Strategic ignorance and interests in the UK Parliament: the case of Transatlantic African Trafficking and Chattel Enslavement

Elected UK mp s claim to represent our interests, for which they need to know our preferences within our social contexts, while peers in the House of Lords position themselves as knowledgeable experts. Parliaments are institutional knowledge producers and disseminators, but their knowledge will always be partial. Within parliamentary studies, far less attention has been given to this not knowing and the socio-political production and circulation of ignorance. Using the example of Transatlantic African Trafficking and Chattel Enslavement, I explore how and why different kinds of ignorance were promoted by the Westminster Parliament to sustain enslavement and, in contemporary times, to avoid reparations. Different processes of ignorance production were involved within which the distinction between structural and strategic ignorance aids our understanding of the power struggles that ensued in this history. It suggests that parliamentary scholars could usefully inquire into the range of different kinds of ignorance and disinformation as much as knowledge and expertise.