Postcolonial Conflict Resolution

Post-Colonial Conflict Resolution Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker Published in Morgan Brigg and Roand Bleiker, Mediating Across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011), pp. 19-39. The argument for drawing upon non-Western cultural traditions of conflict resolution can be made in direct terms. Local traditions of conflict resolution have been neglected as prevailing ways of dealing with conflict are typically focused through Western approaches to conflict resolution. There is a clear need, then, particularly in the context of conflict resolution and peacebuilding efforts of recent decades, to expand our approaches through engagement with local processes and sources of insight. If one recognizes this predicament then a number of important questions immediately arise: Why have local traditions been neglected? Why should we draw on these traditions rather than continuing to rely on well-known Western approaches? What are the politics of knowledge associated with drawing on local traditions? And how can we begin to think about the complexity that comes with different approaches to conflict and its resolution? The purpose of this chapter is to addresses these questions in order to establish a broad conceptual framework though which the following chapters can be read. We begin by showing that the relative neglect of local approaches to conflict resolution is bound up with the legacy of European colonialism. We then present a more thoroughly argued case for cross-cultural ways of knowing and addressing conflict by highlighting the compelling link between culture, conflict and the search for peace. Third, we briefly address some theoretical and practical questions and challenges accompanying our effort to draw upon local and marginalized traditions. We identify seven key themes which are instructive of how different cultures approach conflict and its resolution. We emphasize how these themes are taken up in particular ways in prevailing Western approaches to conflict. The underlying idea of our strategy is to develop useful starting points for debating and discussing, in much broader terms, approaches to conflict and its resolution. The Neglect of Local Traditions The ethnocentric conceits of colonialism are largely responsible for the relative neglect of local approaches to conflict resolution. Colonial prejudices often viewed Indigenous societies as lacking the institutions that were assumed to be necessary for civilized life. This absence of readily recognizable institutions helped to justify colonial conquest, but also blinded colonizers to the possibilities of other ways of organizing political life and dealing with difficulties among people. Perhaps the most striking example of this is the European tendency to identify political community with command-obedience power relationships. This is to say that a polity was seen as functioning around the subjection of individuals to a ruler. Early European observers assumed that Indigenous peoples were in a constant state of disorder simply because they lacked a central institution that could organize and enforce societal behavior. It is thus not surprising that the colonial occupiers were unable to identify

– yet alone appreciate - non-European institutions or approaches to conflict and its resolution. There were, of course, always exceptions to this tendency. But by and large Indigenous societies were viewed through the conceptual universe of the colonizers. And from this perspective they were perceived primarily in terms of how they fell short and what they lacked.1 Over time anthropological and other studies have shown that Indigenous societies are capable of holding together and managing conflict over exceptionally long periods.2 During the 1950s and 1960s, legal anthropologists in particular have drawn attention to local Indigenous ways of approaching and processing conflict. Man of these studies focused on Africa,3 but practices from other contexts have also been studied and documented.4 Although these and other studies were able to promote a wider recognition of Indigenous approaches and processes, their impact has been limited, in part because legal anthropology remained a rather specialized academic sub-field. Add to this that legal anthropology, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s, was strongly shaped by European understandings of law and society. In other words, there was a shift to acknowledging that local people were indeed generating social order, but the analysis of how they were doing so was conducted through the lens of European institutions. In many cases local processes were presented as either immature or as underdeveloped instances of their European counterparts. They were thereby seen as forms that would naturally be overtaken and displaced in the expansion of European processes. This generates an internal paradox for legal anthropology. On one hand, it involves and indeed requires an interest in other cultures. On the other hand, as Simon Roberts notes, this interest in how other societies maintain order or settle disputes is largely presented through the “framework of Western legal theory.”5 Although legal anthropology engaged in a range of debates during the 1950s and 1960s there was little recognition of Indigenous approaches as anything other than something lesser or derivative. In one debate, for instance, Paul Bohannan raises questions about the relevance of Western concepts for studying local peoples.6 The reply from a key figure in the 1

For an elegant elaboration of this argument see Pierre Clastres, Society against the state: essays in political anthropology (New York: Zone Books, 2007) 2

Simon Roberts, Order and Dispute: An Introduction to Legal Anthropology (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; New York: Penguin, 1979), p. 12. 3

See, Max Gluckman’s The judicial process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia (Manchester: Published on behalf of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute Northern Rhodesia by Manchester University Press, 1955); “African Jurisprudence,” The Advancement of Science XVIII, no. 75(1962): 439-454; and The ideas in Barotse jurisprudence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965); also Paul Bohannan’s “The Differing Realms of the Law,” American Ethnologist: Special Issue on the Ethnography of Law 67, no. 6 (1965): 33-42; Justice and judgment among the Tiv (London: Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press, 1968). 4

See, Laura Nader and Harry F. Todd (eds.), The Disputing Process: law in ten societies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); Sally Merry, “The Social Organization of Mediation in Nonindustrial Societies: Implications for Informal Community Justice in America,” in R. L. Abel (ed.), The Politics of informal justice 2 (New York: Academic Press, 1982), pp. 17-45; Sally Engle Merry, “Mediation in Nonindustrial Societies,” in K. Kressel, D. G. Pruitt and Associates (eds.), Mediation Research: The process and effectiveness of third-party intervention (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989), pp. 68-90; Nancy Williams, Two laws: managing disputes in a contemporary Aboriginal community (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1987). 5 6

Simon Roberts, Order and Dispute, p. 13.

