice | The use of speculative fiction, art, and design to imagine alternative justice systems and reparative possibilities. |
| Structural Harm | Systemic inequalities embedded in institutions and policies that disadvantage certain groups over time. |
| Structural Reparations | Long-term policy changes that address systemic injustices through education, economic redistribution, and institutional transformation. |
| Transformative Justice | Addressing harm without punitive systems. |
| Truth-Telling Mechanisms | Official and community-driven processes that document and acknowledge historical injustices, often as a step toward reparations. |
| Ubuntu & Relational Ethics | An African philosophical concept emphasizing community, reciprocity, and the interconnectedness of human existence in justice and healing. |
| Utopian Praxis | The practice of actively working toward ideal or just futures rather than dismissing them as impossible. |
References
Acosta, A. (2013). Extractivism and Neoextractivism: Two Sides of the Same Curse.
Assmann, A. (2010). Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives. Cambridge University Press.
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.
Brown, Adrienne Maree (2017). Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
Brown, Adrienne Maree (2020). We will not cancel Us
Coates, Ta-Nehisi (2014). The Case for Reparations (The Atlantic)
Crenshaw, K. (1991). “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299.
Davis, A. (2003). Are Prisons Obsolete? Seven Stories Press.
Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (1999)
Dillon, G. (2012). “Indigenous Futurisms: Dreaming of a Decolonized Future.” Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Hayner, P. (2011). Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions. Routledge.
Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (2019)
International Labour Organization (2015). Guidelines for a Just Transition towards Environmentally Sustainable Economies and Societies for All.
José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia (2009)
Kelley, Robin D.G. (2002). Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
Levitas, Ruth (2013). Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society
Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies (1999)
Mignolo, W. & Walsh, C. (2018). On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Duke University Press.
Mignolo, Walter (2011). The Darker Side of Western Modernity
Miller, Riel (2018). Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century (UNESCO)
Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press.
Patel, Raj (2009). The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970)
Piketty, Thomas (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Pulido, Laura (2000). Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development
Quijano, A. (2000). “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Nepantla, 1(3), 533-580.
Rothberg, Michael (2019). The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrator
Santos, B. de S. (2018). The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. Duke University Press.
Spade, Dean (2020). Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)
The Kindred Healing Justice Collective (2017). Healing Justice Practice Spaces Toolkit
Tutu, D. (1999). No Future Without Forgiveness. Image Books.
UN General Assembly (2005). Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation.
UN Human Rights Council (2019). Reparations and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Report by the Special Rapporteur.
Walker, M. U. (2006). Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing. Cambridge University Press.
Womack, Y. (2013). Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. Lawrence Hill Books.
Zehr, Howard (2002). The Little Book of Restorative Justice