Design + Restorative Justice research and practice

My latest article

Clair Aldington • 9 January 2023

A language of convergence: the co-created handmade thing as a 'conversation starter' within restorative justice processes


This article based on findings from my PhD thesis has just been published in a special edition of The International Journal of Restorative Justice  2022, Vol. 5, No. 3. You can find a link to it on the publisher's website here.

Abstract

Literacy and language challenges amongst offending populations are well-documented and yet restorative justice processes rely heavily on oral and literacy competencies. Through a qualitative practice-based study, the co-creative making and gifting of a handmade thing as part of a restorative justice process is found to enable the formation of a ‘physical’ and ‘non-offending language’ within the person responsible (offender). In this way, a handmade thing is viewed as a ‘conversation starter’, and as helping to form connections, so-called solidarities, across the space between participants in restorative justice encounters. Through phenomenological and thematic analyses of the data, co-creative making and gifting are shown to be innately about the formation of solidarities between people. It is proposed that they contribute towards a language of convergence in which non-verbal components are primary, with verbal elements emerging secondarily. This language draws on the author’s own definition of solidarity in restorative justice research and practice as a place of convergence, meaning to bend or turn towards the other.

A language of convergence

by Clair Aldington • 7 December 2023
The co-created handmade thing as a 'conversation starter' within restorative justice processes 

Designing the European Restorative Justice award

by Clair Aldington • 30 November 2023
Handmade and relational

Book chapter published

by Clair Aldington • 6 April 2023
Victimology and violence: Connecting with victims This new book arrived in the post today from Spain, recently published by Aranzadi and edited by Gema Varona Martínez. Exciting! It's a selection of some of the presentations made during the plenary and other sessions of the 17th International Symposium of the World Society of Victimology held in Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, during June 2022. There were 460 delegates of more than 50 nationalities. During the symposium I was humbled by the stories of victims, survivors and people harmed through crime. It also left me full of hope and challenged by research, questions and conversations - still true several months on. As stated of the collection in the foreword to the book, 'With reference to the humanist values of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, this outcome of our gathering in Donostia/San Sebastián expresses the very essence of being human in that our own sense of humanity is inextricably bound up in the sharing of a greater whole and universal personhood. When others are tortured or treated as if they are less than we are, our own sense of humanity is diminished. With this scholarly body of work, I am confident that the principles of communality, reciprocity and inclusivity will continue to re-emphasise the essential unity of all of humanity, also challenging orthodoxies in victimisation, healing and justice in order to give the world a more humane face.' PROF. DR. ROBERT PEACOCK PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD SOCIETY OF VICTIMOLOGY This was my first time at a victimology conference and it was positive to hear that 'Restorative justice has evolved from a controversial topic in victimology to a well-established research theme' (see Stephan Parmentier and Jo-Anne Wemmers, p. 133 of the same book). This coincides with the rhetoric around restorative justice itself becoming more victim, survivor and person harmed centred over the last 20 years. It needs to be, whilst at the same time remembering the oft links between victimisation and offending. I was touched and honoured to be asked to speak at the conference. My plenary paper is included in this collection.
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