Justice As Healing: Indigenous Ways

Justice As Healing: Indigenous Ways

Foreword by
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Scholar, Poet, Essayist, and Novelist
Enrolled Member: Crow Creek Sioux Tribe

Probing the relationship between the Indigenous populations of this continent and its colonizers has been a major part of the curricular designs and many models of Indian Studies, the scholarship Iâ€™ve called my major interest for over thirty years. That fact is what makes this anthology, Justice as Healing: Indigenous Ways, a powerful, essential clarion call that will help us grasp the very real goal of seeking justice for the colonized. Justice must be achieved before reconciliation between Whites and Indians can occur, and that justice must be determined by Indians who for the first time are finding their voices. This book meets the urgent demand toward those ends by telling the stories of the oppressed, enabling powerful forms of resistance to emerge, exploring the intersection of imperialism, research, and ways of knowing.

Part 1, Truth, Reclamation, and Resistance examines the 500 years of history and ideology of the West. Part 2 sets in place family and tribal theory as a prelude to problem solving. The third part of the book, â€œrelying on our own ways,â€ describes alternative structures and validates the right and obligation of the people themselves to carry out their own solutions through the work of judges, family counselors, commissions, federations, and communities.

Well conceived and brilliantly written by people who know what they are talking about, Justice as Healing shows us that our responsibilities are not about control and supremacy but, rather, about how to value our lives and make them whole. This book is critical reading for the whole world of activists and scholars who are worried about the outcomes of brutal colonization of past centuries and want to act on their own most fundamental right to determine their own destinies.

Tribal College Journal
Fall issue, 2006
Review by Michael Thompson

This unique collection is subtitled â€œWritings on Community Peacemaking and Restorative Justice from the Native Law Center,â€ located at the University of Saskatchewan. The articles, primarily by indigenous voices, were originally published in the law centerâ€™s newsletter, 1995-2004. The contributors include traditional elders, educators, lawyers, judges, elected officials, community activists, and international consultants.

Most address the aboriginal concepts of â€œrestorative justiceâ€ or â€œjustice as healing,â€ which is seen generally in opposition to Eurocentric notions of justice involving punishment, deterrence, retribution, and violence. Many writers recount attempts by Native communities to indigenize the judicial process, especially with â€œhealing circlesâ€ and similar alternatives.

Cultural Survival Quarterly
June 15, 2006, Issue 30.2
Review by Gloria Bletter

This book of selections about indigenous, mostly North American, ways of justice is overdue. It can usefully serve as a reference and guide to how Native North Americans dealt with discord in their own pre-colonial societies and their varied responses to European-based lawâ€¦. The editor notes that the articles about healing- and sentencing-circle procedures in indigenous communities (Innu, Navajo, Maori, and Haudenosaunee, among others) have been among the most requested reprints from the original newsletter upon which this book is based.

The description of traditional justice will appeal to those who find current legal systems inadequate and those who would like to see increasing attention paid to community as an antidote to the impersonal forces that seem to determine our lives from afarâ€¦.

The traditional ways described in the book are varied, but all are rooted in a holistic perspective, and most concepts of justice include reconciling the natural world and that of emotionsâ€”in effect, the entire universe. The Maori author says, â€œJustice is the means by which we, as humans, keep our world balanced.â€
Country USA
Manufacturer Living Justice Press
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2011-07-07
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Living Justice Press
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2011-07-07
Format	Kindle eBook

Justice As Healing: Indigenous Ways

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