Conflict Resolution Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Subjects:

• Law » Law (General)
• Multicultural Studies » Multicultural Studies (General)

Reviews:

• Whether we speak of the 'science' or 'art' of the 'resolution' or 'management' of conflict, it is increasingly clear that differences among persons and groups cannot and should not always be left to be acted out by the dissenting parties or subjected to judicial litigation. In fact, the very ideas that individuals are autonomous in crucial ways, and that a judge or jury is important to assure rational decisionmaking, are culturally imbedded attitudes and values rather than objective parameters of universal social relationships. Most of this book contains case studies of how various 'non-Western nonindustrial societies resolve or fail to resolve their own internal conflicts' (p.ix). The history of 'alternative dispute resolution' and its recent emergence in the US are traced; 'harmony' and 'confrontational' models of law are contrasted cross-culturally; and case studies cover British academia, Lebanese managers, the Dou Donggo of Indonesia, Tobi, Micronesia, urban Costa Rica, Solomon Islands, and Hawaii. Emphasis on the cultural construction of personhood, the 'moral economy' (p.10) of a community, and the views of the participants, in this culturally relative approach are valuable in affording genuine insight into a variety of modes of conflict resolution, many of which appear to be socially and psychologically less stressful and more rewarding than the dominant adversarial model. Community-college level and up.
  —Choice
• The papers are of a uniformly high quality, and group together well. The volume will help to advance a perspective widely held by legal anthropologists and by scholars in law and society studies. It should alert conflict-resolution practitioners to the importance of studying culture.
  —American Anthropologist

Table of Contents:

• Series Foreword
• Introduction: Culture and Conflict Resolution by Kevin Avruch
• Conflict Resolution in the United States: The Emergence of a Profession? by Joseph A. Scimecca
• Harmony Models and the Construction of Law by Laura Nader
• Tertius Luctans: Idiocosm, Caricature and Mask by F. G. Bailey
• Interpersonal Conflict Management Styles of Jordanian Managers by Kamil Kozan
• Conflict Resolution and Moral Community among the Dou Donggo (Indonesia) by Peter Just
• Surprised by Common Sense: Local Understandings and the Management of Conflict on Tobi, Republic of Belau by Peter W. Black
• Of Nets, Nails, and Problems: A Folk Language of Conflict Resolution in a Central American Setting by John Paul Lederach
• Rhetoric, Reality and Resolving Conflicts: Disentangling in a Solomon Islands Society by Geoffrey M. White
• Ho'oponopono: Straightening Family Relationships in Hawaii by E. Victoria Shook and Leonard Ke'ala Kwan
• Selected Bibliography
• Index