Authorās Perspective
I am starting this third and last volume of the Many Peaces trilogy sitting on the terrace of a hotel in Rishikesh, a place of pilgrimage in India. My gaze travels beyond the screen of my laptop towards the holy river Ganges, whose waters travel under the Lakshman Bridge, cutting their course into the foothills of the Himalayas. The hustle and bustle of the brokers and pilgrims is so far away that the rushing sound of the cascades further downstream gently drowns out the engine noises and notorious honking sounds. Since the Beatles wrote their legendary White Album in the now decaying ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1 which is located only a few steps away from my hotel, travellers, predominantly of the younger generation, have transformed Rishikesh into a thriving hub of āBackpakistanā. 2 Most tourists today are busy doing yoga, going rafting, tracking or shopping. I am hoping that this place, an inspiration for many, stimulates me too. After all, these lines open up the last chapter of a research project to which I have dedicated 10 years of my life.
Even though the blatantly spiritual atmosphere of this place has me itching to pick up from the last chapter of Volume 2 and finish this, the final volume, which is already completed in my head, I decide to be patient. If transrationality requires a selectively authentic authorās perspective as a beginning to every academic research process, as I have demanded for years to the astonishment of many and the suffering of some of my students, I too will benefit from pausing to determine my position and ask myself who I have become since completing the previous volume.
Despite only a few months passing between the publication of Volume 2 and this fresh start, it was nonetheless an eventful time. The pioneering stage of the Innsbruck peace studies programme had come to a close with the completion of the first two volumes. During that 10 year phase we had been looking for terms, definitions and methods for something that in the beginning was grasped in its rudiments but was not even vaguely perceptible in its approach and depth. This āsomethingā, this transrational peace philosophy, today not only has a name, but also holds a firm UNESCO-acknowledged position in the wider field of peace studies.
Whilst Volume 1 was translated into English and published, 3 a team from our UNESCO Chair also edited the Palgrave International Handbook for Peace Studies: A Cultural Perspective in which 33 authors illustrate the diversity of cultures of transrational peaces by presenting case studies from a wide range of cultures. 4 The task of being an editor of this comprehensive reader for a total of 6 years had already influenced and enriched my writings as author of Volume 1 of the Many Peaces series. Volume 2 laid out the methodological and didactical purpose of the elicitive approach in the Innsbruck programme. It did so to the extent that the student audience nowadays justifiably holds a certain level of clearly defined expectations that reach beyond those of an experiment, which need to be met each semester. Furthermore, the original curriculum was updated in the programmeās 10th year, thereby ensuring compliance with the University Studies Act.
The feedback loop of the first two volumes has thus taken its course: all that was written has returned to me through the expectations of the audience, and has transformed me. This has put me under considerable pressure, yet a positive kind of pressure. I consider the enthusiasm of the students a gift and a privilegeārare pleasures in the everyday life of an academic, where university crises occur with unremitting persistency. Although the years have not passed by me or by this project without having an effect, I continue to feel motivated and inspired to contribute to theory, teachings and practice of transrational peaces and elicitive conflict transformation.
Enthusiasm and devotion towards such an undertaking involve the danger of entirely committing oneself to it and neglecting other important aspects of life. In this light, running up to the completion of this volume marks an autobiographical turning point for me. With my youngest son finishing high school, that stage of life colourfully described as āempty nest syndromeā in developmental psychology began for me. I am experiencing this turning point as turbulent, since, beyond the goals we pursued together gladly, there were also destruction, conflict and the need for a new way of living. I am currently making an effort to find my way through. As a somewhat productive author in the realm of peace and conflict, I ask myself if I have managed to live up to the demands of my own texts and my own teachings in light of all this. If the principle of correspondence from a transrational perspective states that the inner experiencing of peace and conflict is reflected in outer circumstancesāinside as outsideāI had plenty of opportunities to experience those spheres of myself, in all their layers and shadows, in a most turbulent manner. I was unable to suppress or ignore them or to fail to notice their counterparts in my surroundings. 5
Am I going through a transformation? Well, all life is transformation. Hence, mine is as well. There are certain phases, however, where it flows by barely noticeably, before a sudden build up rather like spectacular vortices and storms. This we human beings perceive as conflict. It generates new conflicts and is in itself a returning to old conflicts, merely translated and transposed, cloaked anew. 6 Given that I am starting this book during such a turbulent phase of my own life and since the vortices, swirling close to the cascades of the holy river, mirror the circumstances of my inner being, it will, apart from fulfilling its academic purpose, also serve as personal introspection. I am asking myself at the beginning of this last volume to what extent I am able to adapt to myself the hypotheses presented in this trilogy. Given that I demand this exercise of all my students, the time has again come for a personal reality check. This is exciting.
It is with particular enthusiasm that I turn to the map of peace and conflict studies that I want to implement following the last chapter of Volume 2. My hypotheses are still grounded in my personal curiosity, concern and longing, and I hope for my audience that I am able to systematically transform my passion into findings of a kind that are generally valid and applicable.
