Restorative walk: healing through interaction with abuser Guest: Gemma Varona

IE: Hello and welcome back to another program of ‘we can find a way’, a podcast about conflict resolution. My name is Idil Elveris. In this podcast, I strive to cover conflict in all areas of life and its resolution through alternative means. I'm one of the first mediators of Turkey certified back in 2005 by the ADR Group in London. I have taught mediation for a long time, did some victim offender, labour, and community mediation cases.

In this episode, I'm talking to Gemma Maria Verona Martinez from Spain. I met her in person for the first time at the European Forum for Restorative Justice this Summer. She talked about a very interesting concept called restorative walk that they initiated in the Basque country in Spain. She and I talked about what kind of contribution this restorative walk could make to victims or harmed persons’ search for justice, not only in political violence cases, but also in environmental and animal rights cases. We also talked about a Canadian production, a documentary, called ‘A Better Man’, which involves a domestic violence victim and her abuser meeting and walking through places where the abuse took place in Ottawa.

Gemma Verona is a Professor of Victimology and Criminal Policy at the University of the Basque County and a senior researcher at the Basque Institute of Criminology in Donostia/ San Sebastian. She co-edited Journal of Victimology and authored books and articles on migration, restorative justice, violence against women, victims of political violence, sexual abuse, environmental and animal victimization.

Our interview took place on 4th July 2022. Let me now move to this interview.

Gemma, thanks for agreeing to talk to me today.

GM: It's just great being with you. Thank you Idil.

IE: So what is a restorative walk? And why do we need something like this?

GM: It's better to refer as restorative walking, so the process of walking. Do we need it? Well, that would depend on the people who are participating in a restorative process. Instead of having people seated sometimes at the court rooms, but usually, at least in the case of the Basque country in Spain, there are buildings that are kind of like the French philosopher says “no places”. Like, they're like places that sometimes you cannot even open a window for safety reasons. Instead of sitting, why don't we go outside. And then we ask participants if they would like to go outside to walk. It doesn't have to be long distances. You can also adapt to people with disabilities or the elderly people to also children, young ones. And you can offer them to walk in urban spaces or rural or more nature spaces. So it might not be needed. You might go on proposing these for preparatory meetings. So individual meetings with the facilitators, or actually the encounters to do some walking together and then we might sit on a cycle or stand up. The idea came from some practices of memorialization.

In cases after gross violation of human rights or severe victimization, where we found that particularly victims that not only or that people who have been harmed, they wanted to re-signify the place, particularly because they were passing through every day. Also, in terms of the places, sometimes people choose to go walk into places that are meaningful to them. For whatever reason, sometimes it's quite abstract, but they try to explain it. And they are interested that “the other”, the one who have produced the harm or the one who is accountable for the secondary victimization sometimes, they go with them to these places. Sometimes to re-signify them, sometimes to try to explain the harm that was produced and to think how you have to continue living together. And we realize that there is also that difference between urban areas and rural or more nature areas.

There is a stress now in narrative victimology. We are quite worried that this narrative victimology in general is a trend in social science might be too focused on identity. We think that we should focus more on conversational victimology. We think that victims are people who have been harmed or survivors - they need to hold a conversation. Sometimes that conversation is with themselves first, but in general, you need a conversation. So we have been reading a lot of conversation. There are a lot of, of course, philosophical writing, some peace, dialogue, we stress that a notion of Goffman of the expressive or interactive other where you have to build that trust kind of a network, and that trust can be broken, but you know that can be rebuilt. We try to apply all these notions to people who are somehow in a dynamic format.

