Download Social liberation and conflict resolution

Social Liberation and Conflict Resolution:
Moving Neutrality from the Center, to the Middle
Isbel Ingham
But if by some miracle, and all our struggle,
the Earth is spared, only justice to every living thing (and everything alive) will
save humankind. Alice Walker
It is an unfortunate fact that much of the existing conflict resolution literature
treats conflict as if it were a problem plaguing human beings that could be eliminated if
adequate models of mediation/resolution were developed. A good deal of theorizing is
done on the causes of conflict, with the idea that if we can discover what it is caused by,
it can be prevented or solved. This is consonant with a particularly Western way of
thinking that all problems can be, and in fact must be solved, and thereby eliminated.
This article will argue it is more useful, and realistic, to acknowledge that
dynamic conflict is both necessary and inevitable—especially for conflict resolvers who
consider themselves social liberationists. It will also attempt to place conflict resolution,
and mediation, more deeply and, inescapably, in the bosom of social justice work, and
attempt to impress upon the reader that, until the systems that beget and perpetuate
inequities change, conflict will persist, and in fact should persist. Further, it will argue
that to do this work, the commonly accepted position of the mediator must be moved
from its present position, of neutrality, to a place of engagement…a place more
conducive to both interconnectedness and hence the liberation of all human beings.
Georg Simmel (1955) considered conflict among human beings a form of
sociation—that is, a reliably human event that both socializes us and teaches how to
socialize more effectively. He believed it is dissociating factors, such as greed or
competition, that cause conflict, which in turn bring parties together to achieve some kind
of unity again. Conflict, then, indicates where friction exists, which gives us an
opportunity to explore whatever is causing the friction and, with appropriate resources, to
move into and through it, and into a new space or way of being. Mediation is one of the
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resources that attempt to facilitate our move through and past friction into a new
relationship with whomever or whatever we are in conflict with.
This article focuses on the particular kind of friction caused by social inequities-often called systems of oppression. These inequities/oppressions create conflict/friction
for the people intertwined with them. Although the West imagines itself as populated by
individuals who are, for the most part, insulated from the realities of one another’s lives,
the fact is that human beings are, by nature, gregarious—meaning we are group
animals—and therefore thoroughly linked in some way to the oppressive systems at
work, wherever we are, or have been located.
The roots of individualism, the conception that “the social world begins and ends
with individuals (Johnson, 2001),” go very deep in the United States, and are entwined
inextricably with mediator neutrality, so they must be explored a bit here. The story goes
something like this: When a child is born, she is, from her perspective, part of her
mother—no boundaries exist between her self and others. As this child matures, she
gradually learns to “distinguish between self and other, between image and percept,
between subject and object (Keller, 1983, p. 192).”
Up to here, the story makes some sense; however, theories of child development
have gotten into trouble when they have declared that the ultimate act of maturation is
autonomy, or independence: “Graphically, the ‘individual’ might be pictured as a closed
circle: its smooth contours ensure its clear division from its location, as well as assuring
its internal coherence and consistency (Kirby, 1996, pg. 45).” This [hypothesized] closed
circle enables human beings to be in some ways separate from the influences of others, in
that we become separate, inviolate really, from the world around us. Out of this is born,
theoretically, the ability to be objective—cut off from the world, as it were--which allows
for neutrality. If it is possible, even desirable, for us to withdraw into ourselves so that
we have no connection to another, conceivably we can be neutral to, and with, the
problems of others.
However feminists, and others, have long argued that this is not, in actual fact,
how human beings mature and develop (Gilligan, Miller, Keller, Sherman, etc.), nor
should it be considered desirable or advantageous. Lorraine Code proposes that “…the
ideals of the autonomous reasoner—the dislocated, disinterested observer—and the
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epistemologies they inform are the artifacts of a small, privileged group of
educated…white men (Code, 1993)”. Again, however, and as anthropologists have long
informed us, human beings are, by nature, gregarious—we realize and in fact know
ourselves only in relationship to/with other human beings. This is, Elise Boulding says,
“What keeps…conflict from degenerating into the war of each against all is the equally
ubiquitous need of humans for one another, for the social bonding and nurturance without
which no society could function (89).
Moreover, we are, throughout our lifetimes, thoroughly embedded in our various
and specific locations and the communities of people within which we travel and make
some kind of place for ourselves. These locations and communities not only imbue us
with their own particular ambience[s], they also influence, understandably, the ways in
which we view the world. They also form, and inform, our biases, (Hartsock, 1983)
which renders neutrality an impossible ideal. From birth we are thoroughly pervaded all
we are surrounded by, sometimes consciously, but largely unconsciously. This is our job,
as it were—to soak in our surroundings, to absorb, like little sponges, the ways and
means of where and with whom we live. How could we possibly enclose ourselves so
thoroughly that we would become suddenly unaffected by all of this, or even detached?
And to where do we move, when we detach or disaffect ourselves?