Paul Bohannan, Justice and judgment among the Tiv (London: Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 57, 100.

field, Max Gluckman, invoked a “development schema” that explicitly asserted the superiority of English jurisprudence over tribal processes.7 He states, more specifically, that “the very refinement of English jurisprudence makes it a better instrument for analysis … than are the languages of tribal law.”8 Interest in other cultures, then, does not necessarily translate into respect. As was the case in earlier colonial eras, we see a form of violence – this time of an epistemological nature – which subordinates Indigenous approaches to conflict resolution to the conceptual schemes of the West. From the late 1970s anthropology engaged in a process of disciplinary self-reflection and critique. The comments made by Gluckman would be far less likely to be uttered today. Anthropologists today generally recognize how scholarship frequently mirrored and enabled iniquitous colonial relationships. Around the same time, debates about community level justice processes in the United States raised the need for legal reform and for improved way of dealing with local-level disputes. This evolution, in turn, has led some Western mediation scholars to draw on earlier legal anthropological knowledge of Indigenous practices.9 In the broader conflict resolution field, Buddhist and Ghandian ideas have inspired many scholars and practitioners, including Johan Galtung, one of the discipline’s pioneers. There have also been attempts to modify and develop conflict resolution practices for use multicultural settings. 10 Most recently peacebuilders have increasingly turned their attention to local approaches and processes as ways of coping with the challenges of rebuilding post-conflict societies.11 Although interest in local and Indigenous processes has increased dramatically, many aspects of the colonial legacy remain intact. While there are now more cross-cultural encounters and more engagements with local knowledge practices, most approaches to conflict resolution continue to be shaped by the type of principled and problem-solving approaches that have come to dominate Western mediation practices.12 In other words, non7

Max Gluckman, “African Jurisprudence,” The Advancement of Science XVIII, no. 75(1962): 439-454 especially at 441, 443, 452. 8

Max Gluckman, “African Jurisprudence,” p. 452.

9

Danzig, Richard. "Toward the Creation of a Complementary, Decentralized System of Criminal Justice." Stanford Law Review 26, no. 1 - November (1973): 1-54; Wahrhaftig, Paul. "An Overview of CommunityOriented Citizen Dispute Resolution Programs in the United States." In The Politics of Informal Justice, edited by Richard L. Abel, 75-97. New York: Academic Press, 1982. 10

See, Honggang Yang and Alvin W. Wolfe, “Epilogue: Agenda for Applied Research in Conflict Resolution,” in A. W. Wolfe and H. Yang (eds.), Anthropological Contributions to Conflict Resolution (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1996) pp. 144-153 at p. 144; E. Victoria Shook and Leonard Ke'ala Kwan, “Ho'oponopono: Straightening Family Relationships in Hawaii,” in K. Avruch, P. W. Black and J. A. Scimecca (eds.), Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1991), pp. 213-229; Marg Huber, “Mediation around the Medicine Wheel,” Mediation Quarterly, no. 4 (1993): 355-365; Bruce Barnes, “Conflict Resolution Across Cultures: a Hawaii Perspective and a Pacific Mediation Model,” Mediation Quarterly 12, no. 2 (1994): 117-133. 11

See, Huyse, Luc, and Mark Salter. "Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from African Experiences." IDEA, 2008; Ahmed Yusuf Farah, “Traditional Approaches to Negotiation and Mediation: Examples from Africa - Roots of Reconciliation in Somaliland,” in L. Reychler and T. Paffenholz (eds.), Peacebuilding: a field guide. (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers in association with the Field Diplomacy Initiative, 2001), pp. 138-145; Mac Ginty, Roger. "Indigenous Peace-Making Versus the Liberal Peace." Cooperation and Conflict 43, no. 2 (2008): 139-63. 12

For the most popular expression of this orientation, see Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce M. Patton, Getting to yes: negotiating an agreement without giving in (London: Random House Business Books, 1999).

