Anna Kasafi Perkins

BIOGRAPHY

Dr Perkins is a former dean of studies and lecturer at St Michael’s Theological College, Jamaica.  Since 2007, she has been a Senior Programme Officer with the Quality Assurance Unit in The University of the West Indies (UWI) Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies and adjunct faculty at St Michael’s. Dr Perkins holds a doctorate in theological ethics from Boston College.  She teaches and researches in ethics, justice, popular culture, sexuality, theology, scripture, and quality assurance.  She serves on The UWI Ethics Committee and The UWI COVID-19 Task Force.  Her service to the community includes being a member of the National Bioethics Committee of Jamaica and the Legal Aid Council of Jamaica.

She is a published author of books, book chapters and journal articles.  Her most recent publications are Ethics Amidst COVID-19: A Brief Ethics Handbook for Caribbean Policymakers and Leaders (2020), co-authored with Professor R. Clive Landis, and Rough Riding: Tanya Stephens and the Power of Music to Transform Society (2021), co-edited with Adwoa Onuora and Ajamu Nangwaya. She is also contributor and co-editor of Justice and Peace in a Renewed Caribbean: Contemporary Catholic Reflections (2012).

ABSTRACT

Anna Kasafi Perkins, “‘Seh Yuh Sorry!’: Forgiveness and Emancipation in light of the Royals’ Visit to Jamaica”

 This paper offers a critique of the March 2022 visit of the Royals to Jamaica using the idea of emancipation (the Caribbean word for liberation, according to Kortright Davis). It foregrounds the idea of forgiveness and its socio-political expression via a call for reparations, using the tagline of the Jamaican protests led by the Advocates Network – “Seh Yuh Sorry!” [Say you are sorry!]. It will weave into the conversation relevant visual representations, including the Advocates Network poster (showing a sign tied to the gates of Buckingham Palace) as well as various images of the Royal visit and resulting protests. In so doing, it argues that liberation-emancipation remains a contemporary “already-not yet”, which cannot be ignored in religious spaces.