Date of Award
2025-05-18
Degree Name
PhD Education for Social Justice
Dissertation Committee
Maya Kalyanpur, PhD, Chair Sheila McMahon, PhD, Member Mark Chapman, PhD, Member
Keywords
Restorative Justice Discourse, Restorative justice, Cultural Sovereignty, higher education, Decolonial Praxis, Intersectionality, Afrocentric epistemologies, Indigenous knowledge systems, Performative Proximity, Critical Discourse Analysis, Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), Belonging, Transformative Justice, Rhetorical Framing, Decolonizing Education, HEAL Humanity Now Framework, Relational Healing, Relational accountability, Color-evasiveness, Institutional cooptation, Colonial Renaissance, Linguistic Betrayal, Language keeper, misappropriation, Beloved Community, Crip time, Sacred Knowledge systems, Spirituality in Education, Inner healing, Inner transformation, courage, Indigenous wisdom, Sacred Resistance, Spiritual Disruption, Embodied Liberation, Ancestral Healing, Ubuntu, Sawubona, Ceremony, In Lak'ech
Abstract
This dissertation critically examines the misappropriation of Restorative Justice Discourse (RJD) within three predominantly white institutions (PWIs), analyzing 59 institutional documents through Critical Discourse Analysis, Relational Critical Discourse Analysis, and Rhetorical Criticism (Fairclough, 1995; Vaandering, 2021; van Dijk, 2008). Tribal Colleges and Universities and South African institutions have emerged as exemplars of authentic RJD, countering co-optation within PWIs. The findings demonstrate that RJD as applied in PWIs is framed in ways that attenuate its transformative potential, perpetuating color-evasiveness (Bonilla-Silva, 2017) and obscuring the intersectional experiences of Black, Indigenous, and disabled communities (Crenshaw, 1991; Million, 2009).
Grounded in decolonial praxis (Smith, 2012; Wilson, 2008), this study introduces the concepts of "Colonial Renaissance," to describe how PWIs adopt a restorative facade while maintaining hegemonic control over justice discourse and appropriating Indigenous and Afrocentric knowledge systems, and "Performative Proximity," elucidating how PWIs superficially engage with themes of inclusion while reinforcing existing power structures. It challenges institutionalized whiteness, calling for restorative reckoning that necessitates radical commitment to equity, decolonization, and the transformative potential of justice in higher education, and presents the "HEAL Humanity Now!" framework, which advocates for the decolonization of restorative justice through relational accountability, systemic change, and the reclamation of Indigenous and Afrocentric epistemologies.
Document Type
Dissertation: Open Access
Department
Learning and Teaching
Digital USD Citation
Varlack-Butler, LaTasha Tomay, "Becoming a Beloved Community: A Restorative Reckoning for a Radical Conversion to Transform Discourse in Higher Education" (2025). Dissertations. 1066.
https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations/1066
Copyright
Copyright held by the author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND License.
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