Preface & Introduction

Foreword [from the 2011 print edition]:

I began exploring conflict transformation as a concept in the 1980s. For the practitionerscholar most key insights emerge from the unexpected, usually a crisis or a surprise that shifts and awakens the reflective mind. Mine came in the form of a simple question in the midst of a planning seminar in Central America. “You speak of conflict resolution,” a participant noted, “but what does this really mean? I have to say, your use of the word resolution bothers me. If you are coming here to fix things, to have us look for quick solutions that do not really change anything, we are not interested. We don’t need fixing. We’ve had too much of that before.”

My insightful colleague had gone to the heart of the matter on more than one level. It is possible to solve a conflict and not change much, and we certainly live in a world where those arriving from outside settings of protracted conflict seem to carry carpet bags that mix funding along with approaches, ideas and answers. Thirty years ago his question shifted mine: how do we transform those things that damage and tear apart human relationships to those that protect and build healthy communities? That question has remained the North Star, the flickering light to navigate the ever-challenging rough seas of deep-rooted conflict and violence.

Over several decades the practice, research and conceptual development has substantially increased our understanding about conflict transformation and the range of tools, approaches and frameworks that guide the navigation. The research and materials from Berghof have singularly contributed to this endeavour. With the arrival of “Advancing Conflict Transformation. The Berghof Handbook II”, I would suggest that we will find the most comprehensive overview of conflict transformation compiled to date. Let me justify this statement by noting the key challenges transformation as a paradigm poses and what we find in this volume.

First, transformation must respond to, but not be limited by, the symptomatic parameters of a dispute. In other words, a transformative lens must attend to structural and systemic complexity. Perhaps the most significant contribution of this Handbook emerges by the way it holds together the wide-ranging set of authors (who all speak from years of experience), each entering this bejeweled challenge of human conflict through a different facet. It is rare to find a book that links traditional methods and human rights, systemic thinking and mediation, or gender, security studies and evaluation of training and practice.

Second, transformation must provide creative ways to integrate the multiple levels of change processes unfolding in and outside the settings of protracted conflict. Thirty years back the field was dominated by a state-centric understanding of response, responsibility and change. This Handbook provides a lively interchange depicting the centrality of interdependence, but one that each author rightfully suggests requires critical reflection into all levels of society affected by and responding to the conflict. The overall conclusion proposed in this volume, articulated by numerous authors and supported by empirical research is simple: no one process, level, organisation or state actor is capable of birthing and sustaining the movement from violence to constructive change on its own.

Third, deep understanding – the kind that engenders respect for the difficulty of the transformational aspiration – requires commitment to wallow and wade in the real-time messiness of violent conflict and oppressive structures and an equal commitment to engage the hard intellectual coal-face work of building knowledge and theory with empirical rigour. Taken together, the chapters of this Handbook enrich our understanding of both what has been gained and what more remains to be explored, unpacked and discovered.

The best handbooks are those the reader feels compelled to keep close at hand. “Advancing Conflict Transformation” has integrated three decades of practice and theory and will be looked back upon thirty years from now as a foundational account of the field. I plan to keep it close at hand.

John Paul Lederach
October 24, 2010

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Preface [from the 2004 print edition; reprinted here with minor changes]:

Confronted with a wide variety of conflicts, the international community has attempted to respond through humanitarian assistance, development aid, crisis prevention and conflict resolution programmes. To date many of these activities have exacerbated conflict dynamics as much as they have enhanced the opportunities for sustainable development and peace. In an effort to understand what works, lessons learned and best practices are being collected usually in the form of evaluations of individual projects or programmes. Although the number of studies undertaken has increased, few lessons have been systematised or accumulated for broader discussion in the academic field or for practitioners’ use.

The Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management [now: Berghof Conflict Research] produced this Handbook in response to the contemporary challenges which have to be faced by those who are working in and on violent conflict. The intention is to give an overview of recent developments in the field of conflict transformation from various perspectives: from academic analysts and practitioners as well as from experts representing different areas of work inside and outside of conflict zones.

The Handbook has been presented in several steps. First, it has been launched in successive series of articles on [this] interactive website. This site is organised as a platform to gather feedback from users and to stimulate debate on the content and focus of the articles. This feedback, as well as additional articles and input, allow the creation of an evolving manual and reference that reflects developments in the conflict transformation field. Second, we decided to publish [a] hard copy version, as we observed that many scholars and practitioners still asked for the complete compilation of all contributions.

We are grateful for the very positive reaction to our initiative among the colleagues, from all over the world, whom we have asked to contribute to the Handbook. They are experienced practitioners and scholars, some of them pioneers in the field and/or working on key tasks of conflict transformation. They accepted the demanding job of adapting their style of presentation to the common standards of this Handbook. Without their knowledge, motivation and flexibility, the Handbook project would not have been possible. We would like to thank all the authors who contributed to both the internet and hardcopy version of the Berghof Handbook. We hope that we can establish a continuing discourse with them as well as with our readers about cutting-edge practice and theory in our field.

[The 2004 hard copy edition] represents a compilation of articles that have been launched up to mid-2003 on the website. The hard copy version is not meant as a final point, but has to be seen as an ‘interim report’ of findings, as the Berghof team endeavours to develop the Berghof Handbook project further. Future developments will include

[updating] of themes and issues which have been focused on in the past
[adding] debates and dialogues on issues which are considered [to be] areas of special interest and importance
providing services and feedback fora as part of the process of restructuring the website.

This means that friends and colleagues who are interested in results of peace practice and analysis in the field of ethnopolitical conflict are invited to visit our homepage from time to time in order to discover innovative articles which can be found and downloaded by searching the “News” section.

[…]

Many thanks have to be directed to those institutions and organisations who gave financial support to the Berghof Handbook, especially the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies (Berghof Stiftung für Konfliktforschung) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Science (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung).

Finally we want to thank all those persons who joined the Berghof Handbook team since the beginning of the project, colleagues who helped at different stages and thus contributed to the first edition [… as well as to its continued growth over the past years].

Martina Fischer & Norbert Ropers
Berlin / Colombo, July 20, 2003

Author

Title / Description

Date

John Paul Lederach