2. Conflicts
• Conflicts exist when there is incompatibility of interest or goals-
traditionally defined as the perception of incompatible activities
(goals, claims, beliefs, values, wishes, actions, feelings, etc.). An
incompatible activity “prevents, obstructs, interferes, injures”
(Deutsch, 1973, p. 10) or in some way makes less likely or less
effective another activity.
• Apart from contradictions, conflicts generate negative attitudes
and attendant behaviour ( Galtung’s ABC triangle)
• Latent conflicts will have to become manifest ones before they can
be resolved.
• Management addresses negative behaviour- resolution addresses
incompatibility, and transformation seeks to address all with
particular focus on attitudes and relationships.
3. Some preliminaries
• Conflicts often serve a social function of acting as a
harbinger of desirable social changes. So not always
bad ( Chinese word for crisis has two symbols- one
represents danger, the other represents opportunity)
• Conflicts can be expressed creatively as well as
destructively
• Conflicts can take place at different levels and the
conflict processes have a similar trajectory. Also,
conflict resolution skills are transferable from one level
to another.
• Conflict resolution skills such as facilitation, negotiation
and mediation can be learned and practised
4. Modern Conflict Resolution
• Western in origin- focus on rational problem solving
to achieve win-win ( mutually satisfying) outcomes
• Fight-games- debates
• Focus on principled negotiation – not soft, not hard
• Direct negotiations ideal- but may not be possible
due to high degree of mistrust or asymmetry or lack
of skills
• Intermediaries come in either as facilitators or as
directive ones
5. Gandhi
• A lawyer turned mediator- believed that lawyers should
become mediators rather than promoters of litigation without
perhaps compromising on their fees
• Litigation- time consuming- parties loose control over the
issue- costly
• Focus on transformation of conflicts based on a relational
world view
6. High Context and Low Context
Cultures
• High context cultures are collective cultures where individual
identity is intimately linked to that of the community ( eg.
Indian)
• Questions of face, prestige etc., matter much more in such
societies
• In contrast, in low context ( individualistic ) cultures , people
are more concerned about protecting their interest even at
the expense of community and are less concerned with
questions such as face saving
7. Conflict styles
• Competing: relies on aggressive communication;
low regard for relationships; low level of trust
• Accommodating: one’s needs yielded to others’
needs; preserving the relationship is most
important
• Avoiding: if we ignore it, it will go away; instead,
conflict festers
• Compromising: series of tradeoffs; satisfactory
but not satisfying
• Collaborating: pooling of individual needs and
goals toward a common goal; “win-win”
8. Social Work and Conflict Resolution
• Case of mutual neglect
• The problem-solving approach of social work is closely related
to the interest-based bargaining approach of Fisher and Ury
• mediation was one area of focus of US-based Social workers-
especially divorce and custody
• Mediation compatible with SW because its goal is to help
parties to solve their own problems- to empower people in
conflict- self-management –mark its neoliberal overtone
• But mediation is not just another application of social work
skills
9. Social Work and Conflict Resolution
Contd
• Both emphasize
• self-determination – elicitive vs prescriptive
• Empowerment –problem-solving vs
transformative ( empowerment of the weak)
• Professional ethics ( neutrality vs advocacy)
• Victim-offender reconciliation is one area
where SW and CR practitioners come together
10. The Plight of the Family
• Family as a factor contributing to societal
stability and feelings of safety
• New generation problems and the family law-
• Of the 23.43lakh divorced or separated
women 1.96 or 8.36% are in Kerala
• Number of family courts – now 20- casesa
have increased from 8456 in 2005-6 to 11600
in 2009-10
11. Family Courts
• Many countries have set up family courts
• Indian family courts Act 1984 – women’s role especially Durgabhai
Desmukh
• Most judges are men-gender sensitivity – unattractive career prospects
• Counselors – often part time- in TN frequently changed
• Some cases, pro-active judges as counselors – not their original mandate
• Same type adversarial process – the presence of lawyers although original
intention was to minimise it – against the very sprit of informality
• Undue pressure exercised on women for reconciliation
• An average of 21 visits before a case is settled
12. Family Mediation
FM is an alternative to a court-based system of
dispute processing- less adversarial- speaks of
the possibility of binding ruptured
relationships -not worsening it through
litigation- broadening the space for more
options for settlement with the help of a third
party.
Parties are more likely to honour an agreement
that they themselves have reached
13. Balancing Power Differentials
• Social Work, being a helping profession can hardly
remain neutral- ethical responsibility to support the
weaker party during mediation
• A number of techniques used without compromising
neutrality- organising the physical environment-
setting and enforcing ground rules for behaviour-
managing and controlling communication between
parties- supporting the weaker party to express
ideas , needs etc. shuttling between the parties
(caucuses)
14. Violence and Power
• Violence creates extreme imbalance of power- victim
not able to express herself fully- Victim is inhibited
from opposing the batterer’s terms for fear of
retribution
• Decriminalization and privatisation of family violence
despite the Domestic Violence Act
• Some oppose mediation in family violence say
violence will then become a relational rather than a
criminal problem. Since mediation is futuristic, it
discounts the impact of past behaviour
15. Violence and Mediation
• Those for mediation in violence say the legal route
will not provide any better solution to the victim, but
only exacerbate the adversarial process. Mediation
can assist the victim to confront the offender
• Another group would say that mediation prospects
depend on the nature of violence- female initiated
violence , interactive violence , violence caused by
divorce trauma etc are more amenable to mediation
• In any case, one-off mediation not advisable due to
the risk of further abuse
16. Children as stakeholders
• Concern for well being of the child – an
advocate for child rights
• Child-inclusive mediation in some countries
• But the danger of children’s views being
influenced by those of their custodial parent
17. Mediation may not work if
• A person or his/her children have been verbally, physically,
emotionally or sexually abused by the other person
• One person fears the other person or doesn't trust the other
party to be fair or honest
• One person is not ready emotionally to mediate
• The mediator is not treating either party fairly
• One person has difficulty making decisions
• There is a power imbalance the mediator cannot neutralize
18. A Final Word
• Can we not create a mechanism by which family
disputes are processed outside the court system in
an informal manner free from the legalistic
environment that lawyers provide?
• Can we not allow willing couples deciding to separate
to do so in a manner that they preserve minimal
relations that can positively impact on their children?
• Social Workers have a key role to make it happen
