‘Hitting Moving Targets’: Transformative Dialogues

Abstract

Transformation is an apt concept that from increasingly describes private peacemakers’ view of the whole peace process; various interesting efforts to adjust the transformative approach to new practices of peace intervention are recognizable. The transformative approach to (peace) mediation practice contests the conventional frame of conflict management and thus has substantial consequences for the framing of (peace) mediation goals and practices. Nonetheless, the private peacemakers are far from a uniform group in this regard and their understanding of what the relationship between mediation and transformation is and how drastic terms of old premises of mediation should be revisited diverge between organizations, as well as individual staff members. Through transformative shift, the organization of dialogue processes, including both National Dialogues (NDs) and informal dialogues, has gained increasing significance in the private organizations’ niche as dialogue allows better attachment to the demands of inclusivity and local ownership. Dialogue platforms and workshops are not organized only to gain bottom-up legitimacy and support the reconciliation process, but they have been used increasingly as a tactical tool for breaking deadlocks, engaging new actors in the peace process, and facilitating the envisioning of a more peaceful future, in particular when the official negotiation forum has stalled.