Constructive Conflict Initiative Blog
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Two years ago, we started the CCI Blog to share insights we had received about our then-new Constructive Conflict Initiative. The scope of the blog has expanded considerably since then, next focusing on COVID and its conflict implications, then on systemic racism with the murder of George Floyd, then on hyperpolarization and related challenges to democracy that have become increasingly evident (and serious) over the last several years.
In the fall of 2021, the BI Co-Directors Guy and Heidi Burgess and long-time BI contributor Sanda Kaufman were asked to write a “feature article” for the Conflict Resolution Quarterly on the topic of hyperpolarization. CRQ and we (the authors) hope that this article will stimulate a lot of discussion in our field about what more we can do to reduce hyperpolarization and the many harms it has wrought. To facilitate this, CRQ and BI are co-sponsoring a discussion on these topics, which we are blending into the ongoing CCI blog.
To contribute to the discussion, please send us your thoughts (however formal or informal, long or short) through the BI contact form. We are not opening up the blog/discussion to direct posting, since that risks falling victim to malicious bots. But we will post all contributions that are sent in good faith, (including, certainly, those that disagree with us). We’d also like to hear about work others are doing to address hyperpolarization (directly or indirectly) and studies/reports/analyses that address this or related topics. We also welcome contributions on other topics, as long as they relate to topics covered in BI (primarily intractable conflict).
Readers might also be interested in our Constructive Conflict Massive Open Online Seminar with its more extensive blog which includes additional BI content as well as links to the activities of our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues and articles exploring the larger context surrounding today's big conflicts.
Blog Posts
- Identify--and Scale Up--Your Areas of Influence -- As we struggle to do what we can to help address today's tough problems, it's worth thinking about our areas of influence and how they might be expanded. #mbi_cci -- Jul 06
- Carrie Menkel-Meadow: Words Matter! -- Words paint how we see and project ourselves and others, and how we act in the world. We need better words if we want to solve our problems. #mbi_cci -- Jun 30
- The Mass Media's Role in Conflict -- Our conflict problems are largely media problems--problems that lead us to wildly different images of the nature of problems like COVID or racism. #mbi_cci -- Jun 23
- Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess: COVID-10 and Civic Unrest - The Situation in Early June 2020 -- An article putting the forthcoming articles (about COVID and civil unrest) in context. -- Jun 09
- Living with Uncertainty in the COVID-19 Era -- An overview of common mistakes that people make when trying to deal with uncertain situations like COVID-19 (and strategies for avoiding them). #mbi_cci -- Jun 03
- Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess: COVID-19 and Civil Unrest -- An introduction to a set of posts on the intersection of intractable conflict, the pandemic, and civil unrest. -- Jun 02
- Chip Hauss: Going to Scale -- How peacebuilders can work with others to "scale up" their efforts to grapple with the many wicked problems currently facing humanity. -- Jun 01
- Collective Imaginaries for the World after Corona: Children and Youth's Imaginaries -- COVID-19's impact on youths' lives are substantial, but little discussed. This study seeks to collect youth's images of the present and future. -- May 31
- Dr Ivana Milojević: Minimizing Conflicts Amidst the Covi-19 Pandemic -- Information, resources, relationships, structures, and values cause conflict admist COVID19. But these conflicts are also opportunities. -- May 28
- Glenda Eoyang: Crush the Arrogance of Certainty -- We all want certainty and control. But it doesn't exist, and pretending it does is harming everyone. -- May 27
- Matt Legge: COVID-19 and Responses to Uncertainty -- An article explaining how uncertainty molds our response to the pandemic and other social challenges--and what should be done about it. -- May 21
- Louis Kriesberg: On Taking Action -- Fight despair by taking action--doing something relevant to you to address our personal and collective predicament. #mbi_colleague -- May 01
- Chip Hauss: Shifting from "Me First" to "We First" and Other "Takes" on the Coronavirus -- We must all worth together to address the pandemic--and all of the other complex, wicked problems we face. #mbi_cci -- Apr 27
- Chip Hauss: Shifting from "Me First" to "We First" and Other "Takes" on the Coronavirus -- Three blogs on how peacebuilders might approach their work in the era of COVID-19, -- Apr 25
- John Lande on the Crisis-New-Normal (CNN) and the Normal-New-Normal (NNN) -- "Normal" after the pandemic subsides is not going to be the "normal" we knew before. What will it look like? -- Apr 25
- Louis Kriesberg: On Taking Action -- Fight despair by taking action--doing something relevant to you to address our personal and collective predicament. -- Apr 25
- Mark Chupp - An Exponential Rise of Trust and Goodness -- Yes, Covid-19 is growing exponentially. But so, too, is goodness and trust, which can be harnessed to counter Covid. -- Apr 25
- Shannon Kupersmith: We are at a complicated intersection with lots of roads. What if we use this opportunity to move forward in a better dir -- Life as we knew it in 2019 is gone. The world is changing, so what if we use this opportunity to move forward in a better direction? -- Apr 20
- Alan Yarborough/Steven Paulikas: Another Reflection on the Choice Ahead of Us -- "Let us not lose our memory once all this is past, let us not file it away and go back to where we were." (Pope Francis) -- Apr 19
- John Paul Lederach: We Need Moral Imagination to Respond to Covid-19. -- We must respond to this pandemic by strengthening relationships, using curiosity and creativity, and taking risks to make things better. -- Apr 18
- Bruce Dayton: We're at a Crossroads between Tribalism and a New Supra-Ordinate Identity -- Do we want the conflicts of tribalism, or the benefits that come from helping each other in a time of mutual crisis? -- Apr 13
- Cynthia Cohen: Artists Can Help Us Frame Our Coronavirus Narrative -- What happens during and after Covid-19 will be largely influenced by the stories we tell about what is happening. -- Apr 11
