Conflict Resolution Collaborative
When Heidi Burgess delivered the commencement address in May of 2012, the S-CAR Community got a sneak preview of the prospects provided by stronger ties between the School and the minds behind Beyond Intractability (BI) and CR Info. With one important collaborative project already underway at that time and many more that have since kicked off, we are already seeing the exciting rewards that this collaboration has yielded.
The first collaborative effort was a special edition of the BI knowledge base for Genocide Prevention and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). A DVD version of the website has been created and is periodically taken to Africa and distributed to ICGLR.
Building upon this success, the Conflict Resolution Collaborative was formed to formalize and guide a series of collaborative efforts between BI and S-CAR. Andrea Bartoli, Heidi and Guy Burgess, and Paul Snodgrass comprise the executive committee of the Collaborative, and what follows is an overview of several exciting initiatives.
A number of S-CAR students, known as BI Contributors, have begun to write book reviews, case studies and articles on beyondintractability.org. Led by Borislava Manojlovic, Associate Editor, four book reviews have already been published and several more are in the pipeline. Alessandra Cuccia reviewed Transforming Conflict Through Insight, by Cheryl Picard and Kenneth Melchin. Nhina Le reviewed The Paradox of Free-Market Democracy: Indonesia and the Problems Facing Neoliberal Reform, by Amy Chua as well as Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Choose War, by Richard Rubenstein. Also, Mark Magellan reviewed The Moral Imagination by John Paul Lederach. The BI Contributors have also spearheaded a process of adding S-CAR publications to the database of BI.
This fall the Burgesses have been teaching a class entitled Peacebuilding Knowledge Base with eight students, all of which are writing pieces for BI as their primary class project. A similar class is being offered this spring. Entitled Peacebuilding Writ Large, students will examine the concept of “peacebuilding writ large”—also being called “peacebuilding 2.0”—and the role that the BI Knowledge Base and Collaborative Learning Community can play in building peace at the broadest levels. Students again will have the opportunity to write one or more pieces to be published on BI. This three-credit class is available to new students as well as to students who participated in this fall’s CONF 795.
Susan Allen Nan and the Center for Peacemaking Practice are also working with BI to update the collection of practitioner interviews and CPP members Phil Gamaghelyan and Christopher Littlefield have written a piece for BI on facilitator co-debriefing which will be published soon. Dan Rothbart and Adeeb Yousif Abdel Alla are writing two articles on Sudan, and over ten other S-CAR articles are “in the BI pipeline.” CONF 210, taught by Ms. Manojlovic and Dr. Bartoli asks students, “how can we contribute to” and “how can BI help us?”
Dr. Bartoli, Mr. Snodgrass, Drs. Burgess, as well as Ernest Ogbozor and Cat Meurn are leading a project entitled “Love and Forgiveness in the Governing Professions,” funded by the Fetzer Institute. In September, Mr. Snodgrass and Dr. Bartoli presented the project at the Fetzer Institute’s Global Gathering in Assisi and work is ongoing to create profiles of people who exemplify love and forgiveness in governance. These profiles will be posted on BI, S-CAR and the Fetzer Institute’s websites.
Beyondintractability.org has long been an invaluable resource for the field and S-CAR has a rich history of contributing articles and interviews to the vast collection of material hosted there. It is with a view toward strengthening, updating and sustaining BI and contributing to the field as a whole that S-CAR has engaged in this collaborative project. For students at S-CAR, there are many exciting opportunities to publish and BI is a terrific place for their writing to be read and to have an impact. BI is currently used by about 100,000 unique visitors a month and that number has been rising by about 10,000 people per month for the last several months. Publishing on BI gets your ideas out to many, many people!