Review of Xiaoyu Yuan, Restorative Justice in China: Comparing Theory and Practice
- PDF / 166,047 Bytes
- 3 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 50 Downloads / 197 Views
Review of Xiaoyu Yuan, Restorative Justice in China: Comparing Theory and Practice Cham: Springer, 2017. ISBN: 978-3-319-63921-5, 212pp., €109.99 (cloth) Yan Zhang 1 Received: 23 August 2020 / Accepted: 30 August 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
The first time that I had a chance to read Dr. Xiaoyu Yuan’s work Restorative Justice in China: Comparing Theory and Practice was even one year earlier than its publication. It was the predecessor—her Ph.D. dissertation—which laid the foundation of the book. Yuan’s book is among the earliest literature which has succeeded in promoting some understanding of restorative justice in China. On many occasions, formal or informal, I had talked with Yuan about her book particularly, and other general topics of restorative justice in China. Yuan’s book and her rich knowledge of restorative justice, and her kind and generous personality significantly helped me with my own research on restorative justice in China. And this book should be added to the must-read list for restorative justice scholars and practitioners, or readers with a broader interest in the Chinese criminal justice system. Yuan’s book at least has done two great jobs. The first one is that she tells an excellent China story. In chapter 1, Yuan used the movie Qiuju (秋菊打官司), a household name in China, as the opening words. I believe this movie is the best embodiment of how ordinary Chinese people (老百姓) are perceiving justice. Qiuju’s story also seeds the essential topic of the book that what restoration means in Chinese mediation programs. Then Yuan’s abundant empirical data collected in China well develops the seed. For most audiences (especially the western ones), it is their first time to engage with such detailed insights into the process of mediation in China (chapters 5 and 6). When I was reading the book, many of the cases and interviews reminded me of my own experiences during my fieldwork, which massively echoed my empirical findings. This resonance does mutually validate the data of our Ph.D. research. Based on the empirical realities, Yuan proposes “harmony” (和谐) (chapter 7) as one key conceptualization of mediation in China. She concludes that mediation is “more about restoring harmony to society than healing interpersonal relationships” (pp. 137). Next, Yuan dedicates three substantive chapters (8, 9, and 10) to comparing the Chinese way of doing “restorative” justice with its western counterpart. She then calls for cultural sensitivity and * Yan Zhang [email protected]
1
School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet), The Australian National University, Room 3.26, Coombs Extension Building, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia
Asian Journal of Criminology
adaptation of some crucial features (impartiality, voluntariness, storytelling, and empowerment) of the western “restoration model” when implementing it to the Chinese context. The second merit of the book to applaud is its methodology (chapter 3). Yuan relies on Lincoln and Guba’s naturalistic inquiry (1985) as a principa
Data Loading...
