Description

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A guide to conflict resolution, or as the author prefers, “conflict transformation” that emphasizes the importance of building relationships and social structures through a radical respect for human rights and life.

This clearly articulated statement offers a hopeful and workable approach to conflict—that eternally beleaguering human situation. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his breakthrough thinking and action related to conflict on all levels—person-to-person, factions within communities, warring nations. He explores why "conflict transformation" is more appropriate than "conflict resolution" or "management." But he refuses to be drawn into impractical idealism. Topics include:

• Defining Conflict Transformation
• Conflict and Change
• Connecting Resolution and Transformation
• Creating a Map of Conflict
• Developing Our Capacities
• And much more!

Firmly rooted in faith and Mennonite teachings, and related to the popular concept of restorative justice, conflict transformation is an idea with a deep reach. Its practice, says Lederach, requires "both solutions and social change." It asks not simply "How do we end something not desired?" but "How do we end something destructive and build something desired?" How do we deal with the immediate crisis, as well as the long-term situation? What disciplines make such thinking and practices possible?

This title is part of The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series.

About the Author

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John Paul Lederach, a scholar with the Joan Kroc Institute of Conflict Studies at the University of Notre Dame and a distinguished scholar with the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, writes out of his more than twenty years of work in Central America, Asia, Africa, Central Asia, and North America.