Western cultural influences and perspectives tend be subsumed into prevailing scholarly and practical approaches to conflict resolution. In earlier times, a neglect of Indigenous institutions supported colonial ventures. Today a discourse about weak and failing states helps to justify neoliberal interventions which, as Oliver Richmond points out later in this volume, leads to a particular imposition of top-down, Western approaches over Indigenous forms of knowing and solving conflict. The colonial legacy poses a challenge which the conflict resolution field must actively address if it is to retain the moral authority it often claims. This is all the more the case since this moral authority rests largely on is ability to respond to the needs of people in conflict.13 Numerous scholars have already drawn attention to this challenge. Kevin Avruch, for instance, noted in the early 1990s that the field of conflict resolution is a predominantly ‘white’ phenomenon, an expert practice dominated by the discourses and rationalities of the West.14 To understand this phenomenon we need to explicitly acknowledge that the denial and neglect of non-Western knowledges and insights is linked to more than the general ‘power’ of the West, as manifest in aspects such as economic wealth, military power and the concentration of academic institutions and publication outlets. These openly visible effects of power relationships emerge, as postcolonial scholarship shows, through deeper ways of knowing and relating to people. The latter arise out of the sense of cultural strength which Europeans developed in colonial encounters, and which continue to suffuse much mainstream Western academic and policy orientations toward non-Western peoples. Avruch and Black have proposed a particular promising way of addressing the ensuing challenges: to recognize and actively draw on local understandings of conflict and approaches and practices for resolving it.15 Our book accepts and extends this promising approach in an attempt to deal with the colonial legacy and to widen the range of conflict resolution practices available. This does not resolve the challenges and questions generated by the colonial legacy, but it is a way of facing them and beginning to work through and around them. Validating Cross-Cultural Engagement While the relative neglect of local traditions provides a strong rationale for our book, we also want to locate our project in a broader context and deal with some of the accompanying challenges. To do so we now present a more thoroughly argued case for embracing difference and intercultural ways of knowing and addressing conflict. At first sight there does not seem to be a compelling need to engage conflict resolution through the question of cultural difference. Many aspects of the West appear to respect and appreciate cultural diversity. Multiculturalism is often actively embraced. There are anti-discrimination and cultural education programs. The food, art, dance, music and literature of other cultures are widely appreciated. This way of valuing cultural difference – as a set of visible traits, behaviors and customs – features prominently in a number of 13

For elaboration see Morgan Brigg, The New Politics of Conflict Resolution: Responding to Difference. (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 14

Kevin Avruch, “Introduction: culture and conflict resolution,” pp. 1-17 in K. Avruch, P. W. Black and J. A. Scimecca (eds.), Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1991) p. 5. 15

Kevin Avruch and Peter W. Black, “The Culture Question and Conflict Resolution,” Peace and Change 16, no. 1 (1991): 22-45.

Western states. But such an embrace of diversity is relatively superficial. As long as diversity is limited to food, dance or music it is easy to tolerate, for these cultural features are mere “titillations” that enrich Western lifestyles without interfering with or challenging the basic values and organizational structure of a society. Cultural difference tends to be seen as benign as long as it is restricted to these external manifestations of exotic customs and behaviors. But as soon as we turn to politics, culture is often presented as a problem. In theorizing the basis of political community, diverse streams of Western political philosophy have emphasized consensus, commonality and unity rather than difference. This continues to be the case, with even those contemporary theorists who explicitly advocate diversity retaining an assumption that “diverse strangers would share a common goal and that this would be the basis for the polity.”16 Conversely, difference threatens community and is seen as a source of conflict. This dualistic approach to cultural difference is well exemplified by the authors of a textbook on managing international conflict. They state that cultural difference at best, “is a fount for much of the world's glorious variety and coloration, its miraculous panorama of art, music, literature, and language. But at worst the pathological expression of the roots-seeking impulse is extreme nationalism that can trigger sociopolitical disintegration.”17 For these and like-minded analysts, cultural difference can “unleash tribal warfare and ethnic cleansing” and “launch human floodtides across state frontiers in Europe, Asia, and Africa.”18 Such statements, expressed within a tradition which tends to see difference as a problem rather than a resource, leave little room for the possibility that difference can make a positive contribution to political order. Difference, then, is that which “remains condemned and must atone or be redeemed under the auspices of reason which renders it livable and thinkable.”19 The pattern of identifying cultural difference as a problem is also a disturbing feature of contemporary politics. Immigration policies in many Western states, from France to Austria and the Netherlands, from the UK to Italy and Australia, express a deep-seated fear of difference. The unusual strength of right-wing populist parties across the Western world testifies to a desire to uphold a key set of cultural values against that which is different from them. People from other cultural traditions are either unwelcome or seen as desirable only if they adopt the cultural and religious practices that prevail in the West. Similar patterns operate in other parts of the world, including in regional conflicts where political leaders often try to rally populations around a hostile discourse that separates a safe inside from a threatening outside. In many cases the re-assertions of ethnic, religious or cultural roots has taken on strong nationalistic or violent overtones. From Rwanda to Fiji, from Sri Lanka to Bosnia, from Kosovo to Kashmir and the Middle East, the political manipulation and mobilization of identity can lead to widespread violence, even instances of genocide. The quest for cultural homogeneity, whether pursued by states, beleaguered leaders or warlords, plays a particularly important role in shaping and fuelling conflicts. Differences in culture are often seen as an inevitable cause of conflict. Western scholarship lends support to this view by traditionally understanding cultural differences between people in terms of their separation and the accompanying problems rather than their mutual entanglement and the 16

Linnell Secomb, “Fractured Community,” Hypatia 15, no. 2 (2000): 133-150 at 140.

