Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict

Cross-Cultural Communication Communicating effectively with people from different cultures is often a challenge, both for parties and for mediators or other intermediaries. Several Beyond Intractability participants comment on the types of errors that tend to be made, and what can be done to avoid them.
Typical Communication Errors
	Kevin Avruch discusses two major types of errors peace practitioners make when trying to be sensitive to culture.
	S.Y. Bowland describes how subtle racial or gender bias can lead to misunderstandings.
	Suzanne Ghais discusses the challenge of working with parties that have disparate worldviews and very different styles of communication.
	Will Reed recounts a cultural misunderstanding that he had with a group of Native American leaders.
Avoiding Communication Errors in Cross-cultural Situations
	Kevin Avruch talks about ways intervenors can raise their cultural competency.
	What should an outsider consider about local culture before intervening? Scholar-practitioner Wallace Warfield explains the debate between the basic human needs approach versus the cultural anthropological view.
	Paul Wehr talks about the importance of "multi-modal," culturally-appropriate interventions.
	Susan Dearborn talks about how mediators can increase transparency and build trust.
	Silke Hansen discusses a situation in which language was a significant hindrance to the mediation process.

This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

There is no time left for anything but to make peace work a dimension of our every waking activity. -- Elise Boulding

Featured Links
Organizations Making Noteworthy Contributions to Efforts to Promote More Constructive Conflict

Concordis International (CI)

Other Resources from
Beyond Intractability

Reconcilliation in Bosnia
How was peace acheived in Bosnia? Is the settlement working? Has reconciliation really been achieved?

Nobel Peace Prize Winners

League of Red Cross Societies
1963 Nobel Peace Laureate; now known as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Beyond Intractability Version IV
Copyright © 2003-2007 The Beyond Intractability Project
Beyond Intractability is a Registered Trademark of the University of Colorado
Project Acknowledgements

The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project
Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors and Editors
c/o Conflict Information Consortium (Formerly Conflict Research Consortium), University of Colorado
Campus Box 580, Boulder, CO 80309
Phone: (303) 492-1635; Fax: (303) 492-2154; Contact