We also question very western notions of time and space. In particular, we think that restorative justice has been much concentrated on a linear understanding of the past to present in the future if we consider the classical questions. That sometimes they are modulated, for example, in non-violence communication, they start with “how are you now”. But many times, you start like saying, oh, what happened? What was the impact of what happened and what can we do together with all that. And when we review Buddhist or non- Western conception of time, they don't have that linear conception of time. And we think that by walking, somehow, you can be open to the notion of process, to the notion of going forwards and backwards, to the notion of an aspire, to the notion of crossroads, that what is important is the inter-sections, the bifurcations, those crossroads, that are conflicts in themselves, that you’re meeting different positions, different ideas, different values with that understanding to find a minimum expressive order. Also, the notion of a space and time, a space in the sense that we have built all these court rooms, all that and once you get out of there, that our brains seem to work better in terms of imagining things, you have all other stimuli. And you need to be creative for restorative justice in terms of imagining how you want to rebuild those relationships, if you want to, or what to do with that, that has happened, or just who you are. And in our short experience with these walk-ins, we keep evaluating and we realize that people, they make use of these restorative imagination in terms of how they want to be repaired or how they can think about the notion of reparation together or reconstructing or transforming.

Going outside and questioning our conception of time also, question of a space is like we're living in a jail where the bars are a space and time, and sometimes a space that doesn't let us look beyond what is outside. And being an outsider, that is always nice. And also time,  we are constrained in these accelerated times we live, particularly in our cities. We don't stop and start thinking, well, it's not only the future, it's always the future. The future, the future is slightly now. So we find that we can work these very abstract, but at the same time, real concepts and experiential concepts of time and space in more western conceptions and also opening to the sensorial. The wind, the cold, the rain, questioning also what we are in terms of our different bodies that sometimes are also jails in themselves.

IE: So it sounds like you're trying to de-formalize in a way the formal aspects of all these rejuvenate ideas like restorative justice in a different perspective. Somebody talked about this Canadian movie, a couple where there was a lot of abuse, came together and decided to talk about this no court proceedings on their own. They went to their former flats. They went to the school that that they studied. So it was quite powerful actually.

GM: Yes. I like that documentary film, ‘Better Man’. For me, it's like working with victims of other kind of harms or crimes. And I always tell facilitators that there are travellers in time or there are accompanying people travelling in time. Because it seems like many people need to revisit those places that they associate with trauma. Even in this case, ‘A Better Man’, they weren't living there anymore. But she needed to go there and she needed to go there with him. There was no facilitator. It was psychotherapist, but that was for another process.

Found these in victims, for example, in the Basque country in cases of political violence. They passed by many times where the loved one has been shot or it was taken and tortured or whatever, and they need to re-signify that. And when they were asking us is that they wanted to go sometimes with the responsible one, sometimes that responsible one was in jail or was not interested or was that, and they wanted to go with more people. They wanted to go with young people, for example, in the sense that they say this “neveragain,” the victim's not against me, not against others, I'll repeat it. So we did this work with young people and also sometimes with people who were responsible for the secondary victimization. So for example, institutions where there were some kind of cover up of political violence or whatever or they didn't respond well to victims.

In a way, I'd say that it's like opening more to the participation of the people saying, this is also available. It has worked well with some people, but it doesn't have to be for you. We have done this. Are you interested? And when you open doors and the windows, you always have fresh air. Sometimes they are surprised that they might not be interested, but sometimes they start thinking, “yes, I'd like to go to these places. And sometimes they might be shocked. They didn't think about it. But then they say, yes. I like to go to these place. Sometimes they propose places that are even far away, but have some meaning for them, and we make this long travelling with them. It makes sense as a processes as well because it's easier to think yourself in another kind of role. You take more time.

We also when we do this in the city, we took this concept of “flaneur” that comes from Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin. I mean, this idea of something was revolutionary at the time, someone that is just walking in the city without a direction. When you have a very accelerated city where you go to produce, you have to go to work. But there you go, the flaneur is someone that starts walking, of course, belonging before such on social classes with time, leisure time, and of course, not a woman. But still, you can think, like, you start walking with no direction. Sometimes when we invite people to walk in cities, it's just no direction. Sometimes they say, we just start walking. And there is no direction, but there is no hurry. That it is difficult, of course, because everyone, if you want to meet for a restorative encounter, you usually set a time.

