Little Book of Conflict Transformation

Clear Articulation Of The Guiding Principles By A Pioneer In The Field

John Lederach

• Publisher: Good Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781680990423
• Topic: Derecho
• Subtopic: Resolución alternativa de conflictos

This clearly articulated statement offers a hopeful and workable approach to conflict—that eternally beleaguering human situation. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his breakthrough thinking and action related to conflict on all levels—person-to-person, factions within communities, warring nations. He explores why "conflict transformation " is more appropriate than "conflict resolution " or " management." But he refuses to be drawn into impractical idealism. Conflict Transformation is an idea with a deep reach. Its practice, says Lederach, requires "both solutions and social change." It asks not simply "How do we end something not desired?"but "How do we end something destructive and build something desired?" How do we deal with the immediate crisis, as well as the long-term situation? What disciplines make such thinking and practices possible? Thistitle is part ofThe Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series.

1.

Conflict Transformation?

Conflict resolution . . . conflict management . . . but conflict transformation?

I began using the term conflict transformation in the 1980s, after intensive experience in Central America caused me to re-examine the language of the field.

When I arrived there my vocabulary was filled with the usual terminology of conflict resolution and management. I soon found, though, that my Latin colleagues had questions, even suspicions, about what was meant by such concepts. For them, resolution carried with it a danger of co-optation, an attempt to get rid of conflict when people were raising important and legitimate issues. It was not clear that resolution left room for advocacy. In their experience, quick solutions to deep social-political problems usually meant lots of good words but no real change. “Conflicts happen for a reason,” they would say. “Is this resolution idea just another way to cover up the changes that are really needed?”

Their concerns were consistent with my own experience and perspective. My deepest sense of vocation, and the framework that informs much of this book, arises from a faith context that is grounded in an Anabaptist/Mennonite religious-ethical framework. This perspective understands peace as embedded in justice. It emphasizes the importance of building right relationships and social structures through a radical respect for human rights and life. It advocates nonviolence as a way of life and work.

So the concerns of my Latin colleagues hit home. In my work of helping to find constructive responses to violent conflict in Central America and elsewhere, I became increasingly convinced that much of what I was doing was seeking constructive change. “Conflict transformation” seemed to convey this meaning better than conflict resolution or management.

Conflict is normal in human relationships, and conflict is a motor of change.

In the 1990s, when I helped found the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), we had extensive debates about titles and terms. Resolution was better known and was widely accepted in mainstream academic and political circles. Transformation seemed too value-laden for some, too idealistic for others, and too airy-fairy and new-age for still others. In the end, we stuck with the transformation terminology. We believed it was accurate and scientifically sound and that it provided a clear vision.

For me, conflict transformation is accurate because I am engaged in constructive change efforts that include, and go beyond, the resolution of specific problems. It is scientifically sound language because it is based on two verifiable realities: conflict is normal in human relationships, and conflict is a motor of change. Transformation provides a clear and important vision because it brings into focus the horizon toward which we journey—the building of healthy relationships and communities, locally and globally. This goal requires real change in our current ways of relating.

But the question remains, what does transformation really mean?

Over the past decade or so, the terminology of transformation has become increasingly common in both practitioner and academic circles. There are transformational approaches in mediation as well as in the broader discipline of peace and conflict studies. In fact, I am now part of two graduate academic programs that use this terminology, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame and the Conflict Transformation Program at EMU. In spite of this, conflict transformation is not as yet a school of thought. I do believe that conflict transformation is a comprehensive orientation or framework that ultimately may require a fundamental change in our way of thinking.

What follows is my understanding of this framework based on my reading, my practice, and my teaching over the past 15 years. This Little Book is not a definitive statement; my understanding constantly evolves, pushed by experiences of practice and teaching.

My understanding both parallels and converges from the work of other authors, although I am not able to explore all of those connections here. I do not want to imply that my particular view of transformation is superior to those who use the term differently or to those who prefer the term resolution. In this Little Book I mean to engage the creative tension between themes of resolution and transformation in order to sharpen understanding, not to discredit the work of those who prefer other terms.

My purpose here is to add a voice to the ongoing discussion, to the search for greater understanding in human relationships.

2.

