A Theory of Restorative Footing and Group-Level Inequality

• In Event: Social Psychological Theory

Abstract

Groups dedicated to opposing inequalities can nonetheless reproduce them within their group-level dynamics. We argue that inequality festers inside collective blind spots—interactionally sustained zones of inattention that make certain dynamics difficult to perceive or acknowledge. Blind spots emerge from histories of conflict and threat. In response, groups engage in collective restorative footing, stabilizing interaction by redirecting attention away from historical sore spots—painful, charged moments of failure or fracture. Because revisiting sore spots risks renewed moral threat, they evolve into blind spots. Inequalities that arise within these zones become difficult to notice, name, or repair. Efforts to draw attention to them breach attention norms, destabilize the interaction order, and trigger further restorative practices that often reinforce asymmetries. By locating the reproduction of inequalities within ordinary processes of interactional repair, we explain its persistence in small groups and why attempts at redress often provoke moral outrage rather than reflective rectification.

Authors

• Erika Summers-Effler, University of Notre Dame

• Pace T. Ward, University of Notre Dame