Abstract
Building upon the critique of facilitative mediation above, this chapter will examine the two styles of mediation known as ‘narrative’ and ‘transformative’ and dubbed by Kressel (2006) as ‘relational mediation’. These two schools of practice, as indicated by the name, focus on the recovery of relations that are non-conflictual and thereby give emphasis to an overtly moral dimension in addition to any instrumental and practical objectives of facilitative workplace mediation. By assessing the potential of relational styles to privilege an aspiration for dialogue, this examination will then afford a basis for the delineation (in Chap. 7) of an explorative style that places an aspiration for dialogical behaviour at the centre of mediation practice.
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Notes
- 1.
The humanism of Bush and Folger would seem to fall into the category of liberal humanism, against which Harvey (2015) counter-poses a revolutionary humanism that ‘refuses the idea that there is an unchanging or pre-given “essence” of what it means to be human’ (p. 287).
- 2.
This mediator was employed by a different workplace mediation service provider from the mediators in the role-play in Chap. 5.
- 3.
<Superscript>To the author’s best knowledge such practice is currently found in the USA but not the UK.
- 4.
<Superscript>Most contemporary mediation practice in the UK adopts a process of face-to-face first visits with each party separately. It seems that it is common in the USA for ‘first visits’ to be carried out by telephone. This is done in the ‘Purple House’ example (Bush and Folger 2005).
- 5.
<Superscript>The transformative and explorative styles may both result in a similar intervention for different reasons and in this sense they may overlap. The explorative mediator may register the term ‘managerialism’ as having discursive political connotations whereas the transformative mediator may just sense a moment of disempowerment when this term is uttered. As noted before, there are many commonalities across all styles of mediation.
- 6.
<Superscript>Explorative mediation is concerned with the understanding of needs and interests rather than their negotiation.
- 7.
<Superscript>The apolitical as always is political in that to abstain by default lends support to the majority.
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Seaman, R. (2016). Relational Mediation. In: Explorative Mediation at Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51674-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51674-9_6
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