17

Lincoln Palmer Bloomfield and Allen Moulton, Managing international conflict: from theory to policy: a teaching tool using CASCON (New York: St. Martin's Press 1997), p. 41. 18

Ibid.

19

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (London: Athlone Press, 1994), p. 262.

accompanying potential benefits. 20 When combined with prevailing understandings of politics, the result is a deeply rooted practice of juxtaposing a safe inside against a threatening outside, an ‘us’ and ‘them.’ The tendency to identify difference as a problem becomes particularly fateful when combined with the equally deep-seated realist tradition of international relations scholarship. Here individuals and states are driven by power and self-interests, thus generating a security dilemma that inevitably and constantly breeds conflict. The latest prominent example of this position is Samuel Huntington’s much discussed treatise on the clash of civilizations.21 His influential propositions revived the realist vision of an inside/outside world, except that they locate the inevitability of conflict not in the interaction of security-seeking states, but in the confrontation of incompatible cultural traditions. The widely perceived clash between an Islamic Fundamentalism and a Western form of democratic secularism is only the most evident manifestation of such tendencies to vilify difference. More subtle, but equally important, is the widespread perception that, in many parts of the world, conflict is so deeply entrenched and so endemic that overcoming patterns of hatred and violence seems virtually impossible. This is particularly the case in societies that have experienced a major trauma, such as genocide or a war. In these situations, from the Middle East to Afghanistan, from Sri Lanka to Somalia, from Iraq to East Timor and from Rwanda to Kashmir, years and often decades of conflict have left societies deeply divided and traumatized. New forms of violence constantly reemerge to the point that some commentators portray the respective conflicts as intractable. The accompanying tendency is to see areas such the Balkans, or the Middle East, as irrational “zones of violence” which are “cut off from normal rational living.” 22 Such interpretations are exemplified by Robert Kaplan’s influential depicting of conflict in the Balkans as being rooted in ancient hatreds: in an inevitable clash between different cultural traditions.23 Consider one of several well-known examples on the world stage: the clash between different ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina of the mid-1990s. Various authors have argued that finding an end to the conflict was so difficult and took so long because the international community, most notably the US and key European states, were unable to see beyond the nationalistic attitude to politics that were partly responsible for the collapse of multicultural Bosnia in the first place. 24 Given their own difficulties in embracing multiculturalism at home, many Western leaders could not conceive of a world in which different ethnic groups could live together without resorting to violence. The most extreme example of this position can be found in the arguments of the influential realist scholar John 20

Nicholas Thomas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, material culture, and colonialism in the Pacific (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 3. 21

Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). 22

A B Fetherston, From Conflict Resolution to Transformative Peacebuilding: Reflections from Croatia (Bradford, UK, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, 2000), p. 13. 23

Robert D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War (New York: Random House, 2001); Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (New York: Picador, 2005). 24

David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 109, 166; Gerry J. Simpson, “The Diffusion of Sovereignty: Self-Determination in the Post-Colonial Age,” in Mortimer Sellers (ed.), The New World Order: Sovereignty, Human Rights and the Self-Determination of Peoples (Oxford: Berg, 1996) pp. 52-3.

Mearsheimer,25 who advocated partition of Bosnia as the only possible solution to the crisis. While any form of peaceful co-existence would clearly have been a major challenge after almost half a decade of intensive warfare in the region, the Dayton agreement of 1995 that established a ceasefire in the region was dictated by the logic of partition. Where Bosnia used to be a territory in which Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs lived as neighbors, most neighborhoods are largely segregated today. Politics has arguably been reduced to a correspondence between identity and territory, to what can be called a “desire to have one’s own land.”26 Such a conflict-prone stance, which sees difference primarily as a threat and a force to be kept at bay, continues to guide foreign policy making in many parts of the world and seeps into approaches to difference within states. In our volume we juxtapose these widespread and deeply entrenched approaches to political community and conflict with the possibilities of cross-cultural ways of knowing and addressing conflict. To frame our view that difference should be seen as a potential resource, rather than a problem, we find reason to challenge long-held Western assumptions that view difference primarily as a source conflict. Instead, we follow alternative scholars, such as William Connolly, who show that the most serious cause of violence and community breakdown today is not from interactions with difference, but from doctrines and movements that suppress it by trying to reinstate a unified faith in one form of identification.27 Simon Harrison argues likewise, and backs up his argument with studies that range from Melanesian warfare to European Nationalism. He demonstrates that the fundamental threat to individual or group is the possibility of slipping into an undifferentiated and homogeneous existence.28 People’s identities are put at risk by too much sameness with others. Efforts to articulate difference from others, the process of producing individual and cultural boundaries and differences, are, then, central to the formation of political community. As Jean-Luc Nancy states: “What I have in common with another Frenchman is the fact of not being the same Frenchman as him.” 29 Conversely, the differentiation of ‘Frenchness’ on the world stage produces differences which end up making modern political communities similar in their minimally differentiation through nationalism.30 Other scholars too, oppose the notion of difference-as-a-problem and the source of deeply-entrenched and intractable conflicts. They locate the roots of violence not in ancient hatreds or in the inevitable clash between different cultures, but in much more recent political manipulations.31 A powerful illustration of such positions can be found in the actions of thousands of activists and practitioners worldwide. They cross difference on a daily basis, engaging in dialogues and pursuing joint agendas in a way that draws from their diversity in an enabling and inherently positive manner. 25

