Subjects Implicated in Imperial Intimacies: Identity, Reason, Power, and the Reparatory Justice Movement

Abstract

his essay examines the ways in which subjects implicated in imperial histories may approach identity, reason, and power in order to support the global reparatory justice movement’s struggles for reparations for the transatlantic trade and enslavement of Africans. It analyses Michael Rothberg’s political theory of the implicated subject in relation to Hazel V. Carby’s historical biography Imperial Intimacies to illuminate these two works’ conceptual contributions to the reparatory justice movement.

The biography’s discussion of identity, reason, and power help rethink the theory of the implicated subject. The theory of implication dismisses the concept of identity for that of position yet leaves untouched problematic presuppositions relating to ideas of identity. Furthermore, rather than assuming a self-reflective understanding of complicity, social justice, and solidarity, the theory of implication needs to confront questions of open, public, and transcultural reasoning. Lastly, the implicated subject considers social power negatively, which subverts the possibility of alliances which are necessary for social justice movements to become successful.

The essay argues that implication is an inevitable condition of globalized modernity in which hardly anyone is not connected with others. To support the reparatory justice movement, it becomes necessary to consider both the negative and positive aspects of implication.