However, intrinsic to the Western model of conflict resolution is the neutral
mediator. In fact, there is perhaps no concept so pervasively accepted as fundamental to
conflict resolution practices in the United States as neutrality. By and large, it is taken
for granted that neutrality is not only desirable, but also attainable. In Christopher
Moore’s book, Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict, he says, “impartiality and
neutrality are critical to the process of mediation (1986),” a point of view that is echoed
over and over in the literature (Field, 2000). Mediators are expected to assert their
impartiality at the beginning of a mediation to reassure participants they will be treated
fairly, and that no one’s biases will cloud the procedure. The Mediator’s Handbook says,
“[b]e understanding but impartial (Beer & Stief, 1997).” It is, as Wallace Warfield says,
as though “the mediator were [to be] some clear vessel, hovering deus ex machina,
waiting to be called upon to lay an impartial hand on the fevered brow of the disputants
(1993)”.
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The unabridged version of The Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines
neutrality as: “The state or condition of being on neither side or inclined neither way;
absence of decided views, feeling, or expression; indifference (The Compact Edition of
the Oxford English Dictionary, 1979).” However, given our gregariousness, and our
embeddedness, it is difficult to even surmise how it might be possible to not reside on a
side, or to have no inclinations? The very act of not having a particular inclination
inclines us in some other direction. As we will see a little later in the paper, this can give
us a very real vantage point from which to mediate, however in the discussion of
mediation it is problematic, to say the very least.
Many have argued the notion that there exists an objective viewpoint is, at the
very best, a careless fiction, which Donna Haraway names “the god trick (1988).”
However, at its worst it is dangerous, in that it sets us to believe in something that is
simply not possible, which leaves us unbalanced, ungrounded, and wrong:
“…knowledge, stripped of its ideological and historical content, is, as Haraway suggests,
‘unlocatable and so irresponsible’ (Hartsock, 1983)(157).” It also renders us unable to
notice the vantage point from which we view the world—and can make us oblivious to
social injustice.
Those who defend neutrality sometimes grant the validity of the above critique,
but continue to defend it because of disputants’ need to be confident that the conflict
resolver will not act against their best interests. Certainly it is true that disputants should
trust that the conflict resolver is generally on their side and resolutions will be in the best
interests of all parties to the conflict. However, if neutrality is an illusion that exists
simply to grant this, albeit false, reassurance, a new position must be delineated wherein
a mediator may realistically re[side], and still act on behalf of the parties he or she is
mediating.
This is especially true for mediators who believe their practices embody the
values of social liberation. For if we are, through our work as conflict resolvers,
attempting to do the transformational work necessary to change the world, we have to be
as cognizant as possible of the myriad ways the people with whom we work are
connected to the world, each other, and us—including the oppressive structures. This will
allow us to do work that acknowledges everyone’s full humanity and interconnectedness,
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and form the basis of the ethical platform from which we can practice non-neutral, but
principled, conflict resolution. This view declares neutrality both impossible and
unnecessary, and, in that valorizes individuality and objectivity over community and
subjectivity, dissonant with the goals of social justice.
I am aware that this amounts to a radical [re]vision of the mediator’s role in
mediation, and of Western models of mediation. However, I believe it is crucial that we
expand our vision of what it is we are doing in and with our practices. This will only be
possible, however, if we move away from the rigidly bordered concepts of individualism
and neutrality, both of which have sought to contain or bind up our subjectivity, and
move towards a middle position that acknowledges our inextricable interconnectedness.
As Gloria Anzaldúa says, borders are constructed to demarcate and distinguish the
places that are safe and unsafe “to distinguish us from them (1987; pg. 3). In the case of
mediation, they attempt to separate the mediator from the mediated and
objectivity/neutrality from subjectivity/bias. I propose, instead, the [re]discovery of a
middle ground, a borderland existing between, and also lapping over into, the roles of
mediator and mediated. This space both permits and requires a new viewpoint “that
permits its practitioner to act from within and from outside ideology,” a position that “can
itself be considered a specific mode of consciousness (Sandoval, 2000, p. 155),” a
consciousness I believe points us in the direction of social liberation.
This new space requires a consciousness that can, in Chela Sandoval’s words, “act
upon social reality while at the same time transforming the practitioner’s relation to it
(2000, p. 155) .” In this way I propose eliminating the categories of neutral/biased,
objective/subjective, and suggest, in its place, full engagement, “in which there is no
separation between the subject and the object of the action, which are instead conflated
(Sandoval, 2000, 156).” I am well aware of the difficulty of this project; neutrality is so
pervasively accepted in mainstream circles it can seem almost anathema to the practice of
mediation to consider its elimination.
However an insistence on neutrality, to be used in the service of fairness, forgets,
denies, discounts, ignores, at times even disparages our embeddedness,
interconnectedness, and our inherent human nature as gregarious beings. The fact that we
are gregarious means we do best when we are involved with other people and their
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subjectivities, expanding and informing our awareness of their lives as far as possible.
This is what we do with the people we love—our families, our partners, the people we
include in our closest communities—and when we do it well, we notice the difference it
makes in us, and in our lives. My experience as a mediator tells me that the same is true
when I understand, deeply, the people or groups for whom I am mediating.