John J. Mearsheimer, "Shrink Bosnia to Save it," New York Times, 31 March 1993.

26

Didier Bigo, “Guerres, conflits, transnational et territoirre,” in Cultures et Conflits: Sociologie Politique de l'International, no. 21/2 (1996), p. 2. 27

William E. Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), p. xxi-

ii. 28

Simon Harrison, Fracturing Resemblances: Identity and Mimetic Conflict in Melanesia and the West (New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007), p. 99. 29

Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 155.

30

Simon Harrison, Fracturing Resemblances, p. 44.

31

of

See: Norman M. Naimark, Fires (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).

Hatred:

Ethnic

Cleansing

in

Twentieth-Century

Recognizing the dangers involved in vilifying difference does not mean that we can or should dispatch with notions of identity and community. Identities are essential for our individual and social existence. They provide political communities with the coherence necessary to articulate and advance common projects. Connolly recognizes that such standards of identity and responsibility are essential for political life, even if they do injustice to what is excluded through their application.32 Identities, he argues, are neither fictitious nor naturally given. They are an indispensable part of social life, but neither identities nor the difference mobilized in producing them lead automatically to intractable political problems or to violence. Our contributors show that there are numerous ways of managing difference. Perhaps more importantly, they show that such an appreciation of difference – including a willingness to be open to different ways of knowing and being – can actually play a key role in preventing or solving conflict. These ways may not always align with Western percpetions and they almost always involve ongoing commitment and work rather than a perpetual endstate of peace, but they are part of the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary conversation that is necessary to address conflict in a rapidly globalizing world. Such ways of mediating across difference are essential not least because there is meanwhile ample evidence that suggests the existence of strong linkages between violence and the breakdown or absence of engagement and dialogue across difference.33 Speaking of Difference By working across cultures to address the neglect of local traditions in conflict resolution our endeavor is invariably situated in the fallout of colonialism and amidst ongoing processes of globalization. Numerous theoretical and practical challenges are thus inevitable. What is the meaning of ‘the West’? How do commonsense formulations of the ‘West-and-the-rest’ shape our perceptions and distort our understandings of the subject matter? To what extent are socalled universals – ideas and concepts usually associated with Western Europe – actually the result of global cultural exchange and connection? And what of so-called ‘local’ practices that are in fact borrowed from elsewhere? Furthermore, what boundaries and limitations are suggested by the term culture? Can we speak of ‘other’ traditions in ways that do not risk setting them against ‘the West’ and commodifying and romanticizing them as objects of exotic interest? Is it possible to successfully intervene to redress dominance in the circuits of postcolonial power and privilege within contemporary transnational conflict resolution practice? Does the attempt to validate non-Western approaches provide some conflict resolution practitioners with the intellectual skills to present themselves as ‘cultural experts’ on the global consultancy circuit – but without actually forging real local relationships and according respect and recognition to local actors? This book does not shrink away from these political questions and challenges, but nor do we focus our energies directly upon them. To engage these issues closely would take us away from our key goal of highlighting alternative sources of insight; a process which we believe is possible, practicable, and urgently required. We also want to avoid rehearsing 32

William E. Connolly, Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 12. 33

Michel Wieviorka, “Le nouveau paradigm de la violence,” Cultures et Conflits: Sociologie Politique de l'International, No. 29/30, Summer (1998), p. 15.

