The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  One example is the emphasis on the socially restorative and the socially interdependent components of ritual reconciliation used in different cultures and ranging, for example, from negotiation to gift giving to restitution and third-party mediator involvement (Fry, 2000, 2006). Peace systems also reflect values favoring peace over violence as the constituent societies live together without war to the advantage of all, forming a higher level of social identity through interaction, rituals, and exchange. Members of peace systems find many paths to keep the peace under conditions of interdependence. Peace systems represent new possibilities for creating a world without war, a sustainable peace with sustainable development, based more on cooperation than competition, and favoring an indigenous value orientation along the lines of the four Rs.

  The second equally important task is to open a dialogue between the indigenous and the modern. A dialogue space for interaction, sharing, and cooperation between the indigenous and modern members of global society is needed. Indigenous practices and knowledge constitute an “other” for modernity. The usual approach taken by modern discourse toward indigenous knowledge, as exemplified by the UNESCO study of conflict resolution (Lowie et al., 1963), has been to adopt the culturally powerful position of the scientific observer. Instead we advocate egalitarian knowledge- and practice-sharing approaches along the lines of the structured dialogue processes.

  In addition, well-known historical knowledge with regard to the abuse of indigenous peoples at the hands of modern colonizers must be addressed for a genuinely inclusive global approach to the pooling of knowledge and resources on conflict resolution and justice-promoting techniques to occur. In other words, a transborder ethical approach that allows for reflexivity within the very process of this harnessing enterprise must be undertaken in order for a genuine dialogue to be created between the modern and the nonmodern (Souillac, 2012). Indeed, convergence of relationality, responsibility, mutuality, respect, and sharing are crucial to bridging this gap between the modern and the indigenous. These ethical concepts ultimately arise from the internal requirements for peaceful and orderly functioning within any society.

  Cutting-edge concepts in democratic theory such as respect and recognition typically invoke sources of justice that reach beyond the realms of reason into those of affect and religious cognition. Debates on the role played by affect in cosmopolitan theories of citizenship and global responsibility, such as they have focused on hospitality or the global justice burden, are now superseding or completing those frameworks that have relied on an exclusive concept of rational deliberation for the global public sphere and consensus on basic human rights norms (Honneth, 2007; Innerarity, 2012; Souillac, 2012, Young, 2013). Modernity today is constituted by what it has rejected as much as by how it has defined itself, as Gauchet (1999) has shown in his anthropological analysis of the emergence of political modernity based on the exit of religion and the question of the reconstitution of social ties in an increasingly atomized rights-based society (Souillac, 2011). A careful approach to the establishment of a dialogic space between indigenous concepts of justice and practices of conflict resolution and peace building and the nonindigenous participants of a global knowledge world must be conceptualized so as to reflect the nonviolent integration of a peace-knowledge community for a world that retains its worthy goals of constructive dialogue and consensus building around peace itself.

  As Harris and Wasilewski (2004) have shown in the context of a civil society initiative directly involving indigenous conflict resolution, justice-seeking, and peacemaking practices and beliefs, the application of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples can lead to an extensive reworking of the relationship between the modern world and indigenous knowledge when it comes to peace and conflict resolution—one that can deeply extend even our own democratic values of participation, equality, and responsibility for a complex plural world. In particular, this project actively demonstrates profound possibilities for active alternatives to a democratic status quo and an international normative order that does not take dialogue seriously for the purpose of peacemaking, keeping such ventures on the superficial levels of cultural diplomacy. Harris and Wasilewski (2004) draw on work by Taiaike to emphasize the modeling of new standards of accountability beyond those of deliberative rationality, which often do not suffice in bridging the cultural and religious divides established by modernity. The focus on reciprocity and the recognition of the prior existence of relational bonds, whether these be harmonious or conflictual, allows a context that transmits a deeper message about human continuity than do various forms of deliberative and instrumental rationality with all its attendant, though admittedly and rightly contested, Western heritage. Whether it be with regard to the environment or justice, the sheer historical longitude of the existence of indigenous societies provides them with a special status with regard to the conservation of humanity itself, in being, as Taiaike observes, “the repository of vast experience and deep insight” (Taiaike, 1999, cited in Harris and Wasilewski, 2004, p. 21).

  The indigeneity concept, as it covers the four Rs and as it emerged from the application of an inclusive structured dialogue process, became operational to identify a globally applicable practice for an alternative relational politics in a modern world defined through its complexity and plurality. This relational politics “creates relationships between diverse elements” (Harris and Wasilewski 2004, p. 5) rather than seeks to eliminate differences. Thus while the indigeneity concept, argue Harris and Wasilewski (2004, p. 5), “is culturally—which means communally—grounded, it is neither culturally neutral, nor is it culturally exclusive.” In other words, it creates bonds of relationality across patterns and experience of difference, and between the concrete and specific, and the abstract and universal. Thus, while all identities of participants in a dialogic space that honors such peacemaking values as the four Rs are respected and honored and all voices are heard, these identities need not exist in mutual exclusion or differentiation from each other. Indeed as these identities are engaging in dialogue, the dialogic space that is formed generates something of its own as a peacemaking practice, which in turn creates links where there were none, on whatever topic is pursued, demonstrating even beyond the need for formal consensus, that we are as individual and collective identities “both autonomous and connected” (Harris and Wasilewski, 2004, p. 7). This allows for the realities of dynamic coemergence to empirically emerge as testimony of what Edward Said has termed the quest for a “deep coexistence” (cited in Harris and Wasilewski, 2004, p. 7).

