How do we acknowledge and repair generational harm, and move toward healing?

We can’t build a just world from scratch. There is no clean slate. Nor can we build it by pretending that historical harms are in the past. The legacies of colonization and empire are very much alive, and their violence is ongoing. Creating beautiful solutions requires us to stop violence and to create space for communities who have been harmed to share their truth, be heard, and lead the way to justice. In other words, we can’t create beautiful solutions without talking about reparations and restoration.

Reparations aren’t just about financial payments for past harms. The United Nations’ definition of reparations, which informs many movements, makes clear that there is much more at stake, including:

• stopping the harm and preventing future harm;

• returning to the way things were before the harm to whatever extent possible;

• financial compensation where that return of land, lives, freedom, and culture is not possible;

• measures to address emotional and moral violence, including through formal apologies;

• and providing care and services for the people harmed.

But even when all of these steps are taken, they do not necessarily result in healing, which may only be possible over generations.

The concept of reparations is not theoretical. It is a set of practices that has many examples in the real world, a few of which are shared here. The examples below are drawn from firsthand accounts to help ground us in the many different practices and experiences encompassed by the term reparations.

In Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parihaka community, Indigenous Taranaki descendants and followers refused to be passive in the reparations process of the colonial state; they drafted legislation and created the reconciliation package themselves. Still, the trauma of Parihaka’s history will not be erased or immediately healed; some believe it will take three more generations for the community to grow healthy and whole once more.

In South Africa, reparations for the harm inflicted by white people during the apartheid regime required, as one component, the return of stolen land and rethinking of ownership. Colonizers took not just land but also culture, traditions, and language. While the reparations process is rooted in changes in land ownership, it is also deeply intertwined with the reclamation of culture.

Reparations include healing the soul and the spirit. Tania Duran Eyre, who witnessed violence and torture in El Salvador as a child, has found that healing work includes making space for stories and other ways to remember and honor what has happened. For Tania, these healing practices must recognize that sharing stories can also trigger trauma, and should be accompanied by therapeutic, spiritual, and community-based support for healing.

As we design community solutions, we must work to repair and to restore memories and material things that have been stolen. Wherever we are, we can keep asking what it looks like to practice reparations and restoration.