REGEN|ED Seminar | Brenda Morrison

BREWING THE DIGRESSION: WHEN RESTORATIVE JUSTICE WANDERS BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

My research trajectory in restorative justice education began with a relatively straightforward question: how might universities teach students to understand and practice restorative justice? The digression came when graduates began telling stories that did not fit the expected trajectory. They spoke less about what they had learned and more about who they had become—how restorative ideas had altered their relationships, professional identities, responses to conflict, and engagement with their communities. 

This tangent frustrated an underlying presumption of higher education: that educational effectiveness can be demonstrated through measurable learning outcomes, competencies, and employability. Following the digression opened a different pathway. Restorative justice education began to appear not simply as curriculum or pedagogy, but as a form of identity formation—a process through which ways of knowing, relating, and being are transformed. 

The research then wandered further, toward questions of love, care, reciprocity, flourishing, and hope. bell hooks, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ubuntu, and regenerative pedagogies entered the conversation, unsettling disciplinary boundaries and challenging the transactional assumptions of the university. 

The digression therefore became the method. Rather than returning to the planned path, I followed what emerged at its edges. What surfaced was a non-linear, relational model of restorative identity formation in which learning is not an endpoint, but a continually unfolding way of becoming and living restoratively. 

Keywords 
Restorative identity formation, relational pedagogy, transformative becoming, restorative justice education 
 
Registration 
The REGEN|ED Seminar Series (organized by the REGEN|ED research environment at NMD) brings together educators, researchers, practitioners, students, and community members interested in regenerative education, sustainability, and social-ecological transformation. We warmly welcome anyone curious about these questions to join us in a spirit of curiosity, engagement, and reciprocity as we learn with and from one another across diverse disciplines, contexts, and perspectives.  

Registration for the REGEN|ED Seminar Series 2026/2027 is now open, and you can sign up here: Registration REGEN|ED Seminar Series 2026/2027