Transforming Harm & Conflict
I weave together methods from my training in restorative justice, non-legal mediation, transformative justice, and community accountability to address harm, always with sensitivity to the power dynamics at play. I am particularly drawn towards community-wide conflict, where complex layers of injury connect to institutional oppression. I specialize in working with cooperatives, collectives, and organizations with horizontal or flat leadership structures who may use consensus models of decision-making.
I guide clients into the fire and onto the other side: creating the environment for being seen and heard, while also open to deep listening and internal change. What's unique about my approach is the invitation to embody someone else's truth as your own. Beyond role play, I guide participants to find the place where hearts can meet, the overlap in core values and histories. I use a range of theater-based techniques (Rainbow of Desire from Theatre of the Oppressed, Playback Theater, Verbatim Theater, Drama Therapy, Psychodrama) to affirm our shared humanity. While we may not arrive at the ideal solution, the process deepens self-awareness and clarifies needs in moving forward. Contact me to see what may be possible for your situation. You can learn more about my approach from my curriculum "A Mirror, A Threshold, A Song: Medicines of Healing in Restorative Justice and Healing."
Mindful of cultural co-optation, whitewashing, erasure and tokenization of Native peoples and their practices, I facilitate healing justice in the spirit of reaching back to ancestral ways of being. I honor those who have breathed life, over the course of generations, into these frameworks. I seek to learn from Indigenous people, themselves, and to acknowledge the trespasses of non-Indigenous people who claim "Indigenous peacemaking" as a commodity for consumption.
It is important for me to convey the ethical dilemmas in my community of practice, from 2010 in Oakland until now. Many early teachings in the Oakland Restorative Justice (RJ) movement came from Kay Pranis, a white scholar, after her experiences with First Nations people (Tagish and Tlingit) in the Yukon territory of Canada. There is controversy over whether she had permission to share Indigenous knowledge in the way that she has, with folks on all sides taking different positions on the ethics at hand. While it is largely understood that RJ originates from indigenous traditions, the way we practice it today is unrecognizable from how it exists within an Indigenous worldview.
"We learned to listen to each other fully. We learned to trust each other."
- incarcerated participant, program in restorative justice and healing
"Tatiana has such empathy and insight. She was very receptive to my needs, and held us through the mediation in a way that was warm and welcoming." - housing co-op member