Workshop Program

The question is not whether we should consider culture as a relevant factor when studying conflict. Culture is the "lens" through which we view and experience conflict. The salient questions are instead: To what extent do we recognize the pervasiveness of culture in understanding conflict? In what ways do we use our recognition to help resolve conflict more constructively?

1. Beginning to Understand the Cultural Context

   1. Our Cultural Profile

   2. Our Perceptions of Others' Cultural Profile

   3. Interactive Dynamics: Framing and Gaming

   4. Extending Beyond the "People" Component-Institutional Cultures

2. Tensions Between Accepting Pervasiveness of Culture in Conflict and American Legal Traditions

   1. Social and Political: Challenges in defining a culture and risks of stereotyping

   2. Philosophical: Legal principles as predicated on assumptions of uniform application

   3. Practical: How to utilize and implement. Knowledge, application, skill development and psychological transitions

1. Think of a heated dispute where different parties experienced and described the conflict differently. How did these differences come about? How did the individuals involved, the cultural norms, or the event itself contribute to these differences? How did the first person to describe the conflict shape the resolution process and outcome? If you were the mediator, how would these factors have influenced you, your way of handling the dispute, or the eventual outcome?

2. There are many ways in which we acquire our own, individual "culture", including the stories that we grew up with. Identify a favorite family story that deals with a conflict or dispute, either taken from a book or passed down orally. Reflect on how the story transmitted important values and approaches to resolving conflict.

3. Graphically depict your own "cultural map." You might begin by identifying key cultural groups to which you belong. For this exercise, you can define "cultural group" broadly to include groups that have influenced how you perceive the world and what is important to you. These might include your family, ethnic, religious, school, or occupational group. Be creative in how you depict your map. It might be a circle with free-flowing lines to depict the relative importance of and interrelationships between each group.  

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   ^*These teaching ideas are excerpted from The Conflict & Culture Reader (ed. by Pat K. Chew, NYU Press, 2001). This book offers interdisciplinary readings in four parts. Each part includes introductory material, commentary on research, and teaching ideas linked to the readings. The tensions between cultural relativism and universalism are addressed throughout the book.

   Part I introduces some fundamental inquiries: What is culture? What is conflict? Why should we study their relationship?

   Part II considers how gender and conflict are interrelated and the ensuing implications of these interrelationships-noting various ways in which individuals of different genders may approach confliction resolution differently and be differentially impacted .

   Part III surveys issues on race, ethnicity, and conflict, particularly in the United States. Readings explore dispute resolution approaches and different perceptions of conflict between Whites and Blacks, between different minority groups, and within ethnic groups.

   Part IV explores global perspectives on culture and conflict, drawing from a range of geographical contexts--noting for instance, cultures which prioritize peacefulness over other goals and the cultural contrast between the Middle East and Western philosophies of conflict.
   

   chew@law.pitt.edu