Skills for the Field

Five weeks into the internship, I want to briefly share which of the skills that I brought with me from my first year of graduate studies I have found most useful working in “the field”. During my first year of doing the Master’s degree in Conflict Resolution I have taken both classes that prepare me for applied work and classes that provide me with skills and knowledge I need for doing research. Working in Liberia now gives me the chance to assess which contents from the more applied classes have been most helpful.

First of all, I have learned to appreciate models and metaphors that are simple in form yet able to convey complicated content. Outside of the classroom and the academic/professional setting in general, it is impossible to assume that everyone understands the development/ conflict resolution jargon or sometimes even simply more difficult concepts of the English language. Just this week during a gender training in a rural setting, we noticed how a definition such as that “gender mainstreaming refers to the process of assessing the implications on women and men of any planned action, policy etc.” could easily overwhelm the participants. In these moments, using models, images, metaphors and examples can be even more helpful than using simpler language. This made me think of John Paul Lederach’s idea of using haikus: Once you have understood the complexity of an issue, you can condense it into a simple (and creative) form and in fact that way convey more than if you delved into all the aspects of it. Using for example the “conflict tree” to discuss root causes and effects of sexual and gender-based violence, or the “pyramid” to explain the difference between positions, interests and needs and the story about the two competing groups needing the peel and the juice of oranges respectively to illustrate it, seems more fruitful than using abstract concepts only. In the academic setting, these models and stories sometimes seemed a little silly (“another triangle?”) but here I have found them extremely useful.

Secondly, working in an international team and conducting trainings on partially contentious issues obviously requires good communication skills. In this regard, I believe that academic training in general (undergraduate as much as graduate) helps improve these skills indirectly through teaching students to reflect on their own positions, think critically, engage in intellectual debates with their peers and professors and learn to give and receive constructive feedback. More specifically, I find that having been introduced in the master’s program to the basics of facilitation and mediation and in more depth to negotiation techniques proves useful even outside of classical conflict settings. How do I react constructively as a facilitator when the participants to a gender mainstreaming training get into a heated debate over the issues of marital rape and homosexuality and I myself hold strong positions on them that might differ from those held by the majority of people in the room? Principles such as moving from a focus on the people to the issue, and from positions to interests/needs, as well as trying to find a common basis to agree on (e.g. using the rights-based approach and referring back to human rights principles that all agree upon) sound easy in theory but are challenging in practice. Yet, they are valuable principles to remember and seek to apply.

Lastly, the applied classes in conflict resolution have challenged me to get to know myself and my behavior in conflict situations better, which is useful for life in general and work in conflict resolution in particular. As an “accommodator”, how do I seek to pursue important yet difficult conversations to the end without prematurely stopping out of fear of possibly offending someone? How do I encourage people to openly express their opinions and feelings, knowing that it might make the discussion more challenging? How can I be culturally sensitive without falling into cultural relativism, a path that would fit my tendency of wanting to keep everyone calm and satisfied? Knowing myself better and trying to reflect accordingly on my behavior as a conflict resolution practitioner has definitely helped me in my work here in Liberia. I believe that in conflict resolution practice you draw just as much on general life experience as you draw on specific conflict resolution skills that you learned. Yet, while the former is largely unconscious, the latter is conscious, thus enabling us to reflect, evaluate and apply them more effectively.