‘Listen, learn, understand’: Our approach to restorative justice

We had originally planned to run eight editions of Cotton Capital newsletter after the project launched at the end of March. But thanks to the incredible response we had, we kept going for several more weeks. We’re now taking a break.

So I want to thank you: to everyone who has subscribed, to those who got in touch with their thoughtful comments and questions, and also to those who shared their critiques. This has been a brilliant community to be part of. As I mentioned last week, this will be the last newsletter for a while, and it’s an exciting one as we’ll be discussing the next stages of the Guardian’s Legacies of Enslavement programme.

First, I sat down with Joseph Harker, the Guardian’s senior editor for diversity and development, to discuss how our coverage will be changing. “We’ve drawn up job descriptions for the new correspondent roles, which include more community affairs and race equity correspondents in the UK and US, as well as new correspondent roles in the Caribbean, South America and Africa. We’re hoping to advertise those very shortly,” Joseph told me.

He is particularly excited at the prospect of journalists regularly reporting on Caribbean stories in depth, something which is uncommon in the international press. “These are populations that often tend to get covered if it’s a royal tour or a hurricane,” Joseph (pictured below) said. “We want to be there because there’s a hell of a lot going on. We’ve got the reparations movement, which is really taking off. We’ve also got the republican movement, which is of particular interest to British readers. There’s also a real sense of energy politically, encapsulated by figures such as Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, whose strength of leadership has turned her into a key global figure.”

Joseph points to Prince William and Kate’s disastrous visit to the Caribbean in 2022. “What I found really interesting outside of the commentary of the awful imagery was that these are things that would have happened five years ago and no one would have batted an eyelid. If you think about royal tours anywhere, the coverage is of local people dancing and a royal will join in for a good photo opportunity. It was this patronising stereotype of countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean.

“The fact there’s a really dynamic, energised movement in the Caribbean saying no to that is a real step change, and now feels like a really good time for us to be able to boost our coverage there,” he said. “We’re going to report on the people leading these movements, on the politics, on the culture, as well on the human interest. We’re going to report on people as people, rather than servants of the Empire.”

The Guardian has already advertised for the additional Scott Trust bursary placements, which increased the number of places on the paper’s journalism training scheme available to Black prospective journalists in the UK. There are also plans to expand the bursary scheme to our offices in the US and Australia.

Joseph talked about the often-ignored links in history, such as those between enslaved people in Jamaica or the US Sea Islands and the cotton used in factories in Manchester. “This project is a chance to strengthen the links between communities around the world – and especially across the Atlantic – who have a historic connection that’s often notacknowledged.

I also spoke to Ebony Riddell Bamber, who has joined the Guardian as the programme director for the Scott Trust’s Legacies of Enslavement project. Our interview is after this week’s stories.

I first asked Ebony, who started her exciting new role last week, to tell me a bit about her background. “I’m a British Jamaican, born and bred in north London, mainly in and around Tottenham,” she said. “I’ve had family living in that very vibrant part of London since the late 1950s and 60s, and it’s a key part of my identity. Professionally, I have worked globally and in the UK across social justice and community engagement programmes and campaigns. I’ve worked for human rights and international development charities, as well as in the UK public sector.”

The role is a unique one for a news organisation, so I asked Ebony to define it for us. “The job is to uncover and help realise what repair looks like for African-descendant communities, and specifically, in the locations where the research has uncovered direct links between the Guardian’s founder and founding investors. So that’s primarily in Jamaica – in Hanover parish – and the Sea Islands in the southern US. There’s also a really critical element of engaging more broadly with African-Caribbean and African-descendant communities in Manchester.”

Ebony added that another important element of the role is connected with longstanding movements and activists that have been campaigning for reparative justice for decades. She is keen to recognise their contribution and to see how the Guardian can work collaboratively with them.

Ebony (pictured below) will also work closely with Joseph within the Guardian to raise consciousness and support action around the legacies of enslavement and structural racism.

So what drew Ebony to the role? “Lots of my work across human rights or advocacy has touched on issues around intersectionality and structural racism. It’s something that I have personally experienced in my lifetime and I have an understanding of how it manifests. Ultimately, this project is about social justice – racial justice – and accountability, and that has been a really constant thread throughout my work.”

Ebony also spoke of her own connections with the places that the project concerns. “I’m of Jamaican descent, I also have spent time living and working in north-east Brazil, and I have family in Georgia in the southern US. It feels like the ancestors were calling in many respects to make a small contribution to what could be a really important piece of work.”

Ebony has been aware of reparations from a young age, learning about the concept through conversations at home and at school while studying the civil rights movement. “It’s something I’ve been aware of for a long time, but it only now feels like there’s space in the public debate.” She learned about restorative justice while working at Southwark council, in London, where the local authority utilised the approach across much of their community safety work. “For the purpose of this programme, it’s about drawing on key elements across those different approaches,” she said.

Ebony was keen to stress the importance of engaging with movements and communities who have already been doing this work. “The core principle is that the Guardian cannot define the repair. We embark on this process to find out what repair could look like, and to put our heart and soul into making that come to fruition.”

Ebony has only just started in the role, but what are her plans for the next six months and the next year? “Listening and learning! I have specific experience to bring and also a personal connection, but it’s incumbent on me to listen and learn and understand so that we can develop the programming in the right way. I’ll be engaging with descendent communities, experts, activists, potential partners. I hope to lay out the key principles of how to do the work and the ways of working, as we have those consultative meetings and engagements.”

She is also open about the challenges ahead. “This is about making a contribution to a restorative form of justice for a crime against humanity. That is obviously quite daunting. Luckily, the locations and the specific remit of the Guardian where we’ve identified the links give a tighter framework, but there are broader ambitions to engage with different actors, partners and movements.”

“Another challenge is around the public debate on reparations or restorative justice. I hope to make a contribution to that in a way that makes people understand that this is not about apportioning blame, this is about acknowledging facts and thinking about how they can be repaired in the present. It is a huge privilege to be able to be entrusted with developing these partnerships.”

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