“To Restore” Versus “To Vindicate” : A Comparative Analysis

The present chapter develops a comparison between restorative justice and vindicatory justice. This chapter first shows how restorative justice and historical–ethnographic accounts of vindicatory justice have several traits in common, such as a focus on the victim’s experience and satisfaction, the necessity of a making-amends process, and a dialogue established between the parties and social agents. The chapter then goes on to analyze the main difference between restorative justice and vindicatory justice regarding the nature of the subjects involved in the conflict. The chapter relies more precisely on the anthropological notion of “solidarity group,” which plays a pivotal role in vindicatory justice but has no place in contemporary society.