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Summary

McDonald, John M and Moore, David B (2000). Community conferencing as a special case of conflict transformation. In Restorative justice and civil society, eds. Heather Strang and John Braithwaite, 130-148. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

McDonald and Moore seek to broaden the theory of transformative justice and conflict transformation. Specifically, they deal with community conferencing as the major reactive intervention based on a theory of conflict transformation in many settings: criminal justice; the workplace; education; and more. After summarizing the early theory on conferencing, with emphasis on the importance of the expression of shame in the process, the authors reexamine the notions of shame and guilt, particularly in relation to the sequence of a conference. All of this leads to their proposals for certain revisions in the theory and practice of conflict transformation and of community conferencing. On this basis they argue for the applicability of their broadened conception of community conferencing to conflict situations in many sectors of civil society.

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