An Analytic Introduction and a Call for Interdisciplinary Engagement

Mark Davidheiser
Inga E Treitler
Conflict Resolution and Anthropology Guest Editors

Mark Davidheiser

As an endemic feature of social life, interpersonal conflict features in the work of many anthropologists. Indeed conflict is one of our discipline’s favorite things to study, whether in manifest, observable disputes, the repression of opinion, or domination and subordination. It is when conflict is actually visible, as Max Gluckman and Victor Turner have taught us, that one can most easily identify what is of value to a society. Conflict is the crucible of social change and an excellent lens for observing the boundaries of shared norms, values and habituated behaviors—or “culture.” In fact, early functionalist anthropological texts provided inspiration to a fledgling Alternative Dispute Resolution movement in the 1970s.

Inga E Treitler

Debating Human Nature
Anthropology’s interest in peace stems from a hopeful optimism and a widespread belief in the fundamental decency or potential for good within homo sapiens sapiens. Thus we continue to develop new theories about human tendencies toward cooperation and what factors fuel violence, and to explore strategies for, constructively transforming conflict and promoting a positive peace and cooperative coexistence.

A prominent feature of the anthropological literature on peace and conflict has been the debate over human nature and purported innate propensities for aggression and violence. The latter notion is pervasive in Western epistemology and can be traced back to esteemed intellectual ancestors such as Hobbes and Freud. The influence of Marxian theory has notably promoted conflict-oriented views in scholarship since the rise of conflict theory in the 1970s. Other recent and noteworthy treatises that present conflict as ubiquitous and inevitable have been published by legal anthropologists, archaeologists like Steven LeBlanc, and researchers influenced by Lewis Coser’s functionalist view of conflict as promoting group cohesiveness.

Conversely, sociocultural anthropologists have generated a growing body of literature on “peaceful peoples” or groups with relatively low levels of overt physical aggression and violence. Douglas Fry has examined The Human Potential for Peace (2006), for instance, and significant work on the subject has been produced by others such as Bruce Bonta and Leslie Sponsel.

Addressing Institutions and Power
Laura Nader has encouraged anthropologists to expand their work beyond the realm of remote villages and exotic subalterns. Her classic “Up the Anthropologist” (1969) introduced into common anthropological parlance the term “studying up” to refer to the study of elites and powerful institutions including corporations, courts and government organizations. She insisted that one cannot fully comprehend agency without understanding the salient structural contexts and the roles of power. Nader celebrates conflict as a necessary means of social and institutional transformation.

Following Nader’s call to study up, a growing body of literature has examined dispute processing and access to justice in the US (and elsewhere), with notable works by Sally Merry, Carol Greenhouse and other legal anthropologists. In the international arena, Carolyn Nordstrom has investigated internal business networks that extract profits from war zones.

Engaging Conflict
Over the course of the last 40 years or so, we have seen the gradual emergence of an interdisciplinary field of study and practice dedicated to the study, management and transformation of conflict. The need for anthropological perspectives and skills is obvious, and in fact anthropologists like Mohammed Abu Nimer have played a role in the evolution of conflict resolution. Some, like Sally Merry and Jayne Docherty, have joint degrees in law and anthropology. Unfortunately, the anthropological nuances of these anthropologists’ work have often been lost when the work was assimilated into mainstream conflict resolution scholarship and practice. Many conflict resolution practitioners would be unable to identify any anthropological contributions to their field other than a belated recognition that culture is important, as Kevin Avruch notes in his contribution to the series.

Conversely, the conflict resolution studies and applied work of anthropologists are not widely acknowledged within our discipline because they are rarely published in mainstream anthropological journals, and they are written to be intelligible to a broad audience. Addressing an interdisciplinary readership makes it impractical to philosophize on the finer points of specialized topics like agency and employ the latest anthropological jargon. A prominent case in point is the bestselling Getting to Yes, coauthored by anthropologist William Ury. Getting To Yes did not foreground anthropological themes, and while it has been read by many public health practitioners and management professionals, it has received scant attention within anthropology.

Why Is Anthropology Absent?
Conflict resolution has become an accepted focal area in political science, social psychology, management and communication, and members of these and other disciplines are generally able to employ its terminology and models without reservation. Yet some anthropologists remain suspicious of this fledgling field, although it encompasses core anthropological concerns and would benefit from a more robust cross pollination with anthropology.

One may justifiably wonder why anthropology has not engaged conflict resolution in a more sustained manner. As Leslie Sponsel and Thomas Gregor emphasize in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence, there has been much more scholarship on violence than on peace. The fact that their book has long been out of print only underlines their point.

One factor is the prominence of conflict theory in our discipline, and a continuing suspicion of anything that could be labeled as structural-functionalist. Most anthropologists consider themselves to be socially and politically progressive, and many have been deeply influenced by neo-Marxian perspectives. Marx considers conflict to be essential to progress; after all, the utopian dictatorship of the proletariat will only emerge through intense class struggle.

The tendency in academe to reward critique rather than advocacy may also play a role. It is striking how much prestigious scholarship is dedicated to pointing out flaws in others’ writings or in a certain area of practice and how little consists of positive discussions. Anthropology has also become somewhat cloistered and focused inwards on esoteric debates, and fame—within academe, at least—is rarely attained through applied work.

The upshot of all this is that anthropologists interested in conflict resolution must either place themselves within the legal anthropological framework (which has had remarkably little interfacing with conflict resolution) or resign themselves to working mostly outside of their primary discipline.

Why Should Anthropology Be Present?
The gap in cross-disciplinary dialogue is especially surprising since as an omnipresent feature of social life, conflict is relevant to most anthropological research. In order to effectively address conflict, one must be able to understand it, and how to conceptualize conflict is one of the themes of this month’s issue.

We believe anthropologists can and should contribute more to peace and conflict studies and dialogue with those outside our field. Contributing to interdisciplinary dialogues requires us to become adept at communicating with non-specialist terminology, to understand, even to use the terms of other disciplines. Whether you consider conflict positive or negative and innate or socially constructed, there is, as our daily news suggests, an obvious need for it to be engaged in a beneficial manner. We hope to see more anthropologists involved in this area of scholarship and practice.

Interested readers and potential contributors to the next two special issues on conflict resolution and anthropology are invited to contact series editors at mdavidhe@yahoo.com and ingat@knology.net.

The following websites are good resources for those interested in learning more about conflict resolution www.beyondintractability.org, www.acrnet.org, http://crinfo.org and www.africaworkinggroup.org.

Mark Davidheiser is assistant professor of conflict resolution and anthropology at Nova Southeastern University and director of the Africa Working Group on Peace and Conflict. He has investigated dispute and conflict mitigation in Senegal, The Gambia, the Navajo and Hopi Nations, and Eritrea. Mark has been a court-annex mediator and academic director of an international negotiation and conflict resolution study and training program. Inga E Treitler is an independent research consultant with 15 years’ experience with government and corporate clients in the US and Europe. Her (2007) Human Organization article with Douglas Midgett, “It’s About Water” profiles conflict around water resources in multiple settings. Treitler is secretary of the National Association of Anthropology.