Reviews

Beyond Survival is a powerful collection of practical experiences, tools, and ways forward towards a world of alternative forms of justice. This book offers a wide view of the many ways that transformative justice can work and has worked in the past. As someone who often dreams of a world with less state violence coming from our institutions and systems, this book brought my head out of the clouds and my feet to the ground.

Some of the most powerful lessons i learned in this book we’re ways those who have harmed can take accountability and begin to repair, ways that communities can hold abusers accountable, and alternatives to calling the police.

This book inspired me while also giving me 100+ pages of real life tools that i will use in my personal and professional life on the road to transforming justice.

laurareads87's review

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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

goodfriendguy's review against another edition

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challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

callosaurus's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative inspiring slow-paced

3.5

jujulemonade's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

3.5

some sections are really good, others kind of drag. i actually started this a year ago and finally finished this month. some of the writing is harder to read since it’s more casually edited/written.

overall i would suggest it to someone interested in learning about TJ but as a reference more than as a start to finish read.

lsparrow's review against another edition

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5.0

There is so much in this book. Many of the writing was very practical and concrete which I really appreciated. I also loved the discussion of history, communities and of not being perfect.
Many of the thoughts and ideas resonated with some of the situations I am connecting with and reminded me of different approaches then what our systems tell us to go to. It felt like I was able to reconnect with myself.

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