Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict
Introduction:
Tamra d'Estrée observes that getting people of similar "levels" or professions from opposing sides together can be an eye-opening experience.
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Same Level, Different Sides
Tamra d'Estrée
Conflict Resolution Program, University of Denver
So you know about John Paul's model, you can bring
grassroots leaders together or you might bring mid-level influentials together
or you might bring elites together, and there's something about having those
kind of people from comparable status that when the people get together they
listen with different ears. So you have people that are all professionals. Maybe
they're all either academics or professionals, engineers, business people, that
are at this meeting. And you have this person who is dressed like them, and in
the American context that they're all operating in now is at the same status and
level of respect.
And he's talking about this experience where he couldn't speak his language and
use his name. They perk up and really listen to something like that because he
seems so similar. It helps to really re-humanize the other because in so many of
these conflicts you dehumanize the other and you don't see that that's what
allows you to perpetuate the conflict. So anything you're doing that
re-humanizes the other can be a little chink in the armor that let's you think,
well, okay, he had this terrible experience because of the way our language laws
are structured or because of the way we don't recognize other people's languages
in our culture, and he's kind of like me in many ways.
I think it helps people have more empathy for the actual on-the-ground
impacts of oppression or structural injustice. I think it's some of the stories
that sometimes people tell that then humanize them and their group for the
other. It makes the other side stop and pay attention because it's such a
personal story and they see the issue maybe in a slightly different way. On the
flip side, for the person on the other side listen respectfully to you while
you're telling your story about this, may have never ever happened before. This
may be a very emotional experience to tell the story and have the other side, as
represented in these other people sitting across from you, actually hear you for
the first time.
The pens which write against disarmament are made with the same steel from which guns are made. -- Aristide Briand
Featured Links Organizations Making Noteworthy Contributions to Efforts to Promote More Constructive Conflict Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
Other Resources from Beyond Intractability Interview With John Paul Lederach One of the most captivating peacebuilders of our time talks about his work.
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
Yitzhak Rabin Former Prime Minister of Israel, and 1994 Nobel Peace Laureate
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
