Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict

Introduction: Peter Coleman explains how intractable conflicts can be framed negatively or positively through envisioning a better future.

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Framing Intractable Conflicts
Peter Coleman
Assistant Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Director of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia

Interviewed by
Julian Portilla
2003

And there are other kinds of decisions like whether or not the conflict is framed as a problem or in more of a promotive way as an ideal situation that you to create. So do you approach intractable conflicts as problems to be solved, or do you approach them as the need to create a vision for the future which is like what Elise Boulding would do in the future imaging stuff. Those are important distinctions and they have an impact on the system...

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Beyond Intractability Version IV
Copyright © 2003-2007 The Beyond Intractability Project
Beyond Intractability is a Registered Trademark of the University of Colorado
Project Acknowledgements

The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project
Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors and Editors
c/o Conflict Information Consortium (Formerly Conflict Research Consortium), University of Colorado
Campus Box 580, Boulder, CO 80309
Phone: (303) 492-1635; Fax: (303) 492-2154; Contact