Faculty Book Reviews
Bridging Troubled Waters
Written By Michelle LeBaron, ICAR Faculty Member
Bridging Troubled Waters invites readers to place relationship at the center of practice and theory in conflict resolution. With relationship at the center, preoccupations with objectivity and technique give way to creativity and imagination. The heart of conflict resolution is relational change in which multiple intelligences are engaged to open new ways forward. Drawing on two decades as a scholar-practitioner, Michelle LeBaron explores four ways of knowing that are underutilized in conflict resolution. Each of the ways of knowing—emotional, somatic, imaginative/intuitive, and spiritual—are presented through stories and practical examples.
Their use is intended to compliment the repertoires of practitioners and scholars schooled in analysis and logic. Mediators, facilitators, and conflict parties are invited to explore how they can bridge conflict by tapping their physical selves that enact change; their feeling selves which are sources of empathy and genuineness; their dreaming selves from which arise imagination and vision; and their spirit selves where meaning is made and deep connections to others are forged. As these resources are tapped, change is more possible, drawing on human capacities to entertain ambiguity, cultivate openness to a range of outcomes, and deepen relationships. Bridging Troubled Waters suggests that longstanding conflict will be durably and effectively addressed when meanings and identities are acknowledged and invited to the table of change.
Meanings and identities are composed in continuous spirals within individuals and groups. Effectively addressing conflict requires engaging meanings, recognizing identities, and helping parties unfold new stories of who they were, who they are, and who they can be. Since parties to conflicts may bring very different worldviews, or ways of making sense of each other and issues, conflict processes cannot be prescribed from any one point of view or logic. Rather, effective conflict processes provide parties ways to work through symbols, metaphors, and stories that speak to them. Bridging Troubled Waters suggests that by embracing the art and science of conflict resolution, mediators and facilitators can develop their intuition, provide leadership in creativity, and tap new reservoirs of courage.
Approaches to Peacebuilding
Edited by Ho-Won Jeong, ICAR Faculty Member
This edited volume focuses on diverse processes and strategies for the transition from violent conflict to postconflict reconstruction. Reflecting on this theme, the contributors assess various strategies for peace building, and analyze policy objectives. The chapters focus on designs and models of peace building, the role of peacekeeping in transition to peace, capacity building through negotiation, reconciliation, social rehabilitation and gender and policy coordination among different components of peace building. The book also examines social and psychological as well as political factors that play an important role in success or failure of initiatives to bring peace.
It is important to survey major assumptions, objectives, and conditions under which peace building proceeds and has been implemented. Understanding the effectiveness of different elements of peace building is enhanced by examining how security, political, social, and economic components support each other in rebuilding the fabric of divided societies.
New conceptual understanding can be forged by examining functional relationships between different aspects of peace building in complex situations that involve multiple actors with diverse demands. In this book, various conditions for social and institutional changes are examined, and strategies to overcome destabilizing social effects and obstacles to reconciliation and reconstruction are explored.