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Content - Peacebuilding, Learning and Change
Peacebuilding can have different purposes. Peacebuilding training can aim at building skills or capacity, sharing new theories, teaching techniques, developing participants’ inherent abilities and solving problems; other peacebuilding initiatives can aim at restoring confidence between divided communities, empowering disadvantaged groups in order to articulate and powerfully advocate for their interests, or finding commonalities between conflicting parties - and more. Yet, we think that there is a thread that is common to most of what we do in peacebuilding: we assert that most peacebuilding is essentially about helping people learn to deal differently with conflict. Let us try to push this a step further: it is about helping people restructure their cognition of conflict so that they can deal differently with it.
The use of the word “cognition” is purposeful. Cognition is “the process by which knowledge and understanding is developed in the mind”1. We can think of it is as the sum of our thoughts, perceptions, feelings and attitudes about something. Thus, when we say that most peace building is about helping people to re-structure their cognition of conflict we mean re-structuring their thoughts, perceptions, feelings and attitudes about conflict so that they can deal differently with it. There is no need to contend that the way we know and understand something is crucial for the way we deal with it. This is self-evident.
Fig. 1 – Restructuring our cognition of conflict
When we restructure our cognition of conflict we change. Thus, most peace building is about influencing change in human systems.
What is change? For Edgar Schein, Emeritus Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and one of the most influential thinkers in the field of change in human systems, change is a particular kind of learning: it is different from “new learning”, as it implies painful unlearning and difficult relearning2. An example will help illustrate the difference between change and new learning: if I attend a class in “quantum physics” and know nothing about it, what I will learn will be “new learning” for me. I do not need to unlearn the things I know about “quantum physics”, as I know nothing about it! But, if I attend a course on “negotiation” I cannot say that I know nothing about it: I negotiate with people everyday. The course will try to help me negotiate in a different way, that is to change - at least a little - the way I negotiate. In order to change the way I negotiate I need to unlearn my way - at least a little, maybe only 1% of what I currently know - and to relearn a more effective way. The same could be argued for training on “mediation”, “problem solving”, “conflict analysis” and most of the contents we associate with peacebuilding. We live with conflict3; we cannot say that learning to deal with conflict is “new learning” for any of us.
We can visualise “change” as a sub-area within learning. Its peculiarity is that it implies painful unlearning and difficult relearning.
Fig. 2 – Change as a particular kind of learning
With the next contents in this content chunk we will try to ground peace building in the field of change in human systems. That will make it possible for us to look at what decades of studies and applications in this multi-disciplinary field have learned to date – and to see what we can learn and apply to our peacebuilding work.
Source: mikicesari@gmail.com
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1Hornby, A. S. (ed.), Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 (6th ed.).
The use of the word “cognition” is purposeful. Cognition is “the process by which knowledge and understanding is developed in the mind”1. We can think of it is as the sum of our thoughts, perceptions, feelings and attitudes about something. Thus, when we say that most peace building is about helping people to re-structure their cognition of conflict we mean re-structuring their thoughts, perceptions, feelings and attitudes about conflict so that they can deal differently with it. There is no need to contend that the way we know and understand something is crucial for the way we deal with it. This is self-evident.
| Thoughts + Perceptions + Feelings + Attitudes = -------------------- Cognition of conflict |  Resctructuring | Results in dealing differently with conflict |
Fig. 1 – Restructuring our cognition of conflict
When we restructure our cognition of conflict we change. Thus, most peace building is about influencing change in human systems.
What is change? For Edgar Schein, Emeritus Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and one of the most influential thinkers in the field of change in human systems, change is a particular kind of learning: it is different from “new learning”, as it implies painful unlearning and difficult relearning2. An example will help illustrate the difference between change and new learning: if I attend a class in “quantum physics” and know nothing about it, what I will learn will be “new learning” for me. I do not need to unlearn the things I know about “quantum physics”, as I know nothing about it! But, if I attend a course on “negotiation” I cannot say that I know nothing about it: I negotiate with people everyday. The course will try to help me negotiate in a different way, that is to change - at least a little - the way I negotiate. In order to change the way I negotiate I need to unlearn my way - at least a little, maybe only 1% of what I currently know - and to relearn a more effective way. The same could be argued for training on “mediation”, “problem solving”, “conflict analysis” and most of the contents we associate with peacebuilding. We live with conflict3; we cannot say that learning to deal with conflict is “new learning” for any of us.
We can visualise “change” as a sub-area within learning. Its peculiarity is that it implies painful unlearning and difficult relearning.
| LEARNING | |
| CHANGE Painful unlearning Difficult relearning |
Fig. 2 – Change as a particular kind of learning
With the next contents in this content chunk we will try to ground peace building in the field of change in human systems. That will make it possible for us to look at what decades of studies and applications in this multi-disciplinary field have learned to date – and to see what we can learn and apply to our peacebuilding work.
Source: mikicesari@gmail.com
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1Hornby, A. S. (ed.), Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 (6th ed.).
2Schein, E. H., “From Brainwashing to Organizational Therapy: A Conceptual and Empirical Journey in Search of “Systemic” Health and a General Model of Change Dynamics”, in Reflections, Vol. 6 Nos. 8-10, URL=< http://www.solonline.org/repository/item?item_id=8942618>.
3Social sciences have moved a long way since the time when conflict was considered a dysfunction of human relations. John Burton was among the thinkers who helped qualifying conflict as a natural aspect of human interaction, an intrinsic element of relations. See Burton, J., Conflict: Resolution and PreventionConflict: Human Needs Theory (vol. 2 of the Conflict Series), London: Macmillan, 1990. (vol. 1 of the Conflict Series), London: Macmillan, 1990.
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Latest page update: made by mikicesari
, Apr 8 2009, 4:00 AM EDT
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Keyword tags:
attitudes
change
cognitive restructuring
content
difficult relearning
feelings
learning
painful unlearning
peacebuilding
perceptions
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