‘From the beginning there was nothing’: What do we think we are restoring in restorative practice?

In recent years, schools have readily adopted restorative practice in the hope of more effectively managing challenging behaviour. Through a model that encourages dialogue and negotiation, restorative justice practices seeks to establish or re-establish a relationship between victim and offender. I reason that if restorative practice is to be a successful alternative to more assertive modes of behaviour management, then educators need more conceptual clarification on the restoration of these relationships. They must be clear on what is being ‘restored’. I do so by offering a particular reading of a scene from George Cukor’s 1944 film, Gaslight, and of Stanley Cavell’s reading of this film as characteristic of the ‘melodrama of the unknown woman’. In particular, I focus on what is at stake in terms of notions of loss and restoration (or recovery) of voice and how restorative practice may be better understood in terms of the victim’s reclaiming, healing and self-transformation. I argue that these ideas provide a richer way of understanding restorative practice than simply emphasising the building and repairing of relationships.