Foreword: Reconstructing Restorative Justice Philosophy

Abstract

No one will be able to read this book without wishing they were there for the journey that gave it birth. Rich outcomes are enabled by richness of process. This book succeeds in drawing us into the journey of its travellers. The authors gathered at the Greek island of Skopelos to engage with a Greek Symposium method. The Symposium ethos is to discover deep relationships through love for thinking and the beauty of the mind. As Theo Gavrielides explains in Chapter I, restorative justice is also an ethos, 'a way of living ... a new approach to life'. A unity of method and subject is evocative in this book, as is its contestation (as in the Maglione chapter). How can we but be drawn to a process that takes the participants from one location to another looking out on the Aegean Sea and the unspoilt natural beauty of Skopelos, from monastery to monastery, to the patio of a Minoan villa, complete with serene Orphic Hymn~? Show more