debates internal to particular academic disciplines or other professional circles. We want this book to be as widely accessible as possible. We acknowledge that we live as part of ongoing processes of transnational global cultural exchange and connection where, in the fallout of colonialism, universals are contested and reproduced through local encounters.34 Peoples, traditions and cultures rub against one another, with unexpected results, through political struggles including those that play out through the politics of everyday life. Our contributors are well aware of these complex dynamics; many of them live and work with these challenges in their everyday lives. All chapters speak to these challenges in one way or another, and some speak directly to the politics of the interaction of local and Western conflict resolution processes. To situate our project in this globalizing world of complex challenges and possibilities we must, though, briefly spell out how we view cultural difference. Is cultural difference a matter of undifferentiated flux in which all identities and relations are fluid? Or is it a matter of strong and incompatible differences? In our view a middle path most accurately represents a world characterized by ongoing everyday exchange. It also serves our purpose in this volume. We therefore do not collapse processes of interaction to discussions of the fine-grained and complex flux of encounters accessible to only a limited few, nor do we insist upon boundaries that foreclose interaction and are not supported by the fact of ongoing intercultural exchange. To reflect our middle path we use widely accessible categories and notions in a provisional way. Apparently bald categories and notions such as ‘the West’ and ‘local traditions’ help us to frame this volume in useful ways; they are vehicles for moving through space and time to generate new insights and understandings in conflict resolution. While such terms serve as useful shorthand, we believe that not many people take them to suggest incommensurability or exclusivity. If some readers do, they will be quickly find that the chapters of this volume speak to the plurality, possibility and complexity of encounter and exchange rather than to insurmountable differences. In sum, we acknowledge that different cultures give varying emphases to a range of aspects of human experience and interaction in conflict situations, and we recognize that there are varying orientations to conflict. But we do so not in order to keep these orientations apart, nor to suggest that these cultures are hermetically sealed, and certainly not to suggest incommensurability among them. Rigidity, separation and incommensurability among cultures is not our experience and nor, we believe, is it the experience of many others. Indeed, the ability to crisscross cultural boundaries is underlined by the fact that we managed to hold a workshop at which a culturally very diverse set of scholars and practitioners managed to engage in stimulating and fruitful dialogues with each other: dialogues that produced an amazing range of similarities but also left enough space to accommodate differences in an empathetic and respectful manner. The chapters that follow spell out this cross-cultural dialogue in more detail and, in doing so, seek to increase our ability to better acknowledge, understand and respect the significance of local conflict resolution. Approaching Difference in Conflict Resolution: Key Themes To further frame the following chapters we want to identify key themes that are instructive of how different cultures approach to conflict and its resolution. We emphasize how these 34

Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005.

themes are taken up in particular ways in influential Western approaches to conflict resolution. We do so not to draw a stark line between West and East, or to suggest that one set of traditions is superior to the other. We assume that processes of globalization have lead to a situation where cultural assumptions about conflict have inevitably spread far beyond their original setting. Indeed, we must acknowledge that processes of cultural exchange are more ubiquitous and longstanding than is often thought: cultural differentiation often arises out of contact between different groups rather than, as continues to be assumed, through isolation. Western values have, of course, played a dominant role in processes of cultural exchange. They have become quasi-global in reach. But it is also the case that various other cultural traditions, marginalized as they may be, have left an impact on dominant Western ways of conceptualizing conflict and approaches to its resolution. As traditions and cultural values mix, our ways of knowing are themselves challenged in ways that makes it impossible to identify pure or “authentic” cultural traits. Our conceptual distinction between Western and non-Western approaches is thus no more than a tentative but necessary heuristic device designed to establish a conceptual framework though which the subsequent chapters can be better appreciated. At least a basic engagement with the values that underlie Western approaches is necessary to appreciate the relevance of searching for alternative ways of knowing and being. Where do the central ideas and processes that characterize Western approaches to conflict resolution come from? What type of assumptions – about the state, freedom, sovereignty, rights, representation, justice, rule of law, dialogue, negotiation and mediation – underlie this cultural tradition? These assumptions and the associated values result from particular traditions of knowledge and political practice. Western ways of organizing being together and resolving conflict typically derive from a tradition which emerged out of Western Europe and subsequently become more global as a result of practices of colonialism and globalization. Understanding something about the specifics of these ways of approaching and resolving conflict is an essential element in the process of appreciating alternative approaches. We now identify seven themes that characterize key points of contention among different cultural approaches conflict and its resolution. This list is by no means complete. But it serves as a starting point for a cross-cultural dialogue on conflict resolution. This is why we provided these seven points to all participants in the workshop which led to this book. The contributors do not all engage all of these points of contention, but we thought it valuable to reproduce them here as a series of open questions to the conflict resolution field. We hope that they encourage debate and discussion beyond the pages of this book. 1. Reason and emotion Reason is typically seen as central to resolving conflict in prevailing Western approaches. Such a focus separates reason from other human abilities and accords it higher status. Perhaps the best known example of prioritizing rationality over emotion in conflict resolution is Fisher and Ury’s classic maxim of “separating the people from the problem.” The idea is that emotional outbursts serve to clear the air, making “it easier to talk rationally later.” 35 Emotions are not entirely ignored by Fisher and Ury, but they are subordinated. As they state: “[f]reed from the burden of unexpressed emotions, people will become more likely to work on the problem.”36 Mastenbroek37 applies a broadly similar perspective to the overall process 35

Fisher et al., Getting to Yes, p. 31.

