Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

Ejeris Dixon · Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Dec 2022 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Ejeris Dixon and Esteban Kelly

About this audiobook

Transformative justice seeks to solve the problem of violence at the grassroots level, without relying on punishment, incarceration, or policing. Community-based approaches to preventing crime and repairing its damage have existed for centuries. However, in the putative atmosphere of contemporary criminal justice systems, they are often marginalized and operate under the radar. Beyond Survival puts these strategies front and center as real alternatives to today's failed models of confinement and "correction." In this collection, a diverse group of authors focuses on concrete and practical forms of redress and accountability, assessing existing practices and marking paths forward. They use a variety of forms-from toolkits to personal essays-to delve deeply into the "how to" of transformative justice, providing alternatives to calling the police, ways to support people having mental health crises, stories of community-based murder investigations, and much more. At the same time, they document the history of this radical movement, creating space for long-time organizers to reflect on victories, struggles, mistakes, and transformations.

About the author

Ejeris Dixon is an organizer, consultant, and political strategist with twenty years of experience organizing within racial justice, LGBTQ, transformative justice, anti-violence, and economic justice movements.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the nonfiction books Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home and Consensual Genocide, and the poetry books Bodymap and Love Cake.