Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Colin Rule on October 26, 2011 at 10:47am

Ian-- I think you make an excellent point in #2, something I blithely washed over in my semi-utopian response -- technology may have started out with text-based, anonymous interactions, devoid of any identifying information... but that led to the cultures of flame wars and offensive anonymous comments that permeate sites like youtube and 4chan.  Now the buzz in Silicon Valley is all around the "social grid" -- connecting people into webs of their peers, and insisting upon true identities a la Facebook.  Carrie is right, we can't escape diversity, or hide it, and presume that will be the end of things.  Maybe by following the "hide differences" approach we avoid the true challenge of teaching about diversity and building multiculturalism, so that when people are forced to confront it later they don't have the tools, and things go much worse.

 

rah

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kevin McAlpine on October 26, 2011 at 1:42pm

I agree that nonverbal communication can increase the effectiveness of understanding in a cultural context. My primary concern in operating outside of one's own culture is that the definitions of words or topics in the cultures may not translate without relating them prior to discuss. Should we have a side bar defination area where all parties can agree upon our choice of words in the resolution forum?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill Warters on October 26, 2011 at 5:39pm

I'm jumping in here after being stimulated by a story over at techchange.org that tells a tale of violence on an island in Indonesia that erupted due to likely false text messages sent to inflame a community with fragile ethnic/race relations. What struck me was how the medium that stirred up the trouble was also instrumental in containing the spread and damage from the conflict. A group dubbed the "Peace Provocateurs" used texts to do rumor control. Here's a clip from the story - 

In the vacuum left by the absence of police action, another force began circulating information throughout Ambon. A small team piloted an effort to contain the rapidly spreading misinformation by catching and dispelling rumors that came through their social networks. A Christian pastor, Jacky Manuputty, and a Muslim lecturer at the State Islamic Institute, Abidin Wakano, led a group of about 10-15 self-entitled “Peace Provocateurs,” including members of Ambon Bergerak and the Moluccan Interfaith Institute. Utilizing a strategic team of contacts located at flashpoints throughout the city, they verified or defused reports of mobs, roadblocks, and injuries in real time in an attempt to provide factual sources amidst the rapidly escalating situation.  For example, when one member of the network received a rumor that the Silo Church had been destroyed, they contacted someone close to the church to take and circulate a photo of the undamaged church, proving that the rumor was false.

So perhaps we need to go back and remember that it may not be the tech itself, but how it is used that really matters.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ian Macduff on October 26, 2011 at 8:38pm

Dear all - here's a variation on the "who's there?" implications of Net anonymity and cultural expectations. As others have mentioned, the conventions of anonymity, and until relatively recently, the predominance of text-based communication have meant that we can never be entirely sure who is "there" (or even where "there" is!). I'm reminded of the cultural variations of this by a couple of student observations in our F2F mediation class here in Singapore when surprise was expressed in a mock commercial mediation involving "client" and "counsel" from each side that "client" would (a) even BE at the mediation and (b) if there, actually involved in the conversation. The assumption was that, though this was a mediation and the norms of the process well-understood, this was something between counsel. Now, this might be the pervasiveness of the litigation culture; but it's also the influence of a hierarchical culture.

 

And my point for this conversation: one of the things we might not initially be sure of in technology-mediated communications is whether the person at the other end of the wire is the person who - in "our" view of the process - is the one we think we need to be talking with. And at that other end of the wire, that person of course is exactly the right one to be there in terms of their perceptions of process.

Ian

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ben Ziegler on October 27, 2011 at 11:14am

Excellent points being made here.  Going back to one of Ian’s central issues for this dscussion, “the present reality of diversity and difference”...

In Canada (my home), multiculturalism is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982),  which guarantees the “preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians...”   So it ain't going to die, anytime soon! This conversation offers some interesting possibilities, at least in a Canadian context, that could be built on; e.g., 1) French social mediation approach (Canada is officially bilingual country – English/French), 2) community mediation models from US, 3) Jeff’s comment on ODR training
multi-lingual training... 

Putting it together... perhaps a community mediation pilot project, involving ODR (a somewhat localized variant), French/English simulation/training, and go from there...  I’m thinking multiculturalism  can best be understood/applied , and innovation happen, in the place you are...  Then build on that.

I wonder what type of pilot would make sense where you are?

Thanks for your insights.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill Warters on October 27, 2011 at 12:32pm

Ian, 

Thanks for providing more information on the work being called "social mediation."  This seems to be really important work and it reminds me of the work of civil rights mediators working in the United States with the Community Relations Service. Their work dealt with more escalated conflicts, but usually occurred "under the radar" of the media. A great oral history project captures much of their learning here. Your description also reminded me of Bruce Barnes work developing a cross-culture friendly mediation model for working on conflicts within the Pacific Rim, most specifically in Hawaii. I liked it because the model, usually applied with conflicts involving groups from different cultures, specifically involves "bi-cultural interpreters" who monitor the process and alert the mediation team when cultural issues are cropping up or misunderstandings are developing. These bicultural folks might be the children of immigrants who have learned to navigate the dominant culture and their home culture. Between mediation sessions, mediators check in with these advisors to see how the pacing, approach, etc is working for their groups. Here's the cite:

Title: Conflict Resolution Across Cultures: A Hawai'i Perspective and a Pacific Mediation Model (1994)
Publication Information: Mediation Quarterly: Volume 12 Number 2 Winter 1994. pp: 117-133. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/crq.3900120204/abstract

Now, the question for me is, how can these kind of insights from F2F practice be "digitized" and brought forward into ODR systems? 