36

Ibid.

of conflict resolution by framing the development of the field in terms of the increasing management of emotions. There are good reasons, though, for questioning this prioritizing of reason. First, prioritizing reason over emotion can pose serious limits for our ability to solve conflicts, for conflict is very often shaped by emotional dynamics. Conflict cannot be thoroughly or satisfactorily addressed if important emotional dimensions are subordinated and marginalized. Second, we need to challenge the very separation of reason and emotion. Anthropological research has shown that not all cultures see reason and emotions as fundamentally distinct from each other.38 Even in Western cultures the distinction is likely to be drawn by theorists and in a rather abstract and artificial manner, differing markedly from the actual lived experiences of most people. As recent cognitive science shows, our ability to reason cannot be separated off from other bodily capacities for movement, perception, and emotion. 39 Separating reason from other faculties such as emotion probably draws unwarranted boundaries among human abilities, obscuring the ways in which reason itself is emotional, or that emotional responses are a type of reasoning. Some conflict resolution scholars have started to address this shortcoming. Examples include Tricia Jones40 and contributions reviewed by Erin Ryan.41 Even Roger Fisher and his collaborators, who pioneered the rational, interest-based approach to mediation, have started to take emotions into account. 42 But these efforts have so far been both limited and articulated through Western social science and cultural traditions. To begin to explore this theme we asked our contributors to think about what various cultural traditions might teach us about the relation between reason and emotion, about different forms of ‘reason,’ or about the role of emotions in the resolution of conflicts. We wondered if insights into emotions can be used to address difficulties and restore peace after conflict? If this could be done, how exactly are emotions used in conflict resolution practices? 2. Communication beyond Speech? Prevailing approaches to conflict resolution tend to privilege speech as the medium for addressing difficulties and making agreements. Speech is typically thought of as the natural way of reaching resolution; it is central, for instance, to processes of dialogue and negotiation. Within much Western political theory, speech is the ability which distinguishes humans from other animals and allows us to form communities. The capacity for speech is 37

Willem Mastenbroek, “Negotiating as Emotion Management,” Theory, Culture and Society 16, no. 4 (1999): 49-73. 38

Niko Besnier, “Language and Affect,” Annual Review of Anthropology 19, (1990) 419-451 at 420.

39

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 17. See also William J. Long and Peter Brecke, War and reconciliation: reason and emotion in conflict resolution (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), p. 130. 40

Tricia S. Jones and Andrea Bodtker, “Mediating with Heart in Mind: Addressing Emotion in Mediation Practice,” Negotiation Journal 17, no. 3 (2001): 217-244. 41

Erin Ryan, “Review Essay: Building the Emotionally Learned Negotiator,” Negotiation Journal 22, no. 2 (2006): 209–225. 42

Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro, Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate (New York: Viking, 2005).

also usually closely linked with reason in the Western tradition. It is perhaps understandable, then, that mainstream conflict resolution emphasizes speech as a means for addressing conflict. But emphasis upon speech can also lead us to overlook the role of other possibilities. As with reason, considering emotion or feeling is a good way to highlight the limitations of an emphasis upon speech. Anthropologists show us that significant communication occurs through the feelings that people sense between and among themselves.43 Speech, in other words, is not necessarily the only way of communicating about conflict and its resolution. Non-verbal ways of interacting, such as rituals or body language, can be just as important. Such ways of interacting also point to interesting and perplexing possibilities which we might call the “feeling of community.”44 These interactions might be difficult to codify in the terms of traditional social science. Sorenson, for instance, explains how intense and continuous regard for others is important among some peoples for the formation of community.45 To address this theme we asked our contributors to think about what other traditions teach us about the role of speech and other faculties in conflict resolution. What is the relationship of spoken words to issues of conflict and their resolution? What other ways of communicating and interacting might people use? In addition, we asked conflict resolution theorist Tarja Väyrynen to explore the role of silence in conflict resolution. 3. Universal and Contextual Procedures Prevailing conflict resolution efforts tend to strive for clear and predictable processes. They formalize the outcomes of these processes, usually by way of contract, written agreement or treaty. Processes such as mediation and problem-solving workshops are typically taught as a series of steps to be applied in various contexts. The underlying objective is to refine a set of pre-existing and universal procedures that can then be applied systematically across different cultural contexts. While the shortcomings of this formalism have meanwhile been recognized and discussed widely in conflict resolution literature, there are still only few inquires that explore alternatives in detail. To promote further discussion on this theme we asked: What can other traditions teach us about the formality and universality of conflict resolution processes? Is it important, or even desirable, to have a set of well worked out procedures to solve conflict? What can other traditions teach us about ways of responding to particular contexts or cultural environments? 4. Time Western approaches to conflict resolution typically see time in linear and mechanical ways. There are a particular number of weeks in a year; these are broken into days which are further broken into hours and minutes which can be easily measured. Time began at a particular point and travels in a straight line. Measuring and linearity provide a framework for 43

Fred R. Myers, Pintupi country, pintupi self: sentiment, place, and politics among Western Desert Aborigines (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press 1991); E. Richard Sorenson, “Preconquest Consciousness,” in H. Wautischer (ed.), Tribal epistemologies: essays in the philosophy of anthropology (Aldershot; Brookfield USA: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 79-115. 44 45

Linnell Secomb, “Introduction,” Cultural Studies Review 9, no. 1(2003): 9-11 at 10.

