This article describes a dialogue process used in several North American cities to address conflict over abortion. Participants report increased empathy and trust toward advocates far different positions after spending a day in small and large group interactions. Limitations of the process and its applicability to other divisive social issues are considered.Michelle LeBaron is associate professor of conflict analysis and resolution and women's studies at T While there are ample examples of interventions failing to fulfill the promise of its proponents, the risk of Mure should not discourage us from trying.People involved in the abortion conflict are not neutral and they are not apathetic. The passion that they bring to their activism is born of a desire to influence social consensus, to make change, and to create better conditions. While those on either side of the issue differ on what "better" means and which changes are needed, the sheer energy that they bring is a powerful force when common ground can be identified and they can work together.The potential of using dialogue to address the abortion conflict caught the imagination of two conflict resolution scholar/practitioners, Mary Jacksteit and Adrienne Kaufmann. From their respective backgrounds as a labor arbitrator and a Benedictine nun, they designed a dialogue process to harness the energy of common ground and prevent further intergroup polarization and abortion-related violence. They sought to help those involved in the abortion conflict identify common ground and build a relationship. Their common ground process is not designed to change the views of participants about the issue of abortion. It does not present new "objective" information that can settle the issue once and for all.Through the sharing of stories and an examination of the perceptions each side holds of the other, it facilitates a dialogue that builds relationship and helps parties see those areas where mutual action may be possible. Cooperative ventures coming out of abortion dialogue groups include jointly authored papers on adoption and community initiatives to prevent teen pregnancy and promote family life education.This article explores and analyzes the day-long dialogue workshop developed by Jacksteit and Kaufmann, housed at The Network for Life and Choice, a project of Search for Common Ground in Washington, D.C. In 1995-96, the authors were engaged to do an evaluation of this process. As evaluators, we had the opportunity to observe the process and conduct interviews with Network directors, steering committee members, local organizers, and participants from several North American cities. Our research convinced us that use of the dialogue process is an important and encouraging development in public policy dispute resolution with unmined potential for application to other divisive social issues. This article summarizes our findings, including the main features of the common ground process and its products including reconciliation and the development of trust, empathy, and a culture...

This article explores connections among culture, lawyering, and mediation. Starting from a broad definition of culture, the authors illustrate ways that cultural competence is important to mediation practice and process design. They suggest that awareness of legal culture is an important facet of mediator competence because of the pervasive influence of legal ways of thinking in mediation process design and implementation.

Despite its worldwide use in grassroots confl ict approaches, dance, and the body more generally, remain largely unaddressed within confl ict theory and conventional practice. We argue that the body is an essential focus of confl ict theory and a ready resource for confl ict practice by exploring the implications of compelling discoveries within the fi eld of neuroscience. Examining the embodied dimensions of cognition, emotion, and memory, the physical roots of empathy, and the relationship of right-and left-brain processes to confl ict, we outline neuroscientifi c underpinnings of dance-based approaches to confl ict and the range of creative tools that arises from its use.I'm not interested in how people move, but in what moves them. Pina BauschC onfl ict is-among other things-often accompanied by a sense of inertia, a feeling of being bound up in discomfort, a visceral need for a shift. While much confl ict resolution training and intervention is centered around cognitive analysis, a new wave of theory and practice draws on the arts to inform choices and frameworks (Liebmann

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Seismic shifts in legal practice associated with globalization, rapid technological and economic change, and shifting client expectations have yet to spur concomitant changes in legal education. While governing bodies and scholars study trends, pressures, and shrinking markets, legal educators in many countries have resisted effective curricular, pedagogical, and programmatic changes. Positing metaphors as powerful cues about the effectiveness of reform efforts, I use examples from conflict analysis to illustrate how so‐called ‘unmarked’ metaphors are often more powerful than marked ones. Exploring metaphors used by scholars and professional bodies in advocating reform, I scan linkages between proposed metaphors and change, highlighting metaphors in the American Carnegie report as particularly generative. While crisis metaphors have increased in use, they do not seem to have stimulated significant changes. I suggest this may be because of powerful unmarked metaphors. The article concludes with recommendations on discursive and dialogic ways of guiding legal education reform.