Conceptualising Institutional Safe Spacefor Adaptive Management of Shamefrom the Restorative Justice Perspective

This paper reviews the shame literature and conceptualises institutional safe spaces that help people manage shame safely shame has argued that institutions can be designed in such a way that they create safe space that allows people to feel shame and manage shame without its adverse consequences (Ahmed et al., 2001). This means that people would feel safe to acknowledge shame and accept the consequences of their actions without fear of stigmatisation or the disruption of social bonds. Without fear, there would be less likelihood of displacing shame that is, blaming others and expressing shame as anger towards others. Little work has been done on delineating what the dimensions of safe space are at work. The present study takes up this point to conceptualise safe spaces at work.