Edinburgh Napier University

  Drawing on Michel Foucault's theoretical reservoir, this paper conceptualises restorative justice as an 'apparatus', that is, a dynamic ensemble of elements whose emergence is related to the development of a distinctive political rationality (ethopolitics). This approach enables a multidimensional comprehension of restorative justice, since it targets both discursive and non-discursive elements, their power/knowledge relations and subjugating effects. Furthermore, the paper explores possibilities for an emancipatory restorative justice, against the subjective entrapment that the apparatus produces. Overall, this work aims to offer a theoretically engaged and critical scrutiny of restorative justice by using an underexploited analytical device – the apparatus – apt to make visible unexpected dimensions of this " new " frontier of western penality. This could enhance our understanding of the emergence and possible trajectories of restorative justice, by identifying risks and opportunities as well as tools for disentanglement from its most problematic institutional developments.