CONFLICT RESOLUTION, CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION AND PEACE MAKING
A number of the workshops and pre-conference sessions presented at the recent Adelaide AFN Conference focused on enabling reflective peace building, intentional peace-making along with conflict resolution and conflict transformation.
Excerpts from some of these workshops are printed below:
Brendan McKeague presented a pre-conference workshop at the Adelaide AFN/IAF Conference entitled "Facilitators as Purposeful Peacemakers ... A decade for discernment." One of the session notes was entitled:
A nonviolent response to violence... Five steps in the process of personal peace-making
permission to print this excerpt courtesy Brendan McKeague
First - I need to OBSERVE what is going on inside of myself in response to what I am observing out there. This means paying attention to the environment in which I find myself and recognising, honouring and monitoring my own reactions. This is a key to being able to understand when and how [forms of] violence are occurring around me...
Second - I need to be able to CENTRE myself quickly when the threat of danger or violence is immediate or imminent. This is about putting myself in touch with the centre of peace within myself, who those who will help me in this moment of risk, danger, chaos or confusion...
Third - I need to be open to, and listen for THE TRUTH OF THE OTHER... This can be difficult... I can develop skills in this regard by practicing regularly in situations of less threat.
Fourth - I need to identify and SPEAK MY OWN TRUTH. This too can be quite difficult unless I have the capacity to know what my truth actually is... I need to learn to speak my truth without violating the truth of [the other]...
Fifth - I seek to CREATE A BIGGER TRUTH than that which I am capable of holding by myself. In response to this, I may need to make an agreeement about what to do next. This may end up by 'agreeing to disagree' or perhaps suspending, or even ending, a relationship that continues to be abusive or manipulative. I may need to withdraw my co-operation, my complicity in, or my tacit approval of, situations that remain unjust. Even though there may not appear to be an immediate, successful outcome to the listening and the speaking, there is always the possibility that something will emerge as seeds sown... In any event, the aim of using these steps is 'to seek the truth with love, to speak the truth with love and to act the truth with love' [From Violence to Wholeness, p. 63].
Brendan McKeague is committed to practicing peacemaking facilitation processes such as Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry, Restorative Justice and Non-violent Communication. He believes that his "purpose in offering service as a facilitator is to help create spaces in which people gather to do the work they need to do at this time in history". He considers"facilitation as an intentional peacemaking practice... a process that grows from the 'inside-out'."
brendanmckeague@paceebene.org
www.paceebene.org
Ed McKinley presented a concurrent workshop at the Adelaide AFN/IAF Conference 2007 entitled "Facilitating Group Conflict Resolution". An excerpt from these workshop notes is printed below:
permission to print this excerpt courtesty Ed McKinley, Groupwork Institute of Australia
Essential Ingredients for Conflict Resolution
A safe environment and collaborative process needs to be created
Each person needs to tell their story honestly
All feelings need to be expressed
Others need to listen, hear and reflect back what they hear
People need to own their own part in the dispute and apologise as appropriate
Others need to hear that ownership and forgive
People need to feel they have been forgiven
An appropriate process of healing needs to follow
© Groupwork Institute of Australia – Facilitating the Wisdom Within™
www.groupwork.com.au email: all@groupwork.com.au
Ed McKinley is a director of the Groupwork Institute of Australia - which has been at the forefront of facilitation and collaborative management since 1984. The Groupwork's Conflict Resolution Process is a unit in both our Advanced Group Facilitation and Facilitatory Management Diploma courses. This process has been forged in the fire of a vast array of group conflicts over the last 24 years.