Research Interest
The aim of Volume 3 is to introduce the transrational peace philosophy of the first volume and the methodological and didactical considerations of the second volume as a last step in the practical aspects of conflict work. Being practice oriented in this context does not mean compiling a methodological toolbox for therapeutic measures or writing a recipe for elicitive conflict transformation, as will be clear from the two previous volumes. Transrationality and working elicitively rule out the devising of such measures in the first place. Although experience and tested measures are recognized in both, the personal encounter of the parties and those intervening in a dysfunctional system are considered an intentional, conscious, relational and communicative act, and a central point of conflict work. This volume cannot and should not introduce a set of do-it-yourself instructions for applied conflict tinkering.
However, building on the Volume 3, it should be possible to further deepen the model of topics, levels and layers of elicitive conflict transformation that is developed there. I am not certain whether this yields a new theory of peace deserving of the name. With any kind of theory, having room to compare and contrast it is essential. The kind of self-limiting measure that has to be applied in order to earn a model the right to be termed a theory remains a much-debated issue. I certainly build upon those developed theories that have shown to be successful on an interdisciplinary level outside the subject area, particularly General System Theory. From that starting point, I discuss the multidimensional model of themes, levels and layers of peace and conflict theory. The dispute and uncertainty regarding the developing of theories simultaneously represents the cause and effect of the lack of a coherently present peace theory in this subject area, towards which all actors could and should want to paradigmatically orient themselves. This is one of the reasons why our generation relies upon the classics, the founding fathers of the discipline and their interpretations all too quickly. The generation of post-classics prefers to consider all that has already been given and does not trust itself to create.
I want to penetrate this nostalgic wall, and so dare in this volume to venture to expand the results of the first two volumes into an applicable draft of Elicitive Conflict Mapping (ECM). I furthermore want to define the term in this volume as well as discussing and applying it extensively. In Volume 2, I discuss the historical connection between wilderness tracking and psychoanalysis. 7 The current volume picks up from there. To explore the psychology of conflicts in order to transform it is nothing but the search for tracks in a relational landscape of conflict-laden themes, levels and layers. Out in nature, tools such as maps, a compass or sonar have proven useful and sensible additions to intuition and experience. This is similar to conflict work. This volume aims to support elicitive conflict workers, who are entering a dysfunctional system, in orienting themselves in relation to the involved parties. Building on this, it aims to recognize tangible courses of action in the ālandscapeā of the given conflict. Theoretically, these options, as I have illustrated in Volume 1, are endless. Practically, only those options that are recognized by the involved parties as well are relevant. The basic principle of working elicitively lies in supporting the involved parties to discover a good many new courses of action in a conflict. It can also happen, however, that out of an overwhelming number of apparent courses of action, a few accessible paths need to be identified. This is where ECM can be of aid. It frequently happens in practice that options are drafted or introduced that turn out to be the wrong tracks when they are tested.
ECM is simultaneously a compass with sonar and a map, the combination of useful instruments and an aid for imagination. It can provide us with helpful hints about the direction potentially to be taken, but it does not reveal anything about the impassibility or extent of the plains, the dangers and perils of the actual conflict landscape. The map is not the road; however; if it proves to be viable, it can assist in finding the road. 8 It does not take any actual decisions for us, and does not prescribe a remedy. The paths are always to be explored in the situation, in the episode. 9 Still, if there are maps, they can at least provide us with ideas, approaches and aids in dealing with reality. Engaging with maps prepares for reality, provides structure and orientation. Why should we not make use of them? 10 The aim of Volume 3 is to develop and test a prototype for this aid.
Prior to this, a few terms that the idea of ECM is based upon need to be explained. Thus, it is important to highlight the emergence of elicitive conflict transformation from humanistic psychology. 11 This origin story introduces the notorious fuzziness of some key terms that are often interpreted in different ways. Therefore, I would like to define them before entering an actual debate on the subject.
First, there is a distinction to be made between human growth and human potential. The terms are often mixed or used interchangeably. Authors from William James and Gregory Bateson to Ken Wilber are all guilty of this, and it has caused quite a lot of confusion in the debate for decades, particularly when dealing with practical application. In elicitive conflict work, this confusion can have severe consequences. The fuzziness in the definition of terms is the result of the usually rather productive cooperation of the āleft-wing-Freudianā version of psychoanalysis and the gestalt approach, including aspects of Tantra, Zen and Tao, in the Californian Esalen of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the methods of humanistic psychotherapy and elicitive conflict transformation, which have globally become common practice today, would not exist without this encounter. Since the 1980s and as a result of an encounter between the Dalai Lama and the Chilean neuroscientist Francisco Varela, a new form of dialogue between Eastern meditation philosophy and Western sciences has taken place in the Investigating the Mind conferences held by the Mind and Life Institute. 12 The Mind and Life Institute is based in Louisville/Colorado, and has shifted the focus of this encounter from the experimental to the empirical.
The excitement over the methodological gain that later enabled its own movement of peace and conflict studies, following Freire, Perls, Rogers, Satir, Cohn, Curle and finally Lederach, 13 did not leave room for the paying of attention to the differences between the various epistemes and their methods that were being knitted together. This resulted in the confusion that surrounds human growth and human potential. The core question asks if every one of us is part of a collective process of growth that targets ever higher s...