Violence And Mediation In Contemporary Culture

This collection of essays addresses two major issues of contemporary culture: the problem of violence in relation to notions of "difference" and power; and the role of mediation in making possible non-conflictive play of cultural differences.

Ten essays explore violence in relation to notions of difference, representation, and power; and the role of mediation in providing communal space in which cultural differences can interplay without conflict. Among the topics are the semiotics of windows and television screens, gender relations in contemporary film, and the image of Mormons in popular literature. The fiction of Kafka, Lu Xun, Conrad Aiken, Toni Morrison, and Ronald Sukenick is also examined. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

This book examines mediation topics such as impartiality, self-determination and fair outcomes through popular culture lenses. Popular television shows and award-winning films are used as illustrative examples to illuminate under-represented mediation topics such as feelings and expert intuition, conflicts of interest and repeat business, and deception and caucusing. The author also employs research from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America to demonstrate that real and reel mediation may have more in common than we think. How mediation is imagined in popular culture, compared to how professors teach it and how mediators practise it, provides important affective, ethical, legal, personal and pedagogical insights relevant for mediators, lawyers, professors and students, and may even help develop mediator identity.

Mediation, Conciliation, and Emotions: The Role of Emotional Climate in Understanding Violence and Mental Illness, the revised edition of the groundbreaking Mediation, Conciliation, and Emotions: A Practitioner’s Guide to Understanding Emotions in Dispute Resolution, discusses the under-researched topic of emotional climate, and emphasizes the importance of considering climate or environment when trying to understand violence and mental illness, as well as its impact on our society. Ladd and Blanchfield describe how an effective mediator, conciliator, or peacemaker should approach these conflicts. New features include updated references, a discussion of contemporary violence and mental health, and comparisons between culture and climate when determining how conflicts evolve into violent acts.

In the context of ongoing or historical violence, people tell stories about what happened, who did what to whom and why. Yet frequently, the speaking of violence reproduces the social fractures and delegitimizes, again, those that struggle against their own marginalization. This speaking of violence deepens conflict and all too often perpetuates cycles of violence. Alternatively, sometimes people do not speak of the violence and it is erased, buried with the bodies that bear it witness. This reduces the capacity of the public to address issues emerging in the aftermath of violence and repression. This book takes the notion of "narrative" as foundational to conflict analysis and resolution. Distinct from conflict theories that rely on accounts of attitudes or perceptions in the heads of individuals, this narrative perspective presumes that meaning, structured and organized as narrative processes, is the location for both analysis of conflict, as well as intervention. But meaning is political, in that not all stories can be told, or the way they are told delegitimizes and erases others. Thus, the critical narrative theory outlined in this book offers a normative approach to narrative assessment and intervention. It provides a way of evaluating narrative and designing "better-formed" stories: "better" in that they are generative of sustainable relations, creating legitimacy for all parties. In so doing, they function aesthetically and ethically to support the emergence of new histories and new futures. Indeed, critical narrative theory offers a new lens for enabling people to speak of violence in ways that undermine the intractability of conflict

Violence and increasing public awareness of violence mark society's contemporary condition. Sept. 11, 2001 made this condition even more indelible. Cultural Shaping of Violence proposes that violence cannot be described, let alone understond or addressed, unless tied to the cultural settings that influence it. The book's 27 chapters, researched and written by 28 scholars of seven nationalities, document violence in 22 distinct cultural settings in 17 nation-states on five continents. Internal to each society, a number of sites of violence may thrive, from the domestic sphere to social institutions and political arenas. In whatever site or guise, violence reverberates throughout the social fabric and beyond.

Disputes, discord and reconciliation were fundamental parts of the fabric of communal living in early modern Europe. This edited volume presents essays on the cultural codes of conflict and its resolution in this period under three broad themes: peacemaking as practice; the nature of mediation and arbitration; and the role of criminal law in conflicts. Through an exploration of conflict and peacemaking, this volume provides innovative accounts of state formation, community and religion in the early modern period.

A timely consideration of the meaning of transnational cultural interactions today. In an era of increasing globalization, the cultural and the international have borders as permeable as most nations'--and an understanding of one requires making sense of the other. Foregrounding the role of mediation--understood here as a site of representation, transformation, and pluralization--the authors engage two specific questions: How might we make theoretical and practical sense of transnational cultural interactions? And how are we to understand the ways in which the sites of mediation represent, transform, and remediate internationals? Accordingly, the authors consider international issues like security, development, political activism, and the war against terrorism through the lens of cultural practices such as traveling through airports, exhibiting art and photography, logging on to the Internet, and spinning news stories.