AiKiDô: The Trinity of Conflict Transformation

236 Pages·2015·2.53 MB·English

by  Winfried Wagner (eds.)

Elicitiva – Friedensforschung
und Humanistische Psychologie
Herausgegeben von
Wolfgang Dietrich, Innsbruck, Österreich
„Elicitive Konf ikttransformation“ ist ein Kunstwort, das von John Paul Lederach
in die Friedens- und Konf iktforschung eingeführt wurde, um einen Zugang zu
umschreiben, der Konf ikte jenseits von Gut und Böse, Richtig und Falsch versteht.
Er deutet Gewalt als Ausdruck missglückter Kommunikation zwischen den Streit-
parteien. Konf ikt wird beziehungshaf betrachtet. Konf iktarbeit zielt folglich auf
das Schaf en eines Begegnungsrahmens, in dem die Parteien gemeinsam neue Ver-
haltensmuster erkunden und schaf en können. Dieser Ansatz ist ein Leitprinzip des
Innsbrucker UNESCO Chairs for Peace Studies und seines Masterprogramms. Er
beruht epistemologisch auf den Einsichten und Errungenschaf en der Humanisti-
schen Psychologie.
Die Reihe Elicitiva wurde gegründet, um die fachliche Begegnung zwischen der
Friedens- und Konf iktforschung und der Psychologie zu vertiefen und zu erweit-
ern. Aus dieser Absicht ergeben sich ihr thematischer Schwerpunkt und die Of en-
heit für Beiträge aus inhaltlich relevanten Nachbardisziplinen. Elicitiva berichtet
aus der jüngsten Forschung, eignet sich für die Lehre und unterstützt angewandte
Konf iktarbeit in all ihren Dimensionen – von der Begleitung persönlichen und
zwischenmenschlichen Ringens bis zur Dimension der großen gesellschaf lichen
und politischen T emen und der internationalen Politik.
Herausgegeben von:
Wolfgang Dietrich
UNESCO Chair for Peace Studies
Universität Innsbruck/Österreich
Herausgeberkomitee:
David Diamond (Kanada)
Claudio Naranjo (Chile)
Swami Veda Bharati (Indien)
Winfried Wagner (Deutschland)
Sylvester Walch (Deutschland)
Winfried Wagner (Ed.)
AiKiDô
The Trinity of Conflict Transformation
123
Editor
Winfried Wagner
Schweinfurt, Germany
ISSN 2364-1053 ISSN 2364-1061 (electronic)
Elicitiva – Friedensforschung und Humanistische Psychologie
ISBN 978-3-658-10165-7 ISBN 978-3-658-10166-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-10166-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015941029
Springer
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2015
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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Dedicated to
Don Levine, † 2015,
a visionary of Aikidô
Contents
Wolfg ang Dietrich & Winfried Wagoer
Introdnction. ......................................................................................................... 9
Part I
Theoretical Reflexion. on Aikid6
Winfried Wagoer
AiKiD6: The Trinity of Conflict Tran.formation ............................................ 17
Winfried Wagoer
Research Studies on Aikid6 in Potentiating
Con.trnctive Handling of Social Conflict ........................................................ 63
RanaHaroun
Philo.ophical and Spiritnal Root. of Aikido. ................................................... 87
HarrisFriedman
U.ing Aikido and Transper.onal Psychology Concepts
as Tools for Reconciling Conflict. .................................................................... 115
DonLevine
Aikido and Mediation ...................................................................................... 137
PBrtll
Practical Applications of Aikid6
Paul Linden
Transforming the Conffictual Body. ............................................................... 159
JerryGreen
Embodied Compassionate Communication: Applied Aikido ....................... 181
Oavid Weinstock
Non-Violent Communication andAikido. ...................................................... 191
Barry M. Kroll
Rhetorical Aikido: Arguing 85 an Art of Peace ............................................. 209
James C. Fitzgerald
Aikido and Law Enforcement... ...................................................................... 223
About the Autbors ............................................................................................ 243
8
Introduction
by Wolfgang Dietrich & Winfried Wagner
When John Paul Lederach (1995, pp.55-63) introduced the concept of Elicitive
Conflict Transformation into peace research more than twenty years ago, he did
not simply propose a new name for old techniques and objectives. He initiated a
revolutionary turn in the interpretation of peace and conflict, a new chapter in the
history of the still young discipline of peace research. According to Lederach
elicitive conflict transformation draws on values and communication techniques
that already exist in the individuals or groups concerned; it highlights and cat-
alyzes existing or communally held knowledge related to transforming conflicts,
