Outlining a Historical and Critical Ontology of Restorative Justice

THIS CHAPTER AIMS to outline a historico-philosophical investiga- tion into the conditions of possibility of restorative justice (RJ), from a perspective informed by Michel Foucault ’ s historical and critical project(s). Through the foucauldian lenses, RJ appears as a cultural forma- tion constituted by three different but interlinked dimensions: ‘ a game of truth, relations of power, and forms of relation to oneself and to others ’ (Foucault, 1984: 387). Therefore, the focus of this work will be posited on historically reconstructing and critically problematising the ‘ true ’dis- courses, power relationships and ethical ‘ potential ’of RJ (Faubion, 2013). The reasons for choosing such an approach are as much epistemological as ethico-political: this perspective serves not only the purpose of diagnosing and defamiliarising the ‘ present ’(what we take for granted or accept uncriti- cally) of RJ but also of imagining specifi c forms of resistance to it (Hoy, 2004; Voruz, 2010). In this way it is possible to develop a critical tension which might make RJ a challenge to ‘ conventional ’criminal justice, 1 from an epistemological, ontological and ethical viewpoint.