Dialogue

• Author: Barbara Tint, Julie Koehler, Mary Lind, Vincent Chirimwami, Roland Clarke, and Mindy Johnston
• Pages: 63-130

Dialogue 63

In developing our community collaboration, our decision to create and facilitate

dialogue processes was based on a belief in dialogue as a transformational tool for

peacebuilding and reconciliation. Peacebuilding dialogue is a form of group interaction

with a particular intent, purpose, and process: members of conflicted groups come

together in the aftermath of deep‐rooted and historical fragmentation toward the

goals of engaging in safe space and community conversations. In many communities

where there has been longstanding conflict or trauma between groups, dialogue has

been used to provide a safe and structured process for fractured parties. Out of these

processes, there is often (but not always) increased mutual understanding, healing,

reconciliation, and action for the future. This chapter will explore both the theoretical

and practical dimensions of dialogue as a tool in community reconciliation, and pro-

vide a recommended model and framework for dialogue with diaspora communities.

Definition andPrinciples ofDialogue

Derived from the Greek term dialogos–dia meaning “through” and logos meaning

“the word”–dialogue speaks to the flow of exchange through words. At its most

fundamental, dialogue refers to parties coming together with the goal of increased

mutual understanding. Though dialogue can occur between individuals or groups

of various parties, in peacebuilding work, it is most commonly used as an intergroup

process between members of conflicted societies. Dialogue processes derive from

the principles behind the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954), which proposes that

one of the most successful ways to reduce intergroup conflict, prejudice, and enmity

is positive intergroup contact. This contact must be implemented through carefully

considered mechanisms that allow the group interactions to successfully transcend

the personal, social, and politically informed barriers that keep groups in conflict.

Defining dialogue is a challenging task, as the word is used in so many ways to

mean so many different things. For our purposes, we assert that dialogue is a safe,

intentional, constructed process that is based on certain principles, methods, and

goals, which are rooted in the desire to develop mutual understanding and an

enhanced relationship. These principles, methods, and goals will be elaborated on

later in this chapter. The aim is that through these intentional, structured, and safe

contact experiences, parties engage in ways that shift the relationship of enmity and

reduce the power of competing social identities. One definition suggests that inter-

group dialogue is “a form of democratic practice, engagement, problem solving, and

education involving face‐to‐face, focused, facilitated and confidential discussions

occurring over time between two or more groups of people defined by their different

social identities” (Schoem, Hurtado, Sevig, Chesler, and Sumida, 2001, p. 6).

Saunders suggests that dialogue is “a process of genuine interaction through which

human beings listen to each other deeply enough to be changed by what they learn”

(2001, p. 82). Feller and Ryan (2012) address the critical aspect of understanding

and defining dialogue as a very particular dimension to peacebuilding work that

includes efforts toward coexistence, relational movement, encountering the other,

64 Barbara Tint et al.

challenging assumptions, using creative and flexible approaches to group conflict,

and implementing holistic interventions.

Contrary to debate, where parties are trying to persuade, convince, or win,

dialogue operates as a safe space to explore difficult issues and honor multiple

perspectives. While change often occurs as a result of dialogue, the goal is not for

parties to try to change one another, but to make a commitment to listening, sharing,

and understanding in the spirit of exploring challenging historical relationships.

The hope is that through constructive and safe intergroup contact, parties can

engage in ways that shift a conflicted relationship and create space for healing and

reconciliation. In most cases, dialogue requires people to encounter painful feelings

and experiences that have polarized them for so long and to face themselves and

others in new ways. Though it is rarely a smooth road, through successful dialogue

processes, possibilities for new relationships emerge.

While the use of dialogue in different contexts has certain shared principles, there

are variations to its practice as well. These include differences in group goals, par-

ticipant numbers, duration of the process, meeting frequency, facilitator roles,

content or process focus, and post‐dialogue follow‐up. Zuniga and Nagda (2001)

divide dialogue processes into four general types, acknowledging that these often

overlap: collective inquiry, a process by which groups attempt to find shared meaning

and synergistic relationships through collective thinking and discourse; critical‐

dialogical education, a focus on consciousness raising and looking at group differences

from a social justice perspective toward the goal of individual and systemic change;

community building and social action, a process that attempts to bring large numbers

of people together around community issues needing attention and mobilization;

and conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes, where group members in

conflicted societies come together to look at new ways to approach the conflict and

deal with the substantive and the psychological issues embedded in the situation.

While not all dialogue processes and methods are the same, there are core goals

and principles at the root of almost all dialogue work. Within both the content and

the process of dialogue, relationship is the focal point for transformation among

conflicted parties (Lederach, 1997; Saunders, 2001; Schoem etal., 2001). According

to Saunders (2001), relationship combines a variety of elements: identity, inter-

dependent coexistence of needs and interests, nature and working of effective

power and limits on behavior, and evolving perceptions. Each of these elements

is significantly impacted during long‐term conflict and must be addressed in

its healing. Dialogue focuses on the transformative possibilities within these

elements and addresses each of them in the process of intergroup engagement.

An intentional process that seeks to create deep understanding and transformative

experiences for group members, dialogue provides a structure in which parties

explore how their thoughts, emotions, consciousness, beliefs, and narratives

diverge and how they come together.

Through the experience of long‐term traumas, groups develop societal beliefs

about the other that perpetuate fractures in societies. These beliefs are accompanied

by emotions, values, and perceptions of the other that are often as protracted as

Dialogue 65

the conflict that caused them. Therefore, any efforts toward reconciliation and

community building must attempt to create an opening for shifting these beliefs so

that not only the reconciliation of past events is possible, but so is the opportunity

for building a new future as well. This shifting of relationship must happen on the

emotional as well as the intellectual levels; the reconstruction of meaning and

identity occurs when there is deep movement around the issues that have brought

parties together.

Ellinor and Gerard (1998) identify four essential and interrelated qualities of

dialogue work: suspension of judgment, suspension of assumptions, deep listening,

and inquiry and reflection. Through these processes, there is an emphasis on safe

vulnerability rather than strategy, transparency rather than opaqueness, and curi-

osity rather than conclusion. Because dialogue is a reflective and reflexive process,

participants are invited to reconsider their experiences in ways that allow for new

constructs to emerge.

Bohm (1996) suggests that dialogue involves the evolution of a new culture among

participants, where meaning becomes more important than truth and members of a

dialogue process develop shared meaning around issues that emerge. The concept of

meaning systems (Park, 2005; Park and Folkman, 1997) suggests that at the very

core of human existence is the need to find meaning and value in life. Global meaning

systems–beliefs, values, goals, feelings–are typically constructed unwittingly on the

part of group members so that a group culture around collective experiences

develops in deep and often unconscious ways. In societies where there has been

collective trauma, the process of meaninglessness occurs when beliefs or values are

violated. Meaning‐making is the process by which individuals and groups set about

trying to restore meaning after a trauma. It is through dialogue that new meaning‐

making can occur in safe and transformative ways.

Some core principles that apply to all forms of dialogic process include:

● Goal of mutual understanding

● Focus on relationship

● Deep listening

● Awareness and suspension of assumptions

● Awareness and suspension of judgments

● Spirit of inquiry

● Spirit of reflection

● Give voice to deeply held beliefs and feelings

● Bear witness to others’ stories and struggles

● Observation of self and others

● Mutual respect

● Willingness to be vulnerable

● Development of shared meaning and responsibility

● Acceptance of differing and multiple perspectives

● Willingness to sit through difficult moments

● Follow‐up and collective action when appropriate