From Paramilitaries to Peacemakers: The Gender Dynamics of Community-Based Restorative Justice in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Community-based restorative justice (CBRJ) schemes emerged in Northern Ireland during the ‘peace process’ to provide an alternative to paramilitary systems of justice. These initiatives have received considerable academic attention. A complex and critical literature has now emerged in this area; however, extant explorations of CBRJ have tended to sideline issues of gender power. Feminists and international bodies, such as the United Nations, have highlighted the importance of addressing historical gendered inequities in terms of the design and evaluation of conflict transformation initiatives. Drawing on contemporary feminist frameworks this article exposes the importance of the category of gender in evaluations of CBRJ in Northern Ireland. Moreover, it scrutinises the theoretical processes through which issues of gender power have been filtered out of evaluations of community-based restorative justice schemes in the region.