A review by laurareads87
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Ejeris Dixon

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

This is a solid collection that will be of interest to anyone interested in transformative justice and accountability processes. While the book’s description states that it “delves deeply into the ‘how to’ of transformative justice,” this is definitely not a manual; there are some examples of tools, but much of the writing is high-level analysis and other contributions are stories of specific processes or organizations. I suspect this collection will be most relevant to those with at least some experience in accountability processes or mediation or something adjacent to this – it’s an accessible read, but I wouldn’t say it’s ‘beginner’ on this topic. I found it somewhat uneven – some contributions were stronger than others, and I imagine for any reader some will be more relevant / of interest than others – but overall it’s a good introduction to the idea of transformative justice, some of the challenges practitioners and participants experience, and the underlying philosophies and visions that can guide the work. 

Content warnings: nothing graphic on-page, but the focus of this collection is community (ie. not state-based) responses to violence; themes, incidents, and issues discussed include but are not limited to sexual harrassment, sexual violence, sexual assault, rape, child abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, gaslighting, violence, self-harm, suicidal ideation, suicide, forced institutionalization, ableism, sexism, misogyny, racism, colonialism, xenophobia