This involvement can, and should, be extended to the world, in particular, to the
dissolution of systems of oppression. To quote Zinn and Dill, there are “patterns of
hierarchy, domination, and oppression based on race, class, gender, and sexual
orientation…built into the structure of our society. Inequality, in other words, is
structural or socially patterned (1994, pg. 84).” We are, without our consent, thoroughly
embedded in structures that privilege some while oppressing others—a reality that has
nothing to do with free will, but rather our overriding culture and, again, our
gregariousness. “We are always participating in something larger than ourselves—what
sociologists call social systems—and systems are more than collections of [individuals]
(Zinn & Dill, 1994, pg. 85).”
To acknowledge our connection to particular oppressions can mean, if done
thoughtfully, taking our share of the responsibility for their ultimate dismantling. The
need for social liberation is perhaps the strongest challenge to notions of neutrality in
conflict resolution practice. Because of the pervasiveness of oppression, in and outside
of ourselves, conflict resolution practitioners have the responsibility to address these
patterns of oppression as part of their conflict resolution work. If CR practitioners
choose not to integrate social liberation work into their practices, there is a great danger-as well as a strong likelihood--that our/their practices will reinforce those patterns of
oppression.
This makes it incumbent on conflict resolvers to develop mediation practices that
are socially liberatory, practices wherein the mediator assumes a position that takes into
consideration his or her own social and ethical [embodied] position in relation to both a
given mediation, as well as the whole lives of the participants. This position will not
require us to constrain or cordon off our subjectivities, but will instead actualize an
ethical standard that affirms the humanity of all people while advocating for their
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complete empowerment, attending particularly to those people who inhabit historically
oppressed groups.
This new, middle position I am advocating seeks to create room for disputants and
mediators alike to impinge upon, inform, and thereby transform each other. This means
we not only expect disputants to walk away with a new understanding of their dispute,
but that the mediator will be impacted by the encounter as well. We will not require
either distance/objectivity or neutrality from a mediator, acknowledging that, as Perlman
says, “it is impossible to mediate a discussion without affecting, even influencing it (3).”
Rather than indulging in the illusion we can stay detached, we will instead need to be
diligent in examining the ways in which we will, unavoidably, impact both the process
and the outcome of a mediation. As Bush and Folger say:
There is no such a thing as the ‘parties’’ conflict when third parties are involved.
Conflicts are an inevitable part of that change. Of necessity mediators contribute
to the shaping of a conflict as long as they are interacting with the parties. To
deny this is to deny all that we know about the way face-to-face communication
of any sort unfolds (1994, pg).
This will require a different kind of work and training than is now required of mediators,
and may often result in various kinds of transformative experiences, “particularly of the
sort that [result] in the unsettling of the person’s self and position (Babbitt, 1993, pg.
256).” Relationships between all parties (including the mediator) will be acknowledged,
examined, and taken into active consideration.
Clearly, I am advocating for an entirely new role for mediators, at least insofar as
Western mediation is concerned.
However, we have models for this endeavor—many indigenous models of conflict
resolution have not valorized or required the notion of a separate, neutral mediator.
Instead, they have required the collaboration of all parties, including the mediators
(Augsburger, 1992; Osamba, 2001; Safford, 1998). In these cases, communities have
chosen embedded mediators, that is, respected members of the community who have
direct a direct relationship with the disputants, and a vested interested in the outcome of
the mediation (Garb, 1996; Masinde, Adan, & Pkalya, 2004).
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While counted on for fairness, these mediators are also expected to be involved
with and concerned about the welfare of the parties for whom they are mediating, as well
as the community as a whole (Lederach, 1995; Safford, 1998). The boundaries that keep
mediators and disputants separate and uninvolved with one another, deemed so important
in the U.S., do not exist in quite the same way.
What these cultures rely on, instead of disinvolvement, is community, and
mediator, involvement, which includes a community understanding of what conflict
resolution is seeking to achieve. In the Lebanon, for instance, the “involvement of
community and the intervention of community leaders give significance and meaning to
the pain of alienation and offer inclusion as well as wisdom and support in the search for
a solution to the conflict (Witty, quoted in Augsburger, 1992, pg. 193).” This is in stark
contrast to way mediation is conducted in the U.S., especially when it involves the
judicial system in any way.
In these cultures, good mediators must be believed to be wise, and so are
generally among the elders of a community. Especially they must have a good
understanding of the traditions and mores of the group, and the position by which to
enforce decisions made. For instance in northern Kenya elders who “command authority”
mediate conflict. These men and women “are believed to hold and control supernatural
powers reinforced by belief in superstitions and witchcraft (Masinde, Adan, & Pkalya,
2004, pg. 1).” Their grounding in the traditions important to their group is vital to conflict
resolution, in that the goal of any mediation is that the entire community will be
strengthened by it—meaning that everyone in the community will be benefited.
So, this new position will include, for each of us, a moral position from which we
can decided, subjectively, what is best for everyone concerned, including us and our
communities. That will be up to each of us to decide and construct. However, given the
topic of this paper, it will have to be a morality that works for social justice.
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