whilst the mainstream approaches of idealism, realism, conflict resolution and
prescriptive conflict transformation propose pre-created models. Since conven-
tional conflict resolution by outside bodies and individuals has proved little ef-
fective, it is essential for this approach to consider the transformative potential
within the conflicting communities themselves” (cited after Miall et al. 2005,
p.118).
With this insight psychological work has received an increasing amount
of attention and recognition in conflict studies over the past decades. Especially
the increasing reference to Humanistic Psychology has to be highlighted, a way
of thought that Lederach took from his inspiration Adam Curle and consequently
from the path-breaking approaches of system theory and the human potential
movement, that is, outstanding researchers and practitioners like Ludwig von
Bertalanffy, Gregory Bateson, Jakob Levy Moreno, Fritz Perls, Abraham
Maslow, Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir, Ruth Cohn, Paulo Freire, Francisco Varela
or Claudio Naranjo.
The epistemological turn in peace research and conflict studies (Dietrich
2013) necessarily called for a revised understanding of applied peace work. Con-
sequently it required a new personal profile of the conflict worker. If conflicts
are viewed as strictly relational phenomena within the inter-human system, and
not as repairable defects of a social structure, conflict work requires abundant
psychological and communicative skills, a new attitude from peace workers to-
wards themselves and towards their work (Hansen et al. 2004, pp. 306–308).
Lederach (2003, pp. 48–60) thus proposed elicitive conflict transformation as an
art and a science. He suggested training that he called Strategic Capacity and Re-
W. Wagner (ed.), AiKiDô, Elicitiva – Friedensforschung und Humanistische Psychologie,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-10166-4_1, © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2015
lationship Building as proper preparation for peace work, a combination of cog-
nitive knowledge acquisition and personal growth. Capacities peace workers
must bring into elicitive conflict work therefore are:
1. the capacity to see the situation beyond the urgent push for an immedi-
ate definition of the problem and a quick solution;
2. the capacity to integrate multiple timeframes;
3. the capacity to turn contradictions, opposites, situational dilemmas, and
paradoxes into choices;
4. the capacity to be on friendly terms with the fundamental complexity of
conflicts;
5. the capacity to see identity needs behind seemingly factual issues.
6. ‘paradoxical curiosity’ as the highest virtue.
Paradoxical refers not only to what lies beyond dominant beliefs, but also to
what stands against the claims to truth made by major meta-texts. Curiosity
refers to consistent attention and a continual questioning of things and their
meaning, as the Latin root of the words ‘care’ and ‘cure’ implies (Lederach 2005,
pp. 36–37). Paradoxical curiosity is, thus, a peace-political attitude that allows us
to be on friendly terms with the inevitable complexity of violence and polariza-
tion, without falling into the trap of modern thinking, wherein dualistic values
exacerbate the spiral of violence. Paradoxical curiosity enquires beyond hasty
conclusions and superficial interpretations and seeks to conceive of as many
choices as possible.
We consider the above as the initial content of a job description for
st
peace workers in the 21 century. Thus, how do individuals acquire these far-
reaching skills and training necessary for practical peace work of this kind?
Since elicitive conflict transformation has multiple roots, and it is difficult to
posit which is most important, there are many possible answers to this question.
Certainly, there is a thread that runs from gestalt therapy back to existential phi-
losophy and phenomenology, and then forward to the groundbreaking approach-
es as the onset of postmodernism, with its roots in Nietzschean thought (Dietrich
2012, pp. 166–177). Such an approach recognizes the limited nature of human
perception and seeks to support its expansion. Its claim is that the modest means
of awareness available to people creates a situation in which they are cognizant
of only a minute piece of universal reality. Consequently, people drastically dif-
fer in what they regard as ‘real’ and what they claim to know. On the other hand,
they are rather alike in what they do not know. This insight is essential in the de-
velopment of elicitive conflict transformation. A further thread of this thinking,
probably most powerfully articulated by Nietzsche, would later give rise to de-
velopments that include the evolution of structuralist peace research in Europe;
10