Constructing Conflict: A Discursive Analysis of Family Law Conflict

Abstract

Assumptions that disputants are responsible for their conflicts are embedded in many of our practices for engaging conflict, when, in many instances, rational‐legal institutions we rely on to do our conflict business, not individuals, may be causing and sustaining our conflicts (Cloke 2001). Using a discursive framework that draws on Foucault (1980) and Bacchi's (2009) methodology of problematization, this article critiques a psychological assessment tool used and required in a custody and access evaluation in the context of family law to show how institutional structures and context matter when third parties work with conflict.