Working with Conflict 2: Skills and strategies for action

Authors: Simon Fisher, Vesna Matovic, Bridget Ann Walker, and Dylan Mathews. Review by Catherine Henderson.

When I began reading Working with Conflict 2: Skills and strategies for action, I thought it wouldn’t really be directly applicable to me. I don’t work for an NGO or in a conflict situation; my experience is parochial rather than global. But I was mistaken.

We all find ourselves in conflict situations. My inclination is to avoid them if at all possible but my neighbourhood is currently divided into ‘mowers’ and ‘non-mowers’, a conflict I inadvertently triggered by asking the man who mows our green to spare a patch of wild flowers. The ‘mowers’ appear to have won, by a narrow margin, but I am skulking indoors planning my next move…

This is a practical manual for people in conflict situations, but it is also a resource for everyone working for change, because all change involves conflict of some kind. As the book says, ‘Conflict (as distinct from violence) is an opportunity for constructive change, a “request” for engagement to build a better relationship, community or society’. So it is a book about transformation, social and political but also personal, because we cannot bring about change without first examining and questioning our own worldviews. We need to ‘unlearn’ as well as learn, and we need to look back and see where assumptions, beliefs and social systems are rooted. The authors’ definition of violence is helpful here: ‘violence occurs in any situation where people are avoidably prevented from reaching their full potential.’ We need empathy and imagination to propel us forward and help us see how things can be different.

Active listening – listening without judgement to really hear and understand another person – is the starting point for conflict transformation. Everyone needs to know that they are heard. This opens up a space for understanding. People who feel ignored, not listened to, are, I think, more vulnerable to manipulation by populist politicians, and so democracy is undermined if we don’t listen.

As I read through the book, I began to see conflict as an opportunity rather than a problem, and to understand that it comes about when people think they have incompatible goals. The aim, as Working with Conflict 2 describes it, is for conflict to become ‘a problem to solve between us’. And this applies to conflicts of all kinds and proportions, including ours over mowing the green.
This is a wise and inspiring book to return to. Lead author Simon Fisher gave the 2004 Swarthmore Lecture ‘Spirited Living: Waging conflict, building peace’. Bridget Walker is a Quaker living in Oxford. Vesna Matovic, of International Alert, was a colleague at Responding to Conflict. Dylan Mathews of Peace Direct supported the book as editor. The richness of experience of the authors and many others informs the book.

The first volume was translated into many languages and has helped tens of thousands of peace practitioners. This one is generous, visionary and hopeful, and will be invaluable to current practitioners.

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