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Activity - The three lenses of conflict transformation
| Purpose: |
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| Time: | At least 1 hour. The activity can generate several hours of discussion/work between participants. |
| Participants: | Any number. |
| Materials: |
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| Process: | I) Share the following parable with the plenary: One day, a woman walked through a quarry and asked three different workers what they were doing. The first worker responded, “I am here breaking stones.” The woman walked on through the quarry and asked a second worker the same question. The second responded, “I am earning a living.” She walked further yet and asked a third worker the same question. The third responded, “I am building a cathedral!” Ask participants to reflect on the parable in silence for a few minutes. You can have the parable as a handout (handout 1, below) and distribute it to participants; alternatively you can have it written in a visual aid (flip chart, over-head projector of PP slide). II) Use questions to investigate participants understanding of the parable. Questions may include:
IV) Divide the plenary in teams of 5-6 people. Assign the following task: "Consider a conflict (programme, project) that you know rather well. Describe its essential features and then:Invite each time to take note of their essential findings and to select a spokesperson to report these back to the rest of the plenary after teamwork. Assign sufficient time for each team to complete the assignment. V) Invite the spokesepersons of each team to present their findings to the rest of the plenary. Encourage questions and feedback from participants. |
| Handouts: | Handout 1 - The parable ot the Quarry One day, a woman walked through a quarry and asked three different workers what they were doing. The first worker responded, “I am here breaking stones.” The woman walked on through the quarry and asked a second worker the same question. The second responded, “I am earning a living.” She walked further yet and asked a third worker the same question. The third responded, “I am building a cathedral!” Source: Adapted from Neufeldt, R., Fast, L., et al., Peacebuilding: A Caritas Training Manual, Vatican City, Caritas Internationalis, 2002, pp. 80-81. The manual is avialable in a free pdf file at www.caritas.org. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Handout 2 - The three lenses of conflict transformation In everyday settings we often experience conflict as a disruption in the natural flow of our relationships. We notice or feel that something is not right. Suddenly we find ourselves more attentive to things we had taken for granted. The relationship becomes complicated, not as easy and smooth as it once was. Our feelings change and translate from uneasiness to anxiety to even outright pain. In such a situation we often experience a growing sense of urgency leading to deeper and deeper frustration as the conflict progresses, especially if no end is in sight.if someone not involved in the situation asks, “what is the conflict about?” we can translate our explanations into a kind of conflict topography which is a map of the peaks and valleys of our conflict. The peaks are what we see as the significant challenges in the conflict, often with an emphasis with the most recent, the one we are now climbing. (illustrate this with a drawing). Often we identify this mountain we are currently climbing as the primary issue or issues we are dealing with (the content of the conflict). The valleys represent failures, the inability to negotiate adequate solutions. This map illustrates our tendency to view conflict by focusing on the immediate “presenting” problems. We give our energy to reducing anxiety and pain by looking for a solution to the presenting problems without seeing the bigger map of the conflict itself. We also tend to view the conflict as a series of challenges and failures –peaks and valleys-without a real sense of the underlying causes and forces in the conflict. Conflict transformation is a way of looking as well as seeing. Looking requires lenses that draw attention and help us become aware. To see is to look beyond and deeper. CT suggests a set of lenses through which we view social conflict. Illustrate this with eye glasses-assuming I have a set of eye glasses with three different lens types within the same lens. Each has its own function. One lens brings into focus things at a great distance the would otherwise be blurred; a second brings into clarity things that are mid-range like computer screen; and the final reading or magnifying lens helps in reading a book. Since no one lens is capable of bringing everything into focus, we need multiple lens to see different aspects of a complex reality. The three lenses as proposed by John Paul Lederach are:
Source: Adapted from Lederach J.P., The Little Book of Conflict Transformation, Good Books, 2003. See also Lederach, John Paul and Michelle Maiese. "Conflict Transformation." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: October 2003 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/transformation/>. |
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