Environmental justice and community building

Meet three RJ World presenters who are speaking on the use of restorative justice in environmental matters and community building.

DR. RAZWANA BEGUM

Razwana is the Head of the Public Safety and Security Programme at Singapore University of Social Sciences. She holds a PhD in business ethics and restorative justice from Monash University, Australia, as well as post-graduate qualifications in social work, criminology, and counselling. She has 20 years of experience working with criminal justice in Singapore.

Check out her take on Sexual Misconduct on Campus here: https://youtu.be/6raIO8NwRIY?t=321

Razwana has been promoting restorative justice practices in various contexts. Prior to joining SUSS, Razwana spent 18 years with the Ministry of Social and Family Development, where she worked directly with children and individuals in contact with the Criminal Justice and Child Protection systems. She is also a member to various respectable organisations such as Asia-Pacific Council for Juvenile Justice, the Community of Restorative Researchers and an advisory board member to the Luthrean Community Care Services Ltd.

Her latest research interest is on the use of restorative justice in commercial organisations.

In her presentation she will be introducing the potential application of restorative justice in environmental justice. She will be referring to a research study in analysing novel approaches to the management of environmental corporate crime. Rezwana’s presentation will give us alternative lookouts in corporate governance in order to impact the activities of commercial organisations to keep up environmental justice.

Check out the kindle edition of her publication here : https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075NT9MN6

DR. BRUNILDA PALI

Dr. Brunilda Pali is a senior researcher at the Leuven Institute of Criminology, KU Leuven, Belgium. She is currently also Secretary of the European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ). Her areas of interest are gender, critical social theory, restorative justice, cultural and critical criminology, environmental justice, and arts.

Her research website is www.restorotopias.com

Her research explores in particular the shaping of restorative justice within the European penal systems, policies, and practices and seeks to reimagine restorative justice under the current penal dystopias.

Brunilda believes that restorative justice presents a great opportunity to bridge the ineffectiveness of existing environmental responses and the pressing need to stop existing harmful practices, repair harms made and prevent future environmental damage. In her presentation, she will focus on the theoretical and conceptual alignments that are necessary to make in setting the agenda of environmental restorative justice. In addition, she will be illustrating with some past, present, or emerging worldwide initiatives on the field the possibilities and limits of the restorative engagement with environmental justice issues.

Check out her talk about Art, as a catalyst for Restorative Justice: https://youtu.be/nn9SJq2polw

Here she talks about Environmental Restorative Justice on the occasion of International Restorative Justice Week 2019: https://vimeo.com/375217391

ZULFIYA TURSUNOVA

Zulfiya is an experienced Assistant Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies at Guilford College, North Carolina, with a demonstrated history of working in higher education and international development. She focuses her teaching and research around restorative justice, community-based peacebuilding, Indigenous research methods, food sovereignty and health justice.

Meet Professor Tursunova here: https://youtu.be/QicPWSURflg

Zulfiya believes in a holistic teaching approach. She helps students understand that the power of learning comes from the mind — and from the heart — especially when she’s teaching them about the experiences of marginalized people around the world.

Zulfiya facilitates workshops on restorative justice as a part of the Conflict Resolution Resource Centre. She has facilitated a series of workshops in Europe and North America for community leaders from 45 countries of the world on community-based peacebuilding, transitional justice, reconciliation, immigration and sanctuary spaces, food justice and human rights as countries transition to democracy.

In her presentation, she will be describing how indegenous social and economic network of gap of rural women in Uzbekistan functions as a collective action for social and economic empowerment since 1991 till date. She will be deliberating on the fact that these community-building circles create relationships among women and support collective action and mutual responsibility by creating spaces for women’s empowerment, power and knowledge to reorganize male-dominated gendered space. These peacebuilding practices and structures function for social justice, redistribution of resources, healing, meaning making, voice, knowledge, agency and conflict resolution.

You can find her research here: https://www.academia.edu/32226471/Women_s_Indigenous_processes_of_peacebuilding_and_peacemaking_in_Uzbekistan_Sacred_places_of_homes_community_for_health_and_well-being?source=swp_share

Written by RJ World Guest authors Konina and Anwesha

Konina Mandal is an Assistant Lecturer at Jindal Global Law School, O.P Jindal Global University, India. Her research interests include criminology and criminal justice, criminal laws and corrections. She will be co-presenting with Anwesha Panigrahi, Assistant Professor at ICFAI Law School,Hyderabad, India.

Anwesha Panigrahi is presently positioned as an Assistant Professor at ICFAI Law School, Hyderabad, India. She has an LLM in Criminal Justice, Family and Social Welfare. Her research interests include criminal justice, prison jurisprudence and prison laws, corrections, criminal laws and procedure. She will be co-presenting with Ms. Konina Mandal.