If you’ve struggled with a protracted personal conflict or ruminated over social/political/environmental conflicts you’ve likely realized the myriad of approaches available. You could take a hard negotiation approach, a collaborative mediation approach, or perhaps engage in a larger problem solving process that involves multiple people. You may take a reflexive approach that asks you to consider how you or your company, nation, family, etc. has contributed to the creation of the problem. Perhaps you understand the conflict as the outcome of multi-generational abuses.
You could spend a lifetime reading books about these approaches, attending seminars, getting coaching etc. At times the advice will disagree. So what to do? How can anyone navigate all these approaches. Even if you pick one approach, someone may challenge you asking why you’re not engaging in the others.
We, the authors of this new conflict resolution resource, understood this conundrum and wanted to provide a textbook that offers a genealogy of the field that contextualizes the different approaches. By breaking the field in to three eras, or epochs (as we call them), we show how the various approaches you’ve heard about developed in response to various crises faced by the western world. This is not to say that other civilizations and cultures do not have their own approaches. They have and continue to develop forms of resolution that address conundrums they face. The field of conflict resolution as a discipline, however grew in response to contemporary challenges; how to prevent nuclear war, genocide, terrorist activities?
The book discusses three epochs that shape the field; Epoch 1 (1945-1989), Epoch 2 (1990-2001), Epoch 3 (2002-today). We consider the theories, approaches and research methodologies of each epoch through articles written either by some of the founders of these approaches or those who articulate clearly the discourses of that approach.
Understanding these approaches as discourses developed in response to certain events (nuclear arms race, inter-ethnic warfare, terrorism, etc) allows us to think through whether an approach makes sense for a particular situation and, if we engage in the approach we can understand the limitations. For example, negotiated settlements might hold off a war, but they do not alone resolve tensions between peoples. Without addressing these tensions, the violence may return and upend the settlement.
We are excited to present this interdisciplinary anthology useful for a wide range of undergrad through graduate conflict-related courses. We tested the book’s concept with students at; George Mason University, University of Colorado Boulder, SciencesPo (France), University of Baltimore, and others. The book’s approach are also being shared at conferences around the world and to a wide variety of organizations and governmental organizations such as the U.S. Department of State.
For more information or to order a copy click below.
To request a presentation of the book or schedule a talk please email me at sfederman@ubalt.edu
Survivors at the U.S. Capitol. I’ve met many of them. They are fascinating and lovely.
“Oh, my grandparents died,” you tell people.
You sigh and maybe recall for a moment how nice it was to have older generations in your family.
You remember the birthday cards, gifts and the yelps of glee when you arrived to visit.
But then you’re resigned, right? That’s it, they’re gone. That’s life.
Well, I wanted to let you know there are thousands of grandparents available.
In interviewing dozens of Holocaust survivors, I have found so much more than material for my dissertation. I have found friends and, dare I say, grandparents:
Jacqueline gave me cloth napkins to take to Paris this summer for my picnics on the Seine.
Last week, I received an anonymous donation to support my research and “my happiness.”
Vivianne slapped my hand today as I picked veggies out of her potluck dish. “Use a fork!” she commanded. I told her she was right, but I was born in NY and she in Paris…Americans are savages, I told her. She said “use a fork, anyway.”
Perla, who lost 47 members of her family at age 14, spent 20 minutes consoling me on my parents divorce that happened 20 years ago. Without any hint of irony, she kept saying “That must have been so hard for you at age 12.
They glow when I call. They tell me I’m pretty and smart. They love spending time and they have delicious stories to tell. That’s how I remember my grandparents. They made me feel special even when I had disastrous teeth, couldn’t spell, was overweight and had a terrible haircut.
They can be a dream.
But they’re spectacular in their own right.
Today, Marty talked about surviving 4 concentration camps. Somehow he has a sparkle in his eye even though he watched his mother and sister sent to gas chambers in Auschwitz.
I dare say at 85 he’s actually strikingly handsome. He boasts about his great friends in their 30s. I’m not surprised. He’s a catch!
My goodness!
Things I’ve learned about the elderly:
1. They have paradoxically more and less time than we do. (They have all day, but probably less days.)
2. They have all lost something precious.
3. Their lives didn’t go as planned.
4. They appreciate many things we have not yet come to appreciate.
5. They have seen more change than we have.
6. Many are busier than I am.
7. It’s easy to hang out with them. You don’t have to be charming, they just talk.
8. They are seeing their friends die and/or get sick.
9. Being around younger people enlivens them.
10. Regarding holocaust survivors, at this point I think most would rather tell you their story than receive reparations. Please listen.
11. Every tragic story has some moment of hope.
12. They were once young.
13. They are afraid of losing their ability to move about.
14. They appreciate your time.
15. They’ve beat incredible odds to be alive so long..consider they know something.
I cannot handle all these grandparents alone. There are so many!
Please volunteer your cheeks for pinching whether you’re 20 or 50. It’s a cliche, but you will get far more than you give. Start talking to someone eating alone at a restaurant or riding the metro. Help them with the door and talk to them like people.
You’ll be old too one day…if you’re lucky. How would you like to be treated when old age finds you?
Sometimes a loved one or colleague experiences a death of someone close, an illness, a major life transition, or loss of a partner and we are too deep in our own lives to really take notice or be there for them. We feel guilty; we just were not able to really be there.
Then months later or even years later we surface from whatever occupied us and we feel embarrassed that we failed our loved one. We may tell ourselves, “I will be there next time.” Or we withdrawal from the relationship.
In this blog, I want to say that you can still support the friend through that same issue.
The following two examples, one from my personal life and the other through my academic research in post-conflict contexts and trauma, show the importance of being there now…whenever “now” may be.
Missing the Cancer Treatments
The first involves a a friend who went through a double mastectomy last year. At the time I actually did not want to bother her; I figured she had many people taking care of her and I was buried in my research.
Instead of burying my embarrassment, I decided I would just be an amazing “aftermath friend.” I have learned from spending time with people who survived persecution or lost family to senseless persecution that the aftermath can be the worst.
I told her my plan and she said, “Thank you. Most people do not realize how difficult it is after the cancer even when you are in remission.” The experience was really difficult for her and changed the way she saw her life. Her children and husband were still struggling to emerge from that difficult period. So we talked about what life was life for her now.
Not many people paid attention to this phase of her recovery and I was able to step up and be there.
Missing the Atrocity
Then there are the atrocities that occurred either before we knew the person, overseas or even before we were born. Holocaust survivors, for example. I am not able to go back to the 1940s and help them during the persecutions or even in the immediate aftermath when many told me they starved and barely survived homeless and without work.
The assumption here might be that, “well, it happened before I was born. It’s too late for me to help.”
Not so. Many Holocaust survivors and likely survivors of other life traumas are isolated and alone with memories that resurface during their final years. People think that because they married, had successful careers, and children that they “made it.”
If you were open, you could be there for all kinds of people years after their actual suffering. Some of my most profound moments this past year have been with people who suffered long ago and said after our time together things like, “Wow, I haven’t told these stories to anyone. I wish you could stay; there is so much more to say.”
Call them now…
If someone came to mind as you read this, send an email or call them. When you reach them just say, “Hey, I know you went through a rough patch and I was not able to be there for you. I wanted to see how you are now and how you feel about what happened.”
Just be honest…they will be touched. And surprised!
