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- Convenors:
-
Olga Jubany
(Universitat de Barcelona)
Janina Radziszewska (University of Wrocław)
Jose Antonio Langarita (University of Girona)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Lanyon Building (LAN), 0G/049
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Restorative justice contrasts existing justice practices and expectations, particularly under punitive populist discourses. Context-specific negotiations and conflicts may arise around the potential application of restorative approaches that can transform societal justice values and expectations.
Long Abstract:
This panel proposes to bring forth ethnographic research in which restorative justice and other restoration-focused approaches clash with punitive practices and expectations. Context-specific processes and negotiations between different agents and understandings of justice and responsibilities may entail a wide range of procedures and conflicts. An anthropological approach can thus unveil the complex intertwining of practices and expectations involved in the diverse understandings of what justice is or ought to be.
Restorative justice and other victim-centred approaches to harm and responsibility challenge punitive understandings of justice and agency. As such, they question clear-cut divisions of agency and participation in justice processes and the usual, limited role of both victims and civil society organisations. Ideas of justice as something different from or beyond punitive retribution are thus linked to wider processes of transformative process of individual and collective agency. Restoration, as a paradigm, an approach, or as a series or tangible practices, may be seen as a hope-laden endeavour, which may sharply contrast existing procedures, legislations, and practices, particularly those currently applied to gender-based violence, racism, and anti-LGBT hate crimes and discrimination under punitive populist regimes and discourses.
This panel aims at the diverse negotiation and conflict contexts in which restoration clashes with punitivism, within a wide range of fields of expertise and application: environmental conflicts, hate crimes and other forms of direct violence, armed and political conflicts, and so on. As such, this panel welcomes ethnography-based communications that delve into the challenge posed by restoration, against punitive practices and expectations.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
Land Restitution gave to its beneficiaries the opportunity of a safe and assisted return to the lands from which they had been displaced. In practice, however, restorative justice principles are diminished by inefficient bureaucracies and the socioeconomic inequalities faced by peasants in Colombia.
Paper long abstract:
Over eight million peasants have been forcibly displaced from their territories and dispossessed of their lands as a result of the armed conflict in Colombia. In 2011, illegal land-grabbing was addressed by a specific legislation. After years of living in impoverished city outskirts, the so-called Victims and Restitution Law was meant to guarantee peasants an assisted homecoming. Balancing reparation and accountability is the main aim of a process of transitional justice, of which land restitution is a mainstay. Drawing on my ongoing PhD dissertation, I intend to explore the experiences of restitution beneficiaries who return to San Carlos (Antioquia) to propose an anthropological review of the restorative approaches, both in a material and a symbolic sense.
I argue that the individual-oriented reparations seem to be limited in front of massive dispossession; forcing farmers to cope with the consequences (and the economic costs) of an inefficient and delayed implementation. However, the moral and political meaning of restitution is not only challenged by technical inefficiencies but also by structural and historical inequalities for which restitution has no answer. In (post)restitution contexts, the restorative goal of restitution clashes with the socioeconomic insecurity that mark the life of small farmers in rural Colombia.
Paper short abstract:
The paper – based on ethnographic research on restorative justice practices in Poland – will show non-schematic way of seeing the city and its inhabitants through the prism of RJ philosophy. (JUST-JACC-AG-2019-875763).
Paper long abstract:
During the interviews with representatives of LGBT organisations and those working in the field of restorative justice, the importance of the social and political context influencing the low interest in applying restorative justice solutions, despite their presence in Polish law, was repeatedly mentioned. It has been observed that harsh punishments and the principle of „an eye for an eye” are fuelled by successive governments in Poland, as well as the idea of retributive justice, which brings the highest number of prison sentences in Europe.
The paper will focus on the attempts to change the dominance of retributive justice on a microscale using the example of Wrocław – Restorative City from 2021. Active and direct participation in the community, belief in the possibility of change, awareness of responsibility for other members of urban society are civic attitudes essential for grassroots attempts to change urban policies.
Greater attention will be paid to an exemplary and unique project of Wroclaw Center for Restorative Justice (a task of the municipal Wroclaw Integration Center) and its co-operation mechanisms with local organisations as well as with the inhabitants of the city. Its focus on combating hate speech is reshaping not only the view of the city but also the ways as the concept of justice is perceived.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will focus on the views of victims of anti-LGBTI hate crimes in Spain. We will discuss how knowledge, beliefs and expectations take a relevant role for searching an alternative way to solve problems beyond ordinary justice system.
Paper long abstract:
Hate crimes have been introduced (at different levels) into the majority of EU countries’ criminal codes. This has been celebrated by some sectors of LGBTI activism as a necessary step in the promotion of social justice and the fight against LGBTIphobia. However, after a few years of implementation, its effectiveness has been questioned and problematized by several researchers as well as activism: (i) the correlation between crime and complaints is unrealistic, (ii) not all violence experienced by LGBTI people can be covered by the criminal code and, (iii), the focus on the prosecution of hate crimes individualises violence, but LGBTIQphobia is a structural fact.
Based on the case of Spain, this proposal aims to present the problems of the legal and political strategy for the prosecution of violence against LGBTIQ people through hate crimes policies. All this drives us to explore other ways to combat violence against LGBTI people. In this regard, restorative justice may be one of the possible strategies to solve some forms of violence, but an integrative and intersectional strategy is needed to promote effective social change.
To this aim, I’ll use desk work, interviews with victims and professionals collected in the framework of Diversity, Come Forward and LetsGoByTalking projects, all of them funded by the EU.
Paper short abstract:
Anti-LGBT hate crimes and procedural penal justice may leave victims dissatisfied and with further victimisation experiences. Restorative justice offers and alternative or complementary justice practice and understanding, despite some reservations and requirements from professionals’ perspectives.
Paper long abstract:
Hate crimes and discrimination targeted at LGBT individuals (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) entail both direct attacks and group-oriented harm, as they act as prejudice-based messages against a whole group or community. Regarding only the direct victims of these attacks and discriminations, anti-LGBT hate crime are likely to produce emotional duress, feelings of self-isolation and doubts, stress, anxiety, and other health-related negative effects. How these crimes and these victims’ needs are understood and dealt with in procedural or traditional penal justice systems typically involve limited victim agency and satisfaction, as penal procedures tend to involve secondary victimisation and reduced satisfaction with the results. Against this context, restorative justice may offer an alternative or complementary form of justice that may productively respond to the victims’ needs, particularly their agency and participation and their need to be heard and respected. Drawing from a multi-sited research project in six European Member States, this paper analyses how professionals involved in victim support and anti-LGBT hate crimes’ victims respond to the possibilities and requirements of restorative justice. How justice itself is understood, how cooperation among professionals is planned and conducted, and how victims are involved as parties are all key factors regarding the role of restoration within justice systems and practices. The paper focuses on the clash between different understandings and expectations of justice, namely between restoration and punitivism, but also between distinct roles and responsibilities for victims and other parties involved.