In this research I look at creative techniques to open new sense-making pathways in the practice of mediation for both practitioners and participants seeking social justice. To challenge the Western European hegemony is to look beyond spoken and written word to achieve relational transformation. My interpretivist methodology is informed in part by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s, As We Have Always Done, as she invokes the specific knowledge of Indigenous Peoples. Chela Sandoval’s, Methodology of the Oppressed, charts a path beyond oppression to differential consciousness through semiotics connecting to my exploration of the creative. Bell & Desai’s Imagining Otherwise: Connecting the Arts
& Social Justice to Envision and Act for Change, demonstrates the efficacy of creative techniques in achieving both awareness and action on social justice. Ken Cloke’s Mediating Dangerously invites a close examination of techniques to engage with
the most challenging and conflicted situations. Interviews with eight mediation and social justice advocates reveal the effective integration of creative methods. Throughout the text, I insert sketches and poems as part of my own reflective and creative praxis - part memoir and part critique.