Ian Macduff said:

The film clip you sent, Bill, is fascinating and shows just what might be done in using the new media, not least as bandwidth develops. But of course this leaves out those who not only don't have bandwidth - they don't have viable computers. Hence the interesting work being done on the potential of mobile phones, given too than many developing nations are simply bypassing the phase of fixed line telephony & going straight to mobile.

 

As for social mediation - this tends to be used more in a conflict mitigation/prevention role in local communities and cities, in the education and social services sector, to pickup on what's referred to here in Singapore as the "faint signals" of "fault lines" between and within communities. It has a role largely, but not exclusively related to integration of migrant communities - but the larger ambition, I think, has to do with maintaining the social fabric, though not is a "dominant culture" sense.

 

It also aims to address issues of social cohesion and flash points of violence in general, and the role of social agencies in managing and mitigating the risk. 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Conan Smith on October 28, 2011 at 12:16pm

Ian, I like both the caution and optimism of your response here, and I feel that the situation argues for a more robust cultural mentorship opportunity, which the online environment makes more plausible.  For example, I may become involved in a business venture where a significant portion of the cohort is from a different culture than mine and need to both use and enhance my conflict resolution skills.  Having online access to a mentor from that culture who can co-mediate or observe and advise would provide a unique learning opportunity that I may not otherwise have if geographically constrained.

Ian Macduff said:

Hi Dan & Aspen

 

That's an interesting and general provocation: "Perhaps ODR technology makes it easier for me to practice where I ought not be practicing." It probably applies to all of us in all cases; but do the Internet/ODR make this more of an issue?

 

I wonder if the question is both a generic one - i.e. exercising caution where we're close to the edge of our experience and understanding - and an invitation to engage in the kind of cosmopolitan dialogue that conversations across cultural differences requires. Here's where I wonder if there's something to be learned from political theorists, ranging from Habermas to Appiah, recognizing that difference is a starting point - not the end - of the conversation, and that it requires conversation about that difference; that is, it becomes an express part of the conversation.

 

Ian

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Voorman on October 28, 2011 at 2:54pm

What I find interesting is the relationship between globalization (brought about in part by the internet) and the idea of diversity.  There is an ongoing discussion about globalization and the internet destroying culture.  While people have disagreed that globalization destroys culture, I think in the online world we become more and more homogenous.  The internet while a communication medium, comes with certain rules and procedures.  Looking to the Green Revolution in Iran we saw the world rally behind the people and stand with them.  I think specifically with social media we see more and more diverse and different people coming together, bound not by ethnicity or nationalism, but by age and interests and social media proficiency. 

Is social media contributing to the "death of multiculturalism?"  And if so, what does that mean for the ODR movement?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ian Macduff on October 28, 2011 at 10:00pm

 

Hi all,

I have two questions, one technical, the other more mediation-related.

1. The technical question is for the conveners of this whole Cyberweek thing - and I wonder whether these conversation, on this forum and others that I'm watching, will be captured and retained in some way as there area lot of gems here. This technical question is probably also part of the conversational issues, as observers like Cass Sunstein have suggested, in that the fragmentation of discourse means that we may lose the common threads. I suppose that this is simply a digital analogue to what happens anyway, in that we can never know what conversations are going on in other corners of the world - but this networking technology both allows us to have this kind of conversation and at the same time may risk rendering ephemeral if it's not captured somehow.
2. The process question or thought, arising from the wonderful line-up of ideas that we've had this week is this: do we have, in these networked dialogues, a modern counterpart to, or variant of, community mediation? If, as commentators on modern multiculturalism [Modood, Parekh, Benhabib, Appiah] and others suggest, what is is essential is engagement and dialogue - and not either capitulation to or rejection of "the claims of culture" - then there needs to be a "space" for this. And maybe what's evolving here is a networked version of community mediation. This occurred to me also in having a chat with a group of my students here who are working on a project on community mediation in Singapore, and what they realize is the the version we have here is a top-down model, designed by government, fostered by the courts, managed by the Ministry of Law, to encourage - with some considerable success - the disputes that occur on housing estates and neighborhoods. There's also a constant vigilance about ethnic and religious harmony and a part of the concern to foster community processes is to keep the dialogues going. But contrast, the early history of community mediation and community boards (e.g. in San Francisco) was a grassroots exercise. 
3. So - we have a bottom-up, grassroots version; a top-down (but grassroots-located version) . . . . and now we have a networked version. But, the difference perhaps is that there isn't a "location" for this networked version. My colleague Kimberlee Kovach and I are working on a paper together on just this issue, which we've entitled "Here, There, and Everywhere" - in the sense that negotiations "here" are in the familiar location and space; negotiations "there" are cross-border, intercultural; and negotiations "everywhere" are what we're talking about on this forum - in cyberspace, dis-located:

Thus:

"The Internet is wholly insensitive to geographic distinctions. In almost every case, users of the Internet neither know nor care about the physical location of the Internet resources they access. Internet protocols were designed to ignore rather than to document geographic location; while computers on the netword do have ‘addresses’, they are logical addresses on the network rather than geographic addresses in real space. The majority of Internet addresses contain no geographic clues and, even when an Internet address provides such a clue, it may be misleading."

Lawrence Lessing Code 2.0, [Basic Books, 2006] p.57 – with reference to issue of location, context, geography and identity – citing American Library Association v. Pataki, 969 F. Supp. 160 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), cited in Michael Geist, Cyberlaw 2.0, 44 Boston College Law Review 323, 326–27 (2003).

 

But . . . if (i) identity issues are often, though not invariably tied up with a sense of location, "home", origin; and (ii) the Internet is essentially dis-located, w'eve got an interesting conversation about who we are

• when we're at "home" or
• living as a migrant or refugee; or
• on the Internet. 

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page