Mediation in the World Today: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

This keynote presentation (from Keynote speech from International Conference, September 4-7, 2014, Edward Kennedy Institute International for Conflict Intervention, NUI Maynooth) highlighted the myriad of changes that have impacted on the nature of conflict, and global responses to it, over the past four or five decades and the domination of Western approaches to mediation in different cultural contexts. The presenter offered possible ways of avoiding the pitfalls caused when mediators and trainers unthinkingly impose their norms and values into another country’s dispute response system, regardless of the type and nature of the dispute, including: self-reflexivity - recognising the mediator’s own cultural, political and situational embeddedness; discourse analysis - addressing power by raising awareness of the impact of dominant discourses; cultural fluency - valuing differences and pluralities of identity in order to be client-centred; and thinking in terms of conflict transformation. She also argued that mediators should reject notions of neutrality and operate within a framework of social justice and human rights.