Simon Fisher - Working With Conflict: Skills and Strategies for Action

ABOUT THE EDITOR AND AUTHORS

Simon Fisher is a conflict transformation specialist with extensive global experience, never happier than when sitting with a group under a tree. He is an activist, facilitator, trainer, educator and writer, and has worked with organizations in over countries, supporting many initiatives for dialogue and change. After directing a global education project, he was Oxfam Representative in DRC before co-founding Responding to Conflict in 1991 . Out of this experience he co-authored Working with Conflict: Skills and Strategies for Action (Zed, 2000 ), the precursor of this book.

Formerly advisor to the UK Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, he is now an Associate in the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University, from where he has a PhD. He currently works on a variety of issues, including Rethinking Security ( https://rethinkingsecurity.org.uk ).

Among his publications are Spirited Living: Waging Conflict, Building Peace (Quaker Books, 2004 ) and (with Lada Zimina) Just Wasting Our Time? Provocative Thoughts for Peacebuilders ( https://www.berghof-foundation.org/fileadmin/redaktion/Publications/Handbook/Dialogue_Chapters/dialogue_fishzim_lead.pdf ).

Vesna Matovi is an experienced peacebuilding and conflict transformation specialist with more than years experience as a consultant, facilitator, mediator, analyst and trainer on conflict and peace issues. Vesna holds a doctorate in Psychology and worked as a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and educator on issues of trauma and stress in conflict contexts.

Vesna gained experience as dialogue facilitator and mediator in the context of former Yugoslavia, while working with Nansen Dialogue Network on Interethnic dialogue for reconciliation initiative. She then continued to work in other contexts, first in the Middle East, and then Southeast Asia and Africa with Responding to Conflict.

She is now with International Alert, leading Peacebuilding Training and Learning programmes in conflict analysis, conflict sensitivity, dialogue and mediation.

Vesna lives in London and works internationally.

Bridget Walkers background is in international development, largely in the NGO sector. Her work has taken her to many countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Southern Caucasus and Former Yugoslavia. From 2005 to 2012 she served on the Board of Christian Aid, and is currently a member of the Advisory Group of Concordis International.

In the 1980 s she was involved in community work in inner city London in the UK. As a member of the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network she is actively engaged in support and advocacy on asylum and migration issues. She co-authored with Bill MacKeith two reports on immigration bail hearings. Other publications include a chapter on Peace Practice Examined in Aid, NGOs and the Realities of Womens Lives: A Perfect Storm (Practical Action, 2013 ). She compiled and edited No Failure in Peace Work: The Life and Teachings of Dekha Ibrahim Abdi , published by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Cambodia.

Bridget was born in York, is a UK citizen, and now lives in Oxford. She has a Masters degree in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Manchester.

Dylan Mathews is the Chief Executive of Peace Direct and has worked for a range of UK-based international development and humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Landmine Action, Y Care International and Oxford Research Group. While at Oxford Research Group, he wrote War Prevention Works, a collection of case studies highlighting the role of non-state actors in conflict prevention and resolution. The success of the report led to the founding of Peace Direct in 2002 by Scilla Elworthy.

Dylan holds an MSc in Development Studies from London South Bank University and an MBA from the Open University.

WORKING WITH CONFLICT 2

SKILLS AND STRATEGIES FOR ACTION

Simon Fisher, Vesna Matovi and Bridget Walker
Edited by Dylan Mathews

Working with Conflict 2 was first published in 2020 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.

www.zedbooks.net

Copyright Peace Direct 2020

The right of Dylan Mathews to be identified as the editor and of Simon Fisher, Vesna Matovi and Bridget Walker to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset in Plantin and Kievit by River Editorial Ltd, Devon, UK
Index by
Cover design by Adriana Brioso
Cover Image Mariia Reshetniak/iStock

Printed and bound in Great Britain

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-913441-32-6 hb
ISBN 978-1-913441-38-8 pb
ISBN 978-1-913441-40-1 pdf
ISBN 978-1-913441-41-8 epub
ISBN 978-1-913441-39-5 mobi

Since its founding in 2004 , Peace Direct has been committed to supporting grassroots peacebuilders around the world. We believe that local people should be at the front and centre of all efforts to stop violence and build peace in their communities, and yet too often their efforts are ignored and their voices not heard. We are determined to change this.

When Responding to Conflict (RTC) (see RTC: A Pen Portrait at the end of this book) closed down in 2016 , we were one of many organisations that felt that the vital work of this pioneering UK charity should continue. RTC had trained thousands of activists around the world and its Working with Conflict and Strengthening Policy and Practice courses had helped nurture a whole generation of peacebuilding leaders and practitioners. So, when the opportunity arose to take forward some of RTCs core work, I felt that this would perfectly complement Peace Directs existing portfolio of support to local peacebuilders. And so it was that we inherited a partially completed manuscript for Working with Conflict , which is the book you are now reading.

The first edition of Working with Conflict , based on the work of Responding to Conflict, was translated and photocopied into many languages, formally and informally, sold almost , copies and helped tens of thousands of people working for peace and justice around the world. We hope that this updated, yet new, version of the book will do the same, and will have as wide an impact or even greater, than the first.

This book is the fruit of the insights, and generosity of many people around the world who have contributed so much wisdom and learning from their wide experience in working with conflict. We are particularly grateful to Jane Fisher who contributed the chapter on Healing, bringing a new and much needed dimension, and drawing on her professional experience as a therapist.

We thank Joan McGregor, our very experienced colleague, who has contributed much to this book with her enthusiasm and wisdom over a long period, and are grateful to Paul Clifford and Marwan Darweish for their contributions. Susannah Fisher was generous with advice on climate change. Angi Yoder-Maina has kindly allowed us to use a diagram and description of the practice of the Green String Network. We are grateful to the Turning the Tide team in Rwanda and to Quaker Peace and Social Witness for permission to draw on the teams experience and insights into nonviolence and change. Thanks are due to Stembile Mpofu who wrote the Eye of the Storm piece in the Learning chapter. Bjoern Eser, of the Peacebuilding Practitioner, introduced us to the work of Ram Kumar Bhandari, founding president of the National Network of Families of the Disappeared and Missing (NEFAD) whose advocacy case study appears in the chapter on strategy. We thank Kathy Stewart for her description of the use of symbols in dialogue, and Diana Francis for permission to draw on her work and adapt her diagram. Our peer reviewers, Tatiana Garavito, Isabella Jean, Joan McGregor, Raza Shah Khan and Richard Smith, encouraged us and gave us food for thought. The book has been enriched by the illustrations of Lindsay Pollock, who has been patient and warmly responsive to our many comments. We are deeply grateful to Christine Vertucci for permission to include her moving message in the Afterword.