Katrina Abatis

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CSS Blog

Mediation Perspectives: Culturally Oriented Mediation

 

Image courtesy of Alamy.

Mediation Perspectives is a regular series of blog contributions by the CSS Mediation Support Team and occasional guest authors.

Culture becomes the elephant in the room when people do not acknowledge how implicit values shape conflict. “Truth” appears in multiple forms depending on which lenses we are using to view the world. This blog is based on a publication called “Inviting the Elephant into the Room: Culturally Oriented Mediation and Peace Practice”, reflecting insights from the work of UK mediator, Dr Zaza Elsheikh, who places culture and religion at the center of her practice. The blog explores a case from Zaza’s experience and ends with three insights from Zaza’s community mediation, which I believe have useful applications for the peace mediation field, namely regarding power, entry points and mediation success.

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Coronavirus CSS Blog

Infectious Narratives: US, China, and COVID-19

Image courtesy of Morning Brew/Unsplash.

This blog belongs to the CSS’ coronavirus blog series, which forms a part of the center’s analysis of the security policy implications of the coronavirus crisis. See the CSS special theme page on the coronavirus for more.

Stories exert power by constructing one way of understanding the world and by effectively communicating that “reality” to others. Conflict actors understand this when they seek to define the terms in which a conflict takes place, representing themselves as morally sound and the other side as illegitimate.

Building on the work of narrative mediator Sara Cobb, we analyze how the respective governments of the US and China have depicted the origins and the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic as the fault of the other side. In recent months, COVID-19 has become central to the US and China’s creation of “master narratives”. Master narratives hugely simplify the plot and characters, contain moral judgments, and form the basis for the generation and perpetuation of a conflict tale. This serves both governments in deflecting criticism away from their domestic responsibilities. Tensions have escalated between the two world powers as a result.

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CSS Blog

Mediation Perspectives: The Speaker as Mediator in a Polarized Parliament

Image courtesy UK Parliament/Flickr. This image is subject to parliamentary copyright. (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Mediation Perspectives is a periodic blog entry that’s provided by the CSS’ Mediation Support Team and occasional guest authors.

John Bercow, who stepped down as “Speaker” of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom (UK) Parliament on 31 October 2019, catapulted the otherwise obscure role into the public eye on an international level. This is due to the controversy over the Brexit parliamentary debates, his forthright manner, distinctive cry of “Or-derr!” whenever proceedings became rowdy – but I argue here that it is also due to his understanding of the role of speaker as mediator. In this blog post, I explore this understanding, and highlight what speakers of parliaments as well as mediators can learn from it.

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