The Lenses of Conflict Transformation

In everyday settings we often experience conflict as a disruption in the natural flow of our relationships. We notice or feel that something is not right. Suddenly we find ourselves more attentive to things we had taken for granted. The relationship becomes complicated, not as easy and smooth as it once was.

No longer do we take things at face value. Instead, we spend time and energy interpreting and re-interpreting what things mean. Our communication becomes difficult, requiring more intentional effort. We find it harder to really hear what others are saying—unless of course, they agree with us. We cannot easily comprehend what the other person is up to.

Our very physiology changes as our feelings translate from uneasiness to anxiety to even outright pain. In such a situation we often experience a growing sense of urgency leading to deeper and deeper frustration as the conflict progresses, especially if no end is in sight.

If someone uninvolved in the situation asks, “What is the conflict about?” we can translate our explanations into a kind of conflict “topography,” a relief map of the peaks and valleys of our conflict. The peaks are what we see as the significant challenges in the conflict, often with an emphasis on the most recent, the one we are now climbing. Often we identify this mountain we are currently climbing as the primary issue or issues we are dealing with, the content of the conflict. The valleys represent failures, the inability to negotiate adequate solutions. And the whole of the mountain range—the overall picture of our relational patterns—often seems vague and distant, just as it is difficult to see the whole of a mountain range when you are climbing a specific peak.

This topographical conflict map illustrates our tendency to view conflict by focusing on the immediate “presenting” problems. We give our energy to reducing anxiety and pain by looking for a solution to the presenting problems without seeing the bigger map of the conflict itself. We also tend to view the conflict as a series of challenges and failures—peaks and valleys—without a real sense of the underlying causes and forces in the conflict.

The purpose of this book is to ask how a transformational approach addresses these tendencies and how that might be different from a conflict resolution or management perspective. What does conflict transformation look for and what does it see as the basis for developing a response to conflict?

As a starting point, let us explore the differences between the terms look and see. To look is to draw attention or to pay attention to something. In everyday language we often say, “Would you look over here please!” or “Look at that!” In other words, looking requires lenses that draw attention and help us become aware. To see, on the other hand, is to look beyond and deeper. Seeing seeks insight and understanding. In everyday language we say, “Do you see what I mean?” Understanding is the process of creating meaning. Meaning requires that we bring something into sharper focus.

Conflict transformation is a way of looking as well as seeing.

Conflict transformation is more than a set of specific techniques; it is a way of looking as well as seeing. Looking and seeing both require lenses. So conflict transformation suggests a set of lenses through which we view social conflict.

We might think of these lenses as a set of specialized eyeglasses. For the first time in my life, I am wearing progressive lenses; in these eyeglasses I have three different lens types within the same lens. Each has its own function. One lens or lens segment helps bring into focus things at a great distance that would otherwise be a blur. A second brings into clarity things that are mid-range, like the computer screen. The final one, the reading or magnifying lens, helps me read a book or thread a fish line through a hook. This lens metaphor suggests several implications for the transformational approach to understanding conflict.

First, if I try to use the reading segment of the lens to see at a distance, the lens is useless. Each lens or lens segment has its function, and that is to bring into focus a specific aspect of reality. When it brings that piece of reality into focus, other aspects blur. If you look through a camera with a telephoto lens or a microscope at a slide of bacteria, you find this happening in dramatic fashion: as one layer of reality is brought into focus other layers are blurred. The out-of-focus layers of reality are still present, but they are not clear. Likewise, the lenses we use to view conflict will clarify certain layers or aspects of reality while blurring others. We cannot expect a single lens to do more than it was intended to do, and we cannot assume that what it brings into focus is the whole picture.

Since no one lens is capable of bringing everything into focus, we need multiple lenses to see different aspects of a complex reality. This recalls the old adage, “If all you have is a hammer, all you see are nails.” We cannot expect a single lens to bring into focus all of the dimensions and implications of a conflict.

My three lenses are held together in a single frame. Each lens is different, but each must be in relationship with the others if the various dimensions of reality are to be held together as a whole. I need each lens to see a particular portion of reality, and I need them to be in relationship to see the whole. This is the usefulness of finding lenses that help us address specific aspects of conflicts, while at the same time providing a means to envision the whole picture.

The whole...