Guilt, complicity, and responsibility for historical injustice: towards a pedagogy of complex implication

ABSTRACT

Recent global reckonings with structural racism and histories of colonialism, slavery, and genocide continue to raise questions about how educators should engage students in questions of historical responsibility for difficult pasts. Recent educational scholarship has explored this issue largely through the lens of concepts such as collective guilt and complicity. This article re-evaluates the concepts of guilt, complicity, and historical responsibility in relation to teaching and learning difficult histories and group identity. Michael Rothberg’s concept of the implicated subject is offered an as alternative approach for thinking about historical responsibility. The article argues for the development of a pedagogy of ‘complex implication’ and ‘differentiated solidarity’ which provides a more nuanced, intersectional, and multidirectional way to teach and learn about interlocking histories of suffering and injustice.

KEYWORDS:

• Collective guilt
• complicity
• the implicated subject
• historical injustice
• difficult histories

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.