Figuring Out the Field

“Oh, you’re a graduate student, that’s great! What are you studying?”

“Conflict analysis and resolution.”

Blank stare.

This is an exchange with which I [and I’m sure many other students of conflict analysis and resolution (CAR)] am all too familiar. As a fairly new field, I am not surprised that the majority of people do not understand what it is we study. What does surprise me, however, is my inability to produce a decent explanation.

I first realized this predicament when I sat down to write my Goals Statement/Personal Essay for admission to the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR). How exactly was I going to write how a degree in CAR would help me achieve my goals when I could not even say for sure what CAR was? A quick search on the S-CAR website was not too helpful, describing the programs’ commitment “to the development of theory, research, and practice that interrupt cycles of violence and promote peacebuilding,” but not really explaining what that means.¹ While the S-CAR website went into great detail about the specifics of its programs and how they strove to integrate theory and practice, there was not a great deal of information about what exactly would be studied.  Other online sites were not much help either, with Wikipedia only having one page to explain conflict resolution, which it described as “the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict.”² Why is it that CAR is so difficult to define?

For starters, CAR is a relatively new field that, according to the Handbook of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, began developing “…with changing political values during the 1960s when people, opposing their governments, sought participatory democracy and social change.”³ In 1981, the establishment of the Center for Conflict Resolution at George Mason University (what would eventually become S-CAR) began exploring “structural roots of conflict, basic human needs, and the connection between micro and macro levels of intervention.”⁴ The field has only recently incorporated studies in conflict transformation and peace and conflict studies, causing me to wonder how it is that I can define something that is still in the process of evolving?⁵

CAR is not based solely on one discipline. Instead, this field integrates political science, social-psychology, religion, sociology, anthropology, public policy, economics, and law.

“The core of the CAR field is pulling together all of these multiple perspectives, diverse opinions, and interdisciplinary lenses by, in part, understanding the history of the field, its transdisciplinary origins, and the contribution to theory, practice, and methods to strengthen our knowledge and to acknowledge the field’s deep roots.”⁶

While CAR integrates theories from a wide array of fields, these theories often remain distinct and disconnected. In S-CAR classrooms, there may be theories taught with roots in sociology or anthropology or even economics, but there are few that are, like CAR, transdisciplinary, able to incorporate and relate multiple disciplines.

Further, these theories do not just revolve around how to understand conflicts, but also, as CAR’s name suggests, how to resolve them. These two goals of analyzing and resolving conflicts are, of course, interrelated and it is necessary to understand causes in order to create solutions. As Dennis Sandole notes, theory and practice must be connected in order to “…maximize the prospects that interventions will be effective; unless we know what makes conflicts ‘tick,’ we may, good intentions to the contrary, only make matters worse.”⁷ While it is ambitious for CAR to integrate various theories, practices, and methods, it is also necessary since all are required for successful intervention.

Finally, when asked what my degree is in, most people actually want to know what it is I am going to do with it. It is unfortunate that ‘becoming a conflict resolution specialist’ is not a suitable answer and it is even more unfortunate that Craigslist does not contain a CAR category. The truth is, I don’t know. The problem for me in figuring out what to do within the field is the very same problem I have with defining it.

Perhaps CAR is a bit confused and over-ambitious. It is a young field that is trying to stretch across many disciplines and often sacrificing depth for breadth. The past 50 years have been a discovery phase, trying out a little of everything and seeing what fits best. Now it is time to determine what the future will look like and focus on theory and practice that are unique to CAR.

Even though I struggle to define what the field is, just as much today as I did when I first wrote my admissions essay, the causes are different. Whereas before I had a lack of knowledge to share, now I feel it is necessary, but impossible, to concisely map the field in order to give my listener a comprehensive view of what it is we do. Although this is a frustrating position to be in, it is also an exciting one. This is an evolving field and it is the responsibility of current students, researchers, and practitioners, to determine what CAR will become.

So the next time someone asks me what it is I study, I will try not freeze up or stumble over my words. I will explain that CAR is a lot of things. It is identifying the causes and conditions of past conflicts so that we can better respond to current ones. It is evaluating various resolution methods. It is learning how to transform conflict and stop violence. But most important, it is evolving.

1. “S-CAR Office of Graduate Admissions,” The School For Conflict Analysis and Resolution, February 28, 2013, http://scar.gmu.edu/grad-admissions. [↩]
2. Wikipedia contributors, “Conflict Resolution,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, February 28, 2013, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_resolution. [↩]
3. Sean Byrne and Jessica Senehi, introduction to Handbook of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, eds. J.D Sandole, Sean Byrne, Ingrid Sandole-Staroste and Jessica Senehi (New York: Routledge, 2009) 4. [↩]
4. ibid. [↩]
5. ibid. [↩]
6. ibid., 12. [↩]
7. Dennis J.D. Sandole, “A Comprehensive Mapping of Conflict and Conflict Resolutions: A Three Pillar Ap- proach,” Peace and Conflict Studies 5, no. 2 (December 1998): 1-30. [↩]