Sorry Is As Sorry Does: Apologies and Beyond, in an Era of Reconciliation, Redress and Resurgence
Join the Department of Anthropology for the 2018 Silver Medal Award Lecture featuring visiting Professor Bonnie McElhinny, University of Toronto. Political scientists note that we live in an “age of apologies” for historical wrongs (typically, war-crimes and racialized harms). Canadian governments have made about 11 major apologies, quasi-apologies or statements of reconciliation since the mid-1980s, mostly for actions against Indigenous or racialized groups, but also recently for homophobic exclusions. This talk considers what these apologies are and do; what form of redress apologies are and are not; and why they have arisen alongside policies of trade liberalization, economic deregulation and state transformation.