SOCIAL CHANGE REFLECTION PROCESS
Dale Hunter presented a concurrent workshop at the Adelaide AFN/IAF Conference 2007 entitled "Social Change Reflection Process" which presented a conflict transformation framework based on a workshop on Democratic Dialogue led by Bettye Pruitt and Phillip Morris at the Generative Change Community (Asia) meeting in Manila, Phillipines, in September, 2007. The purpose of the workshop was to enable facilitators in social change work. Excerpts of a chapter referred to in the workshop are printed below entitled:
REFLECTIVE PEACEBUILDING: A PLANNING, MONITORING, AND LEARNING TOOLKIT
CHAPTER 5: Conflict Transformation and Four Dimensions of Change
"In this Toolkit, the concept of conflict transformation provides a guiding framework for the learning approach. How does transformation differ from the commonly used term conflict resolution? From our perspective, while the terms have much in common, and at times are used interchangeably, they create different guiding metaphors. With resolution as a guiding metaphor, the focus is on finding a nonviolent solution to a problem—the presenting issue. The goal is to find answers to problems and to end something that is causing pain or difficulty. The lens of resolution focuses on immediate or recent episodes of conflict and on the content of the conflict...
A conflict resolution standpoint is clear about what needs to be stopped—violence, for example (yet may) not always lead to clarity about what should be built in its place. Conflict transformation... addresses two questions (related to change): “What do we need to stop?” and “What do we hope to build?” Since change always involves a movement from one thing to another, peacebuilders must look not only at the starting point, but also at the goal and the process of getting from one point to another. Conflict transformation allows for an ebb and flow in conflict, and sees the presenting problem as a potential opportunity to transform the relationship and the systems in which relationships are embedded.
Think of certain kinds of plants with active root systems, such as raspberry bushes or bamboo. The raspberry has a visible growth above ground (the content of the conflict); underneath the ground it is also alive, growing and expanding through a generative root system, and may send up shoots some distance from the original stalk. Similarly, the relational context, (or roots) of a conflict—which often involves identity, communication patterns, and power issues—under the surface continues to generate energy, even when it is not visible above
ground. Conflict transformation, therefore, starts with a focus on relationships and the relational context, looking for the not-so-visible roots, the historic patterns and dynamics that create the visible signs of conflict, in the form of presenting issues and struggles “above ground.”
(Importantly) ... Conflict resolution and conflict transformation should not be seen as working in opposition; rather, conflict resolution represents a set of skills within a wider framework. Conflict transformation (also) strives to ask questions in a both/and framework. Thus, “How do we both find creative responses to the presenting problem, and, at the same time, find strategies and approaches to address the deeper context?” Conflict transformation practitioners seek solutions by working with change in both the immediate and longer term, and at content and relational levels. The key to transformation is its continual focus on the question of change.
Four Dimensions of Conflict Transformation
So what kinds of change does confl ict transformation include?
Social conflict inevitably creates four types of changes; these can be used to examine the kind of changes peacebuilders hope to promote.
In a variety of studies, many authors suggest that social conflict causes changes in four dimensions: the personal, the relational, the structural and the cultural... These four dimensions can help peacebuilders to articulate the changes they seek in conflict transformation and peacebuilding work, and as later chapters will show, can be used in evaluation, learning, theory and indicator development.
The four dimensions are linked and equally important, but different projects may emphasize one or another of these dimensions. A planning and monitoring system incorporating all four aspects is useful for directing where that focus should be. The four dimensions are explored in detail in the guided worksheets (and throughout the chapter)".
Reference: Lederach, J., Neufeldt, R., and Culbertson, M. (2007). Reflective Peace Building: A planning, monitoring, and learning Toolkit. Catholic Relief Service and agencies. (pp. 17 -23).
Dale Hunter is a facilitator and author engaged in growing the profession of facilitation in Australia, New Zealand and worldwide. Dale is one of the initiators of the AFN and co-championed the IAF Code of Ethics. Dale is a Director of Zenergy Ltd., a designer of their facilitation training programs, and primary author of the recently updated and revised edition of "The Art of Facilitation" which is used as a textbook in a number of tertiary institutions and other training programmes.
www.zenergyglobal.com
The complete notes from some of these Adelaide AFN/IAF Conference workshops may also be viewed at the afn web-site at:
and at the contact addresses given above.