There is also issues of safety. The things we have done have been with people getting out of recent very serious victimizations. Sometimes it's problematic because they might have people telling in terms of safety if this has been done. Well…

IE: Yeah, exactly. Like, if the political climate is not ripe for it, but the parties are ripe for it, it's great that parties wanna take responsibility and somebody wants to cry. The victim, participant, they all come together, but the political climate may not be “safe”. But at the same time, if the parties are there, it has a huge value. I'm thinking of Turkey. The parties are ready, but then some policeman or some citizen from there might even, like, call the police or somebody might get into trouble. So

GM: yeah…And again, it's quite contradictory because at the end we don't want to stress the space and the time. We want to stress the values. Also, if we think we also make an elaboration now, with all the network on restorative cities. What is important there is not really the city as a space, a physical space. Is more those skills, is more those values, those connections, particularly in terms of public space. Okay. Yes. You are interested in this concrete space. For example, what it means to you, with Franco? And what it means to you, of course, absolutely opposite. But at the end, what is behind it? If we want to start to try to understand each other in our respectful conversation, we have to get to the values that we hold in common.

But we always think in restorative justice in terms of the bridge. It is a bridge, the physical space where at some point we have to meet, where we have to make the encounter. Sometimes we have to build bridges because the sea is too dangerous, because we don't find the values in the sea. But at the end, we are all bathed by the sea. It's the same sea. And for that we recall the poet Mazalo who was the one saying, ‘you make your path as you walk’. And what is important is your own path. It's not the walk. It's not the final destination. It's not the pathway. It's really the walking.

Because there is never endless walking. But we know that in institutions, there are some inertias, institutions are on systems legal systems are in particular criminal system is very difficult to be changed and professional cultures. So, there is one risk with that. And also in terms of evaluation. Because if we demand more facilitators, more public services, more access to restorative justice, we need to invest not only money, but also we need to work those values in different life systems, the school, the university, work in places and so on. I do understand the pressure for evaluating results. How many agreements? What kind of agreements? But really, restorative justice is about process. And we still don't have the tools to evaluate intangible process.

IE: How is this different than a restorative circle or a victim offender mediation? It's not happening in a formal setting, outside probably, and it doesn't inquire sitting in a space in a formal setting, but to the contrary an action walking. It's related to also talking probably while you're walking. So any other differences, similarities that we can think of_

GM: So I wouldn't stress the differences, but perhaps being complimentary and another choice for participants. And once you offer them that choice, they create new things. That's what we discovering. Where do you want to go? Well, I don't know, I think. That process of thinking, it's also very interesting. Because then you ask them, why did you select this place? Sometimes they say I don't know exactly. But for example, silence. We're still evaluating. But we discover that it's not so uncomfortable, the silence. Many times, they walk together, you walk together, a facilitator and one of the participants for the preparatory meetings, you don't need to walk. And also when you involve people who are the responsible ones, and there is silence. And you're just observing the trees or how the wind echoes, or how it starts raining, or how the light of the sun just going through the leaves. We see, like, silence is not so uncomfortable that when you are sitting in a cycle. We still cannot say much about it, but they don't feel uncomfortable while walking in their different path. And then it is very interesting that you find a person that walks faster and a person that doesn't walk that fast. And then after a while, they find their rhythm. And we have not worked much with people with disabilities or with elderly people but yet more with elderly people that they cannot walk that much or not that fast. And that's also interesting because sometimes they say let's sit together. On this bed or just let's wait. Or stand, I need to take a deep breath. It shows no pressure at all, I must be honest we came to these ideas because of this thing with memorialization for political violence, also working with woman’s safety audits. Coming from Canada where you ask woman where they feel unsafe in the city. A woman of difference, so you also take this perspective of intersectionality. A young woman coming from different ethnic minorities. And you ask them, when did you feel unsafe working alone in the city? And they have different perceptions, of course, at different time of the day, different public spaces, even private spaces, of course. And they go to the places where they feel unsafe at that time of the day, sometimes at night, they take photographs and they propose how those spaces could be…

IE: improved?

