Narratives Matter at ICAR: Center for the Study of Narrative and Conflict Resolution

Narratives matter. They are the architecture of consciousness; they both reflect and shape identity as well as govern interaction. Once institutionalized, dominant narratives anchor culture while marginalized counter-narratives struggle to gain traction. Conflict narratives consolidate patterns of exclusion and reciprocal delegitimation. Conflict transformation involves the evolution of these narratives toward narratives that complicate our understanding of history, challenge cultural assumptions, legitimize the marginalized and structure new solutions to wicked problems. From this perspective, conflict and its transformation involve attention to the politics of narrative as a struggle over meaning itself.

The Center for the Study of Narrative and Conflict Resolution (CNCR), directed by Sara Cobb, is a newly chartered center at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. It provides a hub for research, conversations on practice, workshops and consultations, connecting the research on narrative and conflict to the practice of narrative intervention in conflicts. The Center will be physically located on the 6th floor of the Truland building on the George Mason, Arlington Campus.  The mission of CNCR is: to advance the theory, practice and research on narrative processes in conflict dynamics; to anchor research on narrative processes in conflict dynamics within and across the faculty and students at ICAR and at Mason; and to create a “hub” for academics and practitioners around the world working on conflict resolution from a narrative lens.  There are several faculty at ICAR that have expressed interest in the Center and its work on narrative: Susan Hirsch, Susan Allen Nan, Solon Simmons, Neta Oren, Dan Rothbart, Karyna Korostelina, Jamie Price, Rich Rubenstein, and Carlos Sluzki.

There is an emerging group of students that, meeting over the fall, have worked on the development of their narrative practice skills as well as discussing the ethics of the narrative practice; they have formed the Narrative Practice Working Group and are developing their mission statement as well as a set of related projects, all tied to narrative practice. Stay tuned for updates from this vibrant group that includes, so far, Ivon Alcime, Courtney Burkey, Grace Chau, Jessica Cooley, Cecily Hutton, Julie Minde, Haruka Namayama, Jeanine Neal, RJ Nickels, Harbey Penas, Paul Redmond, Julian Shepard, and Lori Stephensen.  Additionally, there is a Working Paper Series under development at CNCR; Carlos Sluzki and Harbey Pena have agreed to function as editor/assistant editor. Should you have papers that address narrative dynamics in conflict processes, please do submit them to Carlos and Harbey. They are working to establish a review process and the papers published in this Working Paper Series will be posted on the CNCR website. Finally, a lecture series is under development; this series will provide an opportunity for faculty and students, from ICAR, Mason, and other universities to present works-in-progress.

CNCR is working on a variety of projects that convey narrative based theory, research and practice.  The Narrative Compression Project (Sara Cobb, Neta Oren, Jessica Cooley and Tres Thomas) is working to describe the realm of socio-politics as a “narrative field.” Which, ideally functions as a space in which diverse narratives can circulate, providing a foundation for healthy social and political debate and productive decision making processes.  However, there are political contexts where some narratives are granted legitimacy while any alternatives are marginalized. In this case, the narrative field becomes a smaller space that limits a comprehensive deliberative process. We are referring to this process as compression; it allows little or no access for counter narratives to the field and enables the dominant narrative to become the sole inhabitant of the discursive space. When counter-narratives are somehow able to penetrate the dominant, its architecture changes and it evolves. However, all too often the dominant narrative is also able to co-opt within its framework the basic ideas of counter narratives that exist on the outside without incorporating the latter’s core values. As a result, dominant narratives are allowed to masquerade as inclusive discourses while actually operating as a mechanism of marginalization. We are calling the process by which this condition is reversed narrative decompression. For both studies of narrative compression and narrative decompression we will developing case studies; we are at present working on the Middle East conflict as a context for examining narrative compression. Later this spring, we plan to host a seminar at CNCR and invite those interested in this conflict or in narrative dynamics to participate and share ideas.

The Voices of Marginalized Youth Initiative (directed by Greg Pirio, a Research Faculty at ICAR, in collaboration with Sara Cobb) seeks to understand and engage the voices of marginalized youth in specific project sites in the US and abroad, where narratives that name the concerns and perspectives of youth are not heard by the wider society, or worse, are delegitimized. The absence of a legitimate voice has dire consequences both for the youth themselves, who are confined within narrow and disadvantaged social horizons, and for the wider society, which is deprived the opportunity to know them and to respond more constructively to their needs and desires.  This initiative seeks to give voice to voiceless marginalized youth, as a means both of self-empowerment and of building new, more inclusive communities that are capable of generating greater caring and improved policy and other forms of responsiveness to youth. More specifically, the project involves engaging marginalized youth in the development of audio and video programs for TV, radio and the new media that enables them to tell the stories that matter to them from their communities, educating the public about their specific issues as well as their cultural and social perspectives within which those issues arise. Dr. Pirio is seeking funding to support this project; CNCR will play an important role in the evaluation of this project, helping to design the framework for documenting and assessing the “voices” that emerge from this project.

The Narrative Problem-Solving Project, directed by Sara Cobb, is embedded in a National Science Foundation (NSF) project that aims to generate an effective method for enabling “the convinced” and the “unconvinced” within the climate change conflict to engage each other, altering their patterns of reciprocal delegitimation. Ed Maibach is the Principal Investigator of this NSF project and is also the Director on the Center for Climate Change Communication at Mason; Sara Cobb is the co-PI. In this project Dr. Cobb will be running problem-solving workshops, designed from a narrative perspective, with groups of TV weathercasters who are in the “cross-hairs” of the conflict over climate change. These workshops provide an opportunity to develop a prototype of a narrative approach to problem-solving and will provide a case study of how this approach works. Meanwhile, the Narrative Practice Working Group at ICAR will be contributing to the conceptual development of the model and using it in simulations. This Narrative Problem-Solving Project will yield a model that will be offered as a workshop at Point of View, in the Spring 2011.

The Genocide Rescuers Project, directed by Jessica Cooley, MS student at ICAR, is a research project on the nature of the narratives that are told by rescuers in the Rwandan genocide. She is working to understand what makes these narratives different from perpetrator narratives, specifically in relation to how they position themselves, drawing on positioning theory. Working with a local NGO in Rwanda, drawing on the findings from her research, she is developing a manual for helping others adopt the narrative positioning processes that are characteristic of the rescuers.  She hopes this research, and the development of models for experiential learning, will contribute to genocide prevention.

As these and other projects develop, descriptions will be posted on the website where events will also be listed. For any faculty or students who wish to join the Narrative Practice working group, the meetings are on Tuesday from 5pm-7pm, Truland 530. We look forward to your involvement and
connection!