Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration: Creating a New Theoretical Framework for Understanding Involuntary Property Loss and the Remedies Required · University of Wisconsin Law School Digital Repository · University of Wisconsin Law School Digital Repository

Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration: Creating a New Theoretical Framework for Understanding Involuntary Property Loss and the Remedies Required

Bernadette Atuahene, Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration: Creating a New Theoretical Framework for Understanding Involuntary Property Loss and the Remedies Required, 41 LAW & Soc. INQUIRY 796 (2016).

In We Want What's Ours: Learning from South Africa's Land Restitution
Program, I introduced the concept of "dignity takings," which I defined as property confiscation that involves the dehumanization or infantilization of the dispossessed. I argued that the appropriate remedy for a dignity taking is "dignity restoration": material compensation to dispossessed populations through processes that affirm their humanity and reinforce their agency. For this symposium, contributors were invited to examine
these paired concepts through case studies beyond the South African context. This introductory essay summarizes the central arguments of We Want What's Ours and considers how the symposium contributions confirm, extend, or revise the concepts of dignity takings and dignity restoration.