ABSTRACT
The central question this chapter is concerned with, is whether it is possible for restorative justice (RJ) to empower Indigenous peoples and support those seeking to decolonize settler-colonial criminal justice? We will argue that the long-established practice of RJ advocates and practitioners to ‘indigenize’ their programmes and marketing material through the purposeful appropriation of Indigenous culture is the criminal justice equivalent of the New Age spiritualist movement’s ‘plastic shamans’ who claim the right to appropriate the knowledge and cultural practices of North American Indigenous peoples to market their healing practices. In this chapter, it will be argued that the damaging and disempowering conduct of its plastic shamans adds weight to Blagg’s call for the decolonization project that the RJ movement so desperately needs if it is to remain – or more accurately become – meaningful to Indigenous peoples.