  Dynamic inclusivity also insists that the democratic pluralist paradigm that requires the toleration of diversity be expanded to encourage the reincorporation of the viewpoints of the “enemy” and thus discourage the excessive polarizations, as well as processes of victimization and humiliation, that are increasingly becoming the feature of democratic societies and of an international society where tremendous power differentials remain the norm. Thus, the dynamic inclusivity captured by the notion of indigeneity allows such emergent solutions to be identified beyond the stagnation of status and power differentials that are historically determined. It does not exclude discussion on moral and ethical difference, but it allows first for voices that have been historically polarized and inherently opposed to understand the process of historical construction that has created our various prejudices and influenced our worldview. As such, what was mere conflict management can become conflict transformation through a collaborative dialogic venture that, as the authors explain, investigates the shared complex mechanisms that control our cultural, economic, and historical differentiations.

  APPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

  Several observations of practical significance can be offered for reflection. First, we have seen examples of humans bringing about significant changes toward peace in their societies so social change is possible. Values, norms, practices, and institutions can promote physical and structural violence or, conversely, ca
n be created to support nonviolence, human rights, and just conflict resolution.

  Second, in that values have an impact on behavior, some value orientations are more supportive of nonviolent conflict resolution than are others. It would be important to focus on making a global ethical and normative shift along the aggressiveness-to-peacefulness continuum toward the peaceful pole.

  Third, consideration of the structured dialogue processes suggests that the medium in fact can be part of the message; it is important to employ conflict resolution and dialogue processes that are inclusive and egalitarian rather than exclusive and dominating. It is not possible for any nation to go it alone because all of humanity is interconnected by conditions of global warming, population increase, degradation of the global ecosphere, and the existence of weapons of mass destruction. As in interdependent indigenous communities, cooperative and socially inclusive methods for dialoging and working together toward shared goals are necessary in the global community.

  Fourth, the existence of peace systems in the indigenous world deserves much closer consideration. Their very presence shows that neighboring societies can live in peace and security. An examination of the formation and maintenance of peace systems has the utmost relevance for global society. Relations among nation-states are in some ways parallel to those of the Iroquoian tribal nations before they joined together and stopped killing each other. Humanity now faces a security challenge that is remarkably similar to that addressed successfully by the Iroquoian peoples of the fifteenth century: How can a war system where bloodshed and mass destruction remain an ever-present danger be replaced by a global system in which peace and security constitute the new reality?

  In conclusion, indigenous conflict resolution practices shed light on the immense human potential for living in peace and resolving conflict without violence. The global implementation of a dialogic process that incorporates indigenous peacemaking practices and value systems can serve as a peacemaking venture in its own right—one that leads to the further recovery of dignity by indigenous peoples and to the recovery of those elements that have been occulted during the rise of modernity. This in turn leads to a tripartite critique of the contemporary modern worldview. First, we have the unsubstantiated uniquely modern view that human nature is warlike and must remain mired in its aggressive impulses. Entering into respectful dialogue with indigenous knowledge and insight with regard to peace can help model the concrete application of time-honored values as well as their political and social usefulness across time for achieving balance, integration, coordination, and cooperation. Second, the creation of a dialogic space that serves to integrate indigenous wisdom in a global modern arena also serves as a practical example of the limits of a uniquely modern worldview by unveiling its rational dualist and exclusionary approach. As the structured dialogue processes and other dialogic and peace-building projects show, modern democratic ethics must go through an expansion of understanding with a goal of generating and harnessing for human welfare and survival a knowledge and resource pool that includes diverse and useful justice promoting conflict resolution approaches. Third, it is often said that values that have founded the modern West, such as freedom, equality, and democracy, will increasingly be on the decline as other emergent nations’ systems overtake the West economically. At this historical juncture, the creation and modeling of democratically inspired dialogic systems for the common elaboration of peace values as a collective strategy of survival has much to teach us. Harnessing the wisdom of indigenous conflict resolution practices in how they reflect a deeper concern for social harmony and well-being on the one hand (positive peace), and conflict transformation and violence reduction on the other (negative peace), offers a unique historical opportunity for all those interested in delegitimizing war and violence and promoting the development of peace.

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  aWe thank Jackie Wasilewski for offering critical comments and useful suggestions on a draft of this chapter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  MULTICULTURALISM AND CONFLICT

  Mekayla K. Castro

  Peter T. Coleman

  One need only briefly peruse the Internet to come to face to face with the reality of today’s shrinking world. In little more than the time it takes to press the Enter key of a laptop, you can gain access to a recipe for Ukrainian syrniki, take a virtual tour of a hotel in Bhutan, and watch traditional Tshwane dancers in South Africa. The exchange between different cultures is increasingly less distant and voyeuristic, however, and more active and significant. Consider the impact of microloans and the opportunity to assist people all over the world—a pig farmer in Guatemala, a coffee seller in Cambodia, a hairdresser in Liberia. If you live in a multicultural society like the United States, the vast array of subcultures and ethnic enclaves means that many of us do not have to leave our home town to experience another culture’s language, cuisine, art, and traditions.