A Voice Worth Listening to

Scholars in the field of conflict analysis and resolution (CAR) are perfectly situated to find meaning in their work and through their contribution, their voice. However, finding one’s voice is not usually associated with higher education and is often viewed as detrimental to serious academic arguments. Establishing a distinct voice academically seems to go against the Freirian concept that bell hooks describes as the “banking system of education…based on the assumption that memorizing information and regurgitating it [represent] gaining knowledge that [can] be deposited, stored, and used at a later date.”¹ But what does finding your voice entail? Why is this search so important? What are the pitfalls of employing this voice once it is found and how can we avoid those pitfalls? In the CAR field, there is a strong focus on theory. At the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) at George Mason University for instance, we learn about John Burton’s Basic Human Needs and Robert Merton’s Relative Deprivation, but when it comes time to write our own analysis, where should our own voice be placed? There are two levels of this problem: the interpersonal level inherent at S-CAR everyday and the larger issue of what CAR’s voice is and whether it is a voice worth listening to.

In order to incorporate student voice in the classroom, we must first understand what we mean by student voice. “Student voice is the term used to describe students’ expressing their understanding of their learning process. Student performance improves when students understand the purpose of a lesson or activity. Students are encouraged to focus on the intended knowledge, skill, or behavior in the lesson.”² This self-reflective exercise is advocated for and employed in earlier grade levels but does not seem to be actively encouraged as students move through undergraduate and graduate studies. Perhaps this has not been emphasized because students are expected to be capable of critical reflection and their studies are subsequently self-evident. However, this reflection gives new depth to the study and can bring to light alternative ways of viewing the issue at hand–both for students and teachers.

This use of voice is essential to the CAR field because it humanizes the experience. bell hooks speaks of the “engaged voice”³ in the classroom where one is using a critical consciousness and constantly questioning their own ideas. This questioning in the safe space of the classroom allows students to test different voices before they find their own and the practice ensures that these future practitioners can be capable of action when there are real consequences in real conflict settings.

The undertaking of finding and using one’s voice is a joint process and must be done in collaboration and with understanding. In education, it is important to look at what has prevented students from using their voices in the past and what can help them engage critically with their voice in the future. The power dynamics in classrooms are subtle and are partially responsible for preventing students from finding their voices. The way that teachers and students interact in a traditional educational setting does not often give students agency but rather expects the students to adapt to the teaching style instead of giving them room to make mistakes in order to find and use their voices.

While finding one’s voice is a beneficial exercise, there are several pitfalls. Like hooks states, classrooms should become “therapy sessions” and replace critical analysis. The danger is that there will be too much emotion and not enough theory. If there is too much venting without the necessary critical analysis, there will be both a lack of understanding of and regard for the theories that built the field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Rather than an either-or scenario (either theory or voice), it is important to encourage a conversation between these two modes of analysis. This critical analysis is what Paulo Friere calls praxis–the self-reflective process which circles between theory and individual practice (voice). Criticizing theory, especially as it relates to conflict and post-conflict situations, is a critical skill to hone; however, honing one’s voice is equally as important. As future CAR practitioners, most S-CAR students expect to be ‘in the field’ one day where theories may not be relevant and his or her individual voice will be criticized. If this voice is not used, practiced, and challenged in the classroom, how can students be expected to enter the field as capable practitioners?

The field is at a crossroad and there are several directions that it could go. There are those who would like to keep it a strict social science, but even the social sciences are being forced to rethink their role. In anthropology, applied anthropology courses have become more and more common. This trend shows a move toward an inclusion and acceptance of individual voice in the field and an acceptance that the field’s foundational theories can be questioned and changed—a step that requires uncertainty and imagination, an uncertainty that should be familiar to CAR practitioners.⁴

The question remains: what is the voice of CAR and is it worth listening to? The CAR field and its practitioners are uniquely positioned to examine conflict. Though each scholar may have a unique point of view, our training requires flexibility, nuance, understanding, and the ability to think creatively. There have been amazing strides made in the CAR field, but these strides have been made largely by anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and psychologists—ultimately, those who do not primarily define themselves as CAR scholars. But what about those contributions made by scholars trained in the CAR field and who exist wholly within it? These voices must be the ones heard as the field moves forward. CAR students must be encouraged to test their voices in the classroom so they are able to use it with confidence in a wide variety of conflict-related professions. Young scholars must be willing and encouraged to take risks in the classroom so that the resulting voice of the CAR field aligns with the well intentioned values that have governed the field since its inception.

1. bell hooks , Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994), 5. [↩]
2. Washington Professional Educator Standards Boards. “Defining Student Voice.” Washington ProTeach Portfo- lio (2009): n. pag. Web. < http://www.waproteach.com/rsc/pdf/WAProTeachStudentVoice.pdf> [↩]
3. ibid. 1, at 11. [↩]
4. See Alessandra Cuccia’s article “Pracademics in the Field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution” (this issue) for more on this topic [↩]