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How to Increase Participation in a Conflict Resolution Process: Insights from Discursive Psychology

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Discourse, Peace, and Conflict

Part of the book series: Peace Psychology Book Series ((PPBS))

Abstract

In this chapter, I will explore the mediation of neighbour and family conflicts through the lens of discursive psychology, focusing particularly on what interaction between mediators and their prospective clients (neighbours, parents) tells us about the nature of dispute and the efficacy of mediation. I will describe a research project, from its inception studying neighbour disputes to its culmination in training mediators to better engage prospective mediation clients. The chapter will start by locating this project in the wider fields of mediation, neighbour and family disputes, as well as discursive and interactional work on conflict in interaction. I will describe the collection of large-scale qualitative datasets, including telephone calls to mediation services, environmental health services, and police interviews with arrested suspects in neighbour and family conflict cases. These data were analysed using conversation analysis, in the discursive psychological tradition pioneered by Edwards (e.g. 2005) and Potter (e.g. Potter & Hepburn, 2007). I will show how mediators fail and succeed to attract potential clients to mediation depending on how mediation is explained, and how resistant clients may be persuaded to mediate. Finally, I describe how research findings about what works to engage clients has underpinned national and international mediation training, using the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method. In sum, the chapter will show how discursive psychological research can have big pay-offs in terms of the impact of its findings in real-life settings that matter for people in conflict.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In transcripts, the punctuation symbols used refer to pitch movement up (↑) and down (↓), stretching sounds (::), timed pauses to the nearest tenth of a second (e.g. 0.6), a “cut-off” sound (-), and emphasis (underlining). Full stops indicate a falling intonation; commas indicate a slightly rising intonation.

  2. 2.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bf56gk

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Elizabeth Stokoe

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  1. Elizabeth Stokoe
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Stokoe .

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  1. School of Psychological and Social Sciences, York St John University, York, UK

    Stephen Gibson

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Stokoe, E. (2018). How to Increase Participation in a Conflict Resolution Process: Insights from Discursive Psychology. In: Gibson, S. (eds) Discourse, Peace, and Conflict. Peace Psychology Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99094-1_2

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