GM: Yes. In a sense that is not zero-tolerance or broken windows theory. The idea of Jane Jacobs, again, the great for me urbanist, with the idea of “eyes on the street” that is not a kind of oppressive social control, being formal or informal in the sense that we have to create spaces where there is children, the elderly, where different activities were, you know, recovering public spaces instead of a gentrification. Now as you work on that very much in New York. But we also have a project on restorative justice for environmental crimes and crimes against the animals. How can you repair the environment? How can you repair the ecosystems? How can you repair animals you have harmed? For example, now there has been a very current case now in Spain where they killed the animals in an awful way, to commercialize for the market of blood, of animals. How do you repair that? And so I have been interviewing people who are in jail because there is a pressure of animal rights defenders to use the prison. But again, what are we achieving with the prison? And so you move in this balance.

Impunity if you don't use it for, you know, in the view of activists or too much punitivism where there is no reparation. And so we realized it might make sense to go to the places, in cases of environmental crime or crimes against animals.

IE: This actual going to a place did this start in Canada, in Spain, crossed over, how did this work?

GM: This is something we started to do in the University of the Basque country, like six years ago. So I worked with two facilitators. They say, well, this seems to work in terms of people like it. And we start asking the victims of political violence in the Basque country. They were telling us, I don't like the sculptures. Because artists they make it in a very artistic way but they cannot ask us what we want in terms of memorialization. And so we start asking them: what would you like to do and say? I like that, you know, the name of this park that my loved one liked it very much. Maybe you can put the name to a bench that is something that is already done in many places or that you can call the park. There were some people saying, I want to walk with the students and explain what happened here or who was my loved one so that he's remembered. So we start working with particularly with victims and students. And then there were some people who were responsible that started joining us sometimes. Talking to people or having music in a park after work.

Then, I was also working with the woman's safety audits coming from Canada. And asking a woman, where do you feel unsafe in the Basque cities? And how that is different if you are someone who is a Romani or someone who is coming from Africa or belonging to different ethnic minorities? or someone who is drunk or other and I like these women's safety audits that kind of work that by the way, they are called Jane Jacobs walk. They try to figure out why do you feel unsafe? And particularly, you do it in a participatory way and you want to do it in a transformative way. “So you feel unsafe. How can we change it?” And we want you to give that answer to participate with the urban planners.

And then we start this project with restorative justice environmental crime and crime against the animals. And we said, for example, with the case of the prestige in Galicia, where there was an oil tank but it was a big disaster. It is still in the court, still, you know, a lot of proceedings going on in terms of civil liability. Where all the shores of the north part of Spain starting with Galicia but reaching Portugal and France were absolutely polluted with oil. And there were like, memorials there, but there were many people saying that I want to tell you what happened. Don’t look only to the memorial. I want to walk with you to the memorial and tell you how it wa. But also that I've had the thing with inter-generational, working together and telling the stories by walking.

IE: All this just sounding like new ways of participation for people in seeking justice outside of the justice system somehow. And it's very interdisciplinary, like, urbanologists, sociologists, and architects probably.

GM: Yes.

IE: Is there anything else you would like to add? This is wonderful.

GM: No, I was reviewing because I take a look to your question. I think Yes. What makes restorative justice interesting is the crossroads. It's not the pathway. Sometimes it's no way but you have to go. And those bifurcations, trifurcations. I realized, and even you can go for more bifurcationa. So and I think that's what each interesting about. And that's always conflictual. It doesn't mean there is consent. It means that you deal with conflict in less a violent way and also choices. An opportunities for change that is not easy, but is better than violence, probably.

IE: Thank you so much.

GM: Thank you, Idil. Thank you for your work. Always a pleasure.

IE: In this program, my guest was Gemma Verona. She talked about the importance of seeking justice through a simple movement like a walk, a restorative walk while giving party's choice in seeking justice. We didn't get much into this, but this restorative walk initiative seems to be connected to the fact that Spain as a political entity has been working on for years, not only on the Basque matter in a restorative way, but also how to remedy victims and their families that suffered during Franco's regime with the historical memory law and beyond. It surely remains to be seen how this restorative walk idea is going to expand from political violence cases to other areas, and it's very exciting news.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please follow the podcast like or share it. You can also like the excerpts I share in my YouTube channel or in the Instagram account of if we can find a way. I would like to close by thanking musician Imre Hadi and artist Zeren Goktan who allowed me to use their music and the picture as the cover of the podcast. Thank you. I'll see you next month.