No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Clearing the conceptual haze
Aminatta Forna’s novel The Hired Man, on post-war Croatia, attests to the author's continued interest in transitional, post-conflict societies where mass atrocity and human rights violations such as forced disappearance and ethnic cleansing have taken place. Drawing on the conceptual framework of transitional justice and memory studies, this paper argues that the novel deepens and extends the concerns of post-conflict fiction in two main ways. Firstly, it explores the role of ordinary individuals as agents of restorative justice in small communities. The actual restoration of the house at the centre of the narrative transforms the building into a permanent site of memory that challenges collective amnesia and functions as a monument to coexistence on which to model future social relations. Secondly, the narrative provides an apt illustration of Rothberg’s notion of implication, foregrounding a model of indirect responsibility for historical injustice that problematises the figure of the naïve outsider through the foreign characters in the story. The narrative will work to engage these characters in collective restorative actions in the country’s troubled progress towards a fairer and more sustainable peace. The use of situational irony to enhance the theme of the indestructibility of the past will also be addressed.
The practice and popularity of restorative justice (RJ) in education has been growing in recent years. RJ can be understood in dramatically different ways by those implementing it. For some, RJ is about creating an environment of and for student engagement that challenges traditional systems of discipline and facilitates learning. For others, RJ is simply another tool for solidifying compliance and meting out punishment, albeit in a kinder, gentler way. This comparative case study focused on the use of RJ in one school in Scotland and one in Canada, exploring the intersection between educator intentions and student experiences. I determined that the key element is not the implementation of RJ, but the school’s predominant relational objectives. In a school where relational objectives are of social control, RJ is utilized to strengthen that control. Where the relational objectives are of social engagement, RJ is utilized to strengthen that engagement. RJ in schools is a window into what is most fundamental to students: relationships. The study argues that RJ, by itself, does not guarantee certain qualities of relationship, but it does allow us to examine those qualities and ask questions of how school relationships are used to engage and/or control students.
