A Restorative Approach to Family Violence looks back at an early and successful demonstration of a family and culturally based model to stop severe family violence. This conferencing model, called family group decision making, was applied by three diverse Canadian communities—Inuit, rural, and urban—to the benefit of child and adult family members. Narrative inquiry identifies how engaging the family and relatives resets the narrative from misrecognition to recognition of their competence and caring.
Family violence poses some of the most long-term and controversial questions in restorative justice. Should we use a restorative approach to stop gendered and intergenerational harm? Or will bringing together those who have been harmed, those causing harm, and their supporters only incite more violence? Underlying these questions is a profound distrust of families and their cultural networks. This distrust has stalled turning away from carceral interventions that particularly harm minoritized communities.
Moving forward in time, the volume identifies blocks to trusting families and their cultural networks and means of circumventing these blocks. The book offers a theory of feminist kin-making to comprehend the restorative process and gives practical guidance to restorative participants, practitioners, policy makers, and researchers.
Author(s): Joan Pennell
Series: Routledge Frontiers of Criminal Justice
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 149
City: New York
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Foreword from Labrador
Foreword from Newfoundland
Preface
Project Materials
Abbreviations
1. A Restorative Approach—Narrative Threads
Defamiliarizing family violence
Feminist action against family violence
An unexpected conclusion
Feminist kin-making
From resemblance to affinity
An imposed ethic of care
From taking to tending
A restorative approach and family violence
Culturally responsive
Multiplying benefits
Instigating change
Western restorative traditions
Gendered shaming
Movements to colorize restorative justice
Growing openness
Resistance to White supremacy
Accountability for racial justice
Endogenous-exogenous solutions
Learnings
Cultural practice and rights
A family group or the family group
Recognition without the necessary power and means
Communicating relatedness and belonging
Rights and family violence
Reconfiguring old partnerships
Restorative justice and responsive regulation
A disconnect between family-based approaches and restorative justice
Liberatory framework
Anti-carceral feminism
Building trust in government
Legitimate regulation
Remarkably suited
Most severe test?
Serious, frequent, violent, and personal
And familial
Shifting masculinities
Lessening stress, gaining confidence
From misrecognition to recognition
Catalyst for change
Threads and contradictory tensions
Narrative thread 1: Restoring family and cultural leadership
Narrative thread 2: Storytelling for hope and recovery
Narrative thread 3: Regulating responsively the healing process
Narrative thread 4: Cascading trust and nonviolence
The relevance of location
Notes
References
2. FGDM Example—A Newfoundland Story
Cultural storytelling for liberatory transformation
White settler-narrated magic tales
Working-class resistance
Domestic struggles
Tales of transformation
The FGDM lead-up
Another angle
Restoring family and cultural leadership
Sarah’s determination
Two sides at odds with each other
Appealing to both sides of the family
Supports for those harmed
Orienting service providers
Parole’s uncertainties, George’s alarm
Nourishing homegrown leadership
Storytelling for hope and recovery
Weighted toward family and women
Leveling the field
Professional accounts
Fathers and sons
Magnifying suppressed perspectives
Regulating responsively the healing process
A mix of systems
Informal conneecting
Getting behind sensible ideas
Hybridizing governance
Cascading trust and nonviolence
Out of contact
Doing well
Smartening up
Critical impact, new directions
Some further questions
Notes
References
3. FGDM Project Planning—Local Organizing, Emergent Responsive Regulation
At home
Shaped by cultural context
National feminist contentions
Community decision
Port au Port Peninsula
Local organizing: Helping out
Economic changes and the status of women
Local management of visits
Helping out and family violence
Nain
Local organizing: Inuit-specific, Inuit women led
Healing each other
Our beautiful land
Land as healer
Multilayered consensual decision to participate
St. John’s
Local organizing: State engagement
Women’s precarity
Bridging
Expanding project discussions
Joint funding and resourcing
Family Violence Initiative
Resourcing family costs
Rapid start-up
Community leadership, emergent responsive regulation
Notes
References
4. FGDM Conferencing—Resetting Narrative, Revitalizing Culture
That family
Lowering barriers
The agency of narratives
Narrative inquiry
Project assumptions
Embedding project assumptions
Conferencing resets
Conference implementation
Taking responsibility versus responsibilization
Families making decisions
Conference outcomes
Backed by child welfare assessments
Getting unstuck
Cultural revival
Mi’kmaw revival in Western NL
Mi’kmaw Family & Children’s Services of Nova Scotia, Canada
Wikimanej Kikmanaq—Family circles as an authentic experience for Mi’kmaw families
Notes
References
5. Concluding Possibilities—Cascading Trust in Families and Cultural Networks
Restorative making-with
Storylines of feminist kin-making
No binary answer
Hybrid of allies
Turning to families and culture
Wanting FGC for own family
Messages of caution and hope
Don’t assume costs are always the issue for government
Beware of risk aversion and slippage into familiar paradigms
Check which system is making the most referrals to a program
Consider the impact of the type of legislation on delivering conferences
Keep programs closely tied to cultural networks and local communities
Attend to the needs of all family members
Be mindful of the workers
Doing the deep work with the feminist community
Establishing restorative jurisdictions
Creating international learning communities for researchers
Cascading trust in families and cultural networks
Notes
References
Index
