Democratizing the Past for the Equal Present and Future Wellbeing of all Members of a Polity

Abstract

ABSTRACT The political institutionalisation of common wellbeing and the promise that all members of the polity count equally gives political rule its legitimisation. Access to resources at the disposal of public authorities and the ethico-political standing to call upon them is not distributed equally across all groups in a polity. The political struggles of the Wet’suwet’en against the pipeline occupation of Indigenous land, and the initiatives of Black Americans/Turtle Islanders for ReADdress for Slavery attest to this. 1 These struggles demonstrate that there are forms of past harmdoing that have an effect on, and are inscribed in, present structures and arrangements of the political. This article looks at the past and present epistemic ignorances and power inequalities to co-shape the authoritative political version of wellbeing that lead to ethico-political abandonment and a refusal to renegotiate the structures and institutions in North America/Turtle Island now that Wet’suwet’en and Black Americans (ought to) have an equal ethico-political standing. I demonstrate that the past injustices of colonialism and slavery co-shape the polity’s present and its haveable futures. Acts of democratising the past in the present bestow upon the harmed an inclusion in current political attentiveness and wellbeing that they did not experience from past contemporaries.