E. Richard Sorenson, “Preconquest Consciousness,” in H. Wautischer (ed.), Tribal epistemologies: essays in the philosophy of anthropology (Aldershot; Brookfield USA: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 79-115.

understanding the progress of conflict resolution as a path leading from conflict to peace. We might say, then, that conflict resolution is often organized according to calendar or clock time. But clocks and calendars are only one way of relating to time. Time may be seen as cyclical, flowing with the seasons, or in terms of other patterns. People may think of time in terms of spiritual realms which do not relate to clock time, time may speed up, slow down, or bend, or events and relationships with other people may be a more important ways of dividing up social life. To think further about time we asked: What can other traditions teach us about orientation to time for conflict resolution? What role do conceptions of time play in conflict resolution approaches or processes you are considering? How much time is necessary? Do conflict resolution processes change over time? How is time important in a process of healing? 5. Violence Prevailing peace and conflict studies approaches frequently assume that violence is negative and to be avoided in conflict resolution efforts. War is opposed to peace. Physical and other forms of violence are seen as dangerous. Talking and consensus, in contrast, are regarded as desirable ways to deal with difficulties among people. This leads to the general position that the best forms of conflict resolution and peace, from community mediation to the UN’s campaign for a Culture of Peace are non-violent. Non-violent approaches and dialogue are markers of ‘civilization’ while violence is barbaric. Violence does, of course, often lead to the breakdown of order. It can generate a vicious cycle of hatred and revenge that generates ever more conflict. But it is also true that war and peace are subtly entwined.46 Karl von Clausewitz famously stated that that war is the continuation of politics by other means. 47 And Michel Foucault inverted Clausewitz to argue that battles are continually fought within social orders.48 Violence is also domesticated in the modern West in entertainment ranging from sport to movies and computer games. These ‘violent’ practices in ‘civilized’ contexts are an obvious challenge to straightforward assumptions about the effects and role of violence. The complex relationship between violence and non-violence should lead us to question the assumption that physical violence is synonymous with conflict. Could it be the case, for instance, that physical violence can be constitutive of order in ways that are – somewhat paradoxically – less violent than conventional Western ways of governing and managing conflicts? By asking this question we do not advocate violence as a way of solving conflict. Rather, our objective is to question more generally whether or not the relationship between outwardly violent and non-violent processes is as straightforward and as unproblematic as it is generally portrayed to be. To address this theme we asked our participants: What is the place of physical confrontation in the tradition you are considering? Is violence seen as inherently bad or are there ways through which violence can be employed legitimately to address and solve conflicts? And what challenges and possibilities come with such practices? 46

Oliver Paul Richmond, The Transformation of Peace (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

47

Karl von Clausewitz, On war (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976).

48

Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power,” in C. Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 109-33 at p. 109.

6. Individuals and Relationships Western approaches to conflict resolution, shaped by liberal emphasis on the individual person, tend to stress discrete entities rather than relationships and social ties. Conflict is seen as taking place between individuals or entities modeled on the individual. The main objective then consists of solving the conflict on terms agreed by the individuals who are implicated or concerned. The mediator as well as the parties involved assume, or at least imply, that the individual is autonomous from the surrounding social dynamics. Other cultures and traditions, in contrast, often tend to put greater emphasis on relationships and the collective. They assume that the boundaries between individuals and society are much more fluid. They also assign different values to individual autonomy and social harmony. This theme suggests a number of questions: How do different cultures see the role of individuals and the manner in which they are embedded in social relations and collective values? What importance do these traditions pay to societal issues when addressing conflict? 7. Myth and Magic Western approaches to security and conflict resolution follow a broader Western pattern of delegitimizing myth and magic. This focus is linked to the earlier-mentioned prioritizing of reason. Yet, considered engagement with myth and magic shows that they are important ways of relating and sustaining community. Rituals, for instance, deserve not to be viewed as superstitious and misguided efforts to bring about events such as rain or community harmony.49 Rather, they sustain, restore and re-balance personal, social, and political life. Myth and magic are also important ways of knowing which, Levis-Strauss suggests, should not be wholly juxtaposed with Western science. Rather, he sees myth and science as “parallel modes of acquiring knowledge,” as a form of concrete science that contains no less claim to genuine knowledge and insight than established scientific methods.50 Once we challenge the longstanding division between sciences and magic, is it possible to recognize concrete and valuable ways in which myth and magic can add to conflict resolution practices? We asked participants to elaborate on the possible role of associated factors, such as the magical and spiritual forces of land.

49

Brian R. Clack, “Scapegoat rituals in Wittgensteinian perspective,” in K. Schilbrack (ed.), Thinking Through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 97-112 at p. 100. 50

Claude Levi-Strauss, The savage mind = La pensee sauvage (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966), pp. 13, 16.