Critical Conflict Resolution at Historical Materialism in Toronto

Alaa Kamel, an S-CAR MS Student, and I, Sarah Rose-Jensen, a PhD candidate at S-CAR, presented a panel discussion titled "Resolving Contradiction: Developing a Left Praxis from the Corpse of Conflict Resolution" at the 2014 Historical Materialism Conference at York University, Toronto.  Kamel’s paper, “Arab Socialism Now?” explored the history of socialism in Egypt, the role of Egyptian socialists in the Revolution of 2013, and the potential for socialism in Egypt as it continues it’s transition.  My paper, “Let Our Revolution Begin in Our Art: Altermodernity and Critical Conflict Theory,” attempted to bring altermodernity, an emerging movement in art, into critical conflict theory.  Both papers were developed out of a paper presented by Michael English and Derek Sweetman at the Association for Conflict Resolution conference in 2013, entitled “Critical Conflict Resolution: Notes on its Development and Key Concepts”, which was an attempt to synthesize some of the concepts that were developed from work in the now-defunct Unrest magazine, a journal of critical conflict resolution, and conflict 695, Critical Conflict Resolution, a course taught by Michael and Derek.

Derek and Michael in their article, defined critical conflict resolution as:

An emerging branch of conflict resolution theory, research, and practice concerned with systemic conflicts.  It is made up of three separate functions of intellectual work and practice all focused on systemic conflicts, situations where political, social, and economic inequalities are transformed into antagonistic, asymmetric power relationships that are sustained and reproduced through violence.

Historical Materialism Toronto, was an excellent venue for exploring these ideas.  The conference program stated the goals and ideological focus of the conference thus:

Confronted with a global context of austerity, exploitation, imperialist aggression, ongoing colonialism, and ecological crises, the world has been witness to growing social and political struggles over the past decade. A wide range of rural- and urban-based labour and social movements have fought back against the current ‘Age of Austerity,’ while new modes and geographies of resistance against dispossession and tyranny continue to inspire social change in the Global South. Against this backdrop, the 2014 Historical Materialism conference at Toronto’s York University will aim to contribute to a collective discussion on how to extend and revitalize Left critique and praxis in the current conjuncture.

The papers that Alaa and I presented sought to do just this, in Egypt and in conflict resolution as a whole.

While in Toronto, we were able to meet students and professors from all over Canada, and we were impressed with how they blend scholarship and activism.  In particular, we enjoyed talking with French Canadian students from Quebec who led a successful student strike in protest of tuition increases.  Many of these students were in the urban planning department at the Université du Québec à Montréal and were engaged in research on how to make urban areas more mixed and thus more friendly and accessible to women, children, and other marginalized groups; an issue that seems salient for the DC and northern Virginia areas as well.

Both Alaa’s and my research are on-going.  This summer, she is traveling to Egypt to conduct several months of field-work.  I will be conducing field work in Cambodian on a different project but am continually engaged with bringing art, drama, dance, and movement into conflict resolution, in an attempt to create a more holistic model which works with different manifestations and causes of conflict.  Our larger project of critical conflict resolution is moving into a new phase from agitation, demanding critical alternatives, to reflection, considering what alternatives may exist to “traditional” conflict resolution.