Identity as a resource to shape mediation in dialogic interaction

Abstract

This article examines how mediators contribute to formulating a particular type of interactivity by bringing to the forefront institutionally appropriate identities of participants. An existing collection of 18 transcripts from audio recordings of mediation sessions at a mediation center in the western United States serves as a source of interactional data. The study shows that mediators act as designers to construct mediation as a collaborative activity. They invoke identities as an exercise in articulating what is possible in this interaction and exerting control over interactants. Mediators are not just doing what is appropriate for this institutional context; their actions are an act of constructing identities out of what is available there. Participants can act in different ways (e.g., as an ex-husband and an ex-wife). However, relative to the institutional agenda of the meeting, they are encouraged to perform in the capacity of parents and to be collaborators.

Strategic maneuvering in dispute mediation

“…Mediation talk is an institutional form of talk where the goal of interaction is to help disputants manage their conflict through deliberation. Research on mediation, aimed at understanding natural interaction processes, has focused on its different aspects, such as interactional organization of mediation talk (e.g., Garcia, 1991;Greatbatch & Dingwall, 1997;Jacobs 2002), mediators' neutrality (e.g., Donohue, 1991;Heisterkamp, 2006;Jacobs 2002), disputants' participation (e.g., Donohue, 1991;Garcia, 2010), and mediators' actions to shape interaction (e.g., Aakhus, 2003;Greco Morasso, 2011;Muraru, 2012;Vasilyeva 2012aVasilyeva , 2012bVasilyeva , 2015. The research on the latter aspect provides grounds for seeing mediators' actions as strategic ones.…”

“…As manipulators, mediators use their persuasive power to influence the parties' decision. Other research views mediators as designers of interaction (Aakhus, 2003;Vasilyeva, 2015). 4 As designers, mediators adapt to the situation and make moves to keep the interaction on task.…”

“…Topics that are treated by the mediators under study as institutionally appropriate are grouped into the following categories: visitation issues, custody issues, parties' collaboration, ways to deal with the situation, relationship issues, personal information, technical matters, agreement, interaction process during the mediation session, children's interests, parties' behavior and character features, and children's behavior and personality (Vasilyeva, 2012a). 8 These categories are related to the task that participants are trying to accomplish during sessions and derive from the institutional activity of dispute mediation.…”

The Role of References in Custody Mediation

“…In this respect, researchers of conflict talk are interested in interactants' use of interactional resources and techniques to create conflict or manage disagreement in interpersonal and institutional contexts (Aakhus, 2003;Black & Wiederhold, 2014;Bonito & Sanders, 2002;Coulter, 1990;Gillispie & Chrispeels, 2008;Goodwin & Goodwin, 1990;Hutchby 1996;Schiffrin, 1990;Stokoe & Sikveland, 2016;Vasilyeva, 2015b;2016b). For example, interactants can use shifts in footing as a resource to address disagreement in an indirect way while avoiding conflict (Bonito & Sanders, 2002) or stay neutral (McVittie et al, 2011).…”

“…Research on mediation demonstrates that mediators use a variety of techniques 1 to manage interaction in the course of the session and help disputants deal with their conflict. For example, they accomplish that by formulating parties' complaints (Stokoe & Sikveland, 2016), using linguistic devices to temporize the dispute, redirect the discussion, and relativize facts (Aakhus, 2003), controlling where in the course of interaction disputants report their position (Garcia, 2000), using requesting directives (Donohue, 1991), employing metaphors (Greco Morasso, 2011), advancing institutionally appropriate participants' identities and dialogue activities and discouraging institutionally dispreferred ones (Vasilyeva, 2012b;2015b), selecting vocabulary items that aim to create communion between disputants (Muraru, 2012), and constructing their interventions in a way that would keep disputants in the frame of the mediation activity without threatening their image (e.g., by providing an account for terminating an institutionally inappropriate activity or topic) (Vasilyeva, 2017).…”