Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution
Alternatives to Violence
Douglas P. Fry and Kaj Björkqvist (Eds.)
1997, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah NJ
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Enhanced conflict resolution skills and institutions are an absolute necessity as humanity enters the 21st century. Given current patterns of interpersonal violence, a growing international arms trade, human rights abuses, the development of computerized battlefields, and even more lethal weaponry, violence is simply too dangerous a strategy to pursue or permit.
This volume explores possibilities for resolving conflicts without violence. The endeavor is multidisciplinary. We have invited scholars from fields such as psychology, anthropology, and political science to gain broader perspectives than any one discipline can offer on its own. Our hope is to bring together in one volume conflict-resolution descriptions and approaches from diverse academic perspectives and from different cultures and nations, in order to facilitate comparisons and syntheses within the young but rapidly developing field of conflict resolution. In introductory and concluding chapters, linkages among the contributions are formed, highlighting certain themes and subthemes. Three overall themes are emphasized, each of which could be derived from a consideration of the title of the volume.
The first theme is that alternatives to violence do exist. One reason for making this theme explicit is because of prevalent beliefs in Western culture that warfare is inevitable, due to the "fact" that aggression is an innate, biological drive. Human nature and human institutions are flexible, and levels of violence vary from one cultural setting to the next, with some cultures expressing extremely lox levels of violence. The contributions in this volume provide various examples of conflict-resolution processes that lead away from violence.
A second theme, reflected in the title and throughout the book, is that culture is critical in shaping the manner in which people perceive, evaluate, and choose options for dealing with conflict. Conflict resolution, as a cultural phenomenon, is highly connected with and dependent on a society’s relevant norms, practises, and institutions. Different cultures develop their own formal and informal ways of dealing with conflicts. This fact becomes even more important when people from different ethnic, religious, racial, and social backgrounds attempt to solve their conflicts.
As a third theme, we suggest that by studying conflict resolution from different cultural settings, it will be possible to enhance the repertoire of alternatives to violence and to discover general conflict-resolution strategies. Conflicts are often categorized according to a variety of criteria such as: conflict between groups vs. interpersonal within-group conflict; dyadic, triadic, and n-party conflict; symmetric vs. asymmetric conflict; conflict about vital resources vs. ideological conflict; conflict between nations vs. ethnic conflict within nations; overt conflict vs. latent or institutionalized conflict; and so on. Likewise, conflict resolution may be categorized according with different criteria such as interest-based, rights-based, or power-based; bilateral or trilateral; formal or informal; involving conciliators, mediators, arbitrators, judges, repressive peacemakers, and so on; problem solving involving integrated solutions, compromises, or determining a procedure for who wins; topic-focused or emotional-focused; and so on. The contributions in this volume contain a wealth of ideas for dealing with conflict, and when viewed as a collection, they also suggest certain conflict-resolution principles that may be applied over a variety of settings.
Virtually every chapter in this volume touches upon the diversity and the importance of cultural factors on conflict-resolution practises. Since learning and encultural processes are of critical importance in shaping people’s attitudes towards conflict resolution, particular attention also is given to the socialization process. Several chapters in this volume focus on this central aspect, describing prevention programs that target youth violence.
We hope that the book will be useful not only to researchers, but also that it will facilitate conflict-resolution praxis and teaching at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels. We are grateful for any suggestions or criticism that readers would like to convey to us. Please feel free to write to us. We would particularly appreciate information on how the book has been applied in training and teaching situations.
Editors:
Douglas P. Fry, anthropology, Eckerd College, St. Petersberg, FL, and Åbo Akademi Univ., Finland
Kaj Björkqvist, psychology, Åbo Akademi Univ., Finland
CONTRIBUTORS
Nobel Peace Price recipient Oscar Arias
Nobel Peace Price recipient Elie Wiesel
(and, in alphabetical order):
H. Kimberley Cook, anthropology, UCLA
Leonard D. Eron, psychology, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ivo K. Feierabend, political science, San Diego State Univ.
Adam Fraczek, psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
C. Brooks Fry, United Growth Research Organizations, Houston, TX
Johan Galtung, peace studies, Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, and Univ. Witten, Germany
Ilsa M. Glazer, behavioral sciences, City Univ. of New York
Nancy G. Guerra, psychology, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
Jan Hjärpe, islamology, Univ. of Lund, Sweden
C. Richard Hofstetter, political science, San Diego State Univ.
Douglas Hollan, anthropology, UCLA
L. Rowell Huesmann, psychology, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Martina Klicperova, psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
Kirsti M. J. Lagerspetz, psychology, Turku Univ, Finland
Simha F. Landau, criminology, Hebrew Univ., Jerusalem
Melissa McCormick, anthropology, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
Mary K. Meyer, political science, Eckerd College, St. Petersberg, FL
Carolyn Nordstrom, peace and conflict studies, Univ. of California, Berkeley
Ernest G. Olson, anthropology, Wells College, Aurora, NY
Dan Olweus, psychology, Univ. of Bergen, Norway
Karin Österman, psychology, Åbo Akademi Univ., Finland
Concetta Pastorelli, psychology, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy
John Paul Scott, psychology, Bowling Green State Univ., Bowling Green, OH
Patrick H. Tolan, psychology, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
Richard Van Acker, psychology, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
