From the white man’s burden to the “tyranny of colonial guilt”

discourses of historical exculpation and conscience relief in Nigel Biggar

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23925/2176-2767.2026v86p274-300

Keywords:

History of Slavery, Colonialism, Racism, Discourse Analysis, Reparations

Abstract

This paper examines how Nigel Biggar’s Reparations (2025a) recodes historical responsibility as “imaginary guilt” and “tyranny,” absolving an Anglospheric “us” and delegitimating reparations. The study is grounded in (dialectical-relational) Critical Discourse Analysis and uses Fairclough’s three-dimensional model to analyze evaluative lexis, metaphor, modality, presupposition, and agency. Findings show the medicalization of collective guilt and the construction of a politics of evidence that redefines what “makes sense,” shifting historical injustice into demands for linear causality and accounting while reframing white centrality as moral vulnerability.

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Author Biographies

Gilberto Alves Araújo, University of the Witwatersrand & Universidade Federal do Pará

Associate Researcher at the Department of Media Studies University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa – with an exchange period at the University of Mannheim, Germany –, where he has been carrying out a Critical Discourse Analysis research project regarding the representations on migrants in South African and Brazilian newspapers; Assistant Professor & Researcher at the Departamento de Língua Inglesa, Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Brazil, where he has worked on several French Discourse Analysis research initiatives relating to teachers’ and students’ discourses on English language, its learning and teaching processes.

Gizélia Maria da Silva Freitas, Universidade Federal do Pará

Mestre em Letras, com ênfase em Linguística, pela Universidade Federal do Pará, e graduada em Letras Português-Inglês pela mesma instituição. Atualmente é coordenadora do PIBID na UFPA/Altamira, e coordenadora do Laboratório de Linguagem do Campus de Altamira (UFPA).

Eliene Rodrigues Sousa, Universidade Estadual do Tocantins

Doutora em Ensino de Língua e Literatura pela Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT) e mestre na mesma área pela mesma instituição. Graduou-se em Letras–Português e Inglês na UFT. Atua como professora de Língua Portuguesa na Secretaria de Educação e Cultura do Tocantins (SEDUC-TO) e realiza estágio pós-doutoral no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal do Norte do Tocantins (UFNT).

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Published

2026-07-27

How to Cite

Araújo, G. A., Freitas, G. M. da S., & Sousa, E. R. (2026). From the white man’s burden to the “tyranny of colonial guilt”: discourses of historical exculpation and conscience relief in Nigel Biggar. Projeto História : Revista Do Programa De Estudos Pós-Graduados De História, 86, 274–300. https://doi.org/10.23925/2176-2767.2026v86p274-300

Issue

Vol. 86 (2026): HISTÓRIA INTELECTUAL, DOS INTELECTUAIS E DA PRODUÇÃO LETRADA

Section

Artigos livres

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Copyright (c) 2026 Projeto História : Revista do Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados de História

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