in Paris and Nanterre, African students residing in France, with members of Étienne Leroy's Cultural Anthropology Laboratory of University Paris I, endorse the role of cultural intermediation between the judge and children of African origin.
The Absence of Precise Rules or Established Laws
All situations where a simple, clear, and unanimously accepted rule is lacking are a potential breeding ground for conflicts. Each party invokes “their” rule, or “the right” interpretation of the obscure rule.
Adolescence: Who decides?
Concerning teenagers, no absolute rule exists concerning the hours of going out and returning home, the possibilities of long trips alone or in a group, or whom they choose as friends. Often, parents, assuming their parental responsibility, establish rules that are contested by their teenage children. The latter, already feeling like adults, affirm their new identity by confronting their parents. Each side, feeling legitimate, camps on their reciprocal positions.
When direct exchanges become difficult and include a constant interrupting of one another, the need is felt to organize the exchanges and establish new rules of the game: it is a call for mediation.
This call also concerns areas where the rapid advancement of technology does not allow people to always take their time to respond judiciously; the same applies to copyright in the dissemination of works on the Internet. To a greater extent, the settling of conflicts resulting from Internet transactions creates a need for mediation by the Forum of Internet Rights to organize online or face‐to‐face mediation between Internet users and Web service providers. The mediator, who helps in the interpretation and legitimacy of an implicit or explicit rule, assists the parties to agree upon the rules they all find acceptable.
Absence of a Suitable Space
Individuals like groups or organizations in conflict find themselves separated by the front lines. A no‐man's‐land comes between territories that became impenetrable, each person being banned from a stay in the other's space. For example, two departments in a quarrel within the same company are situated at two different sites; no one goes to the offices of the other “camp” anymore. A few meters suffice to raise a wall of separation. Colleagues in conflict, although separated by only one floor, may lack a neutral space to speak with one another safely.
In all these cases, faced with protagonists refusing “to go” to the space of the other party, the mediator offers a suitable neutral space for the meeting. This place materializes if the parties accept to physically meet: the mediator suggests an office, a cafeteria, a table surrounded by comfortable chairs, a discreet hotel in a neighboring nation, Geneva, etc. or any other favorable location (cf., on this logistic aspect, Chapter 4 on mediation preparation). Mediation often assumes the careful choice and preparation of a meeting space that parties lack.
In some cases, this suitable space may be symbolic. The parties refuse to meet or are not financially able to do it; in this case, the mediator acts as the shuttle between them, carrying messages from one side to the other so that the exchange continues.
Adam Curle in Biafra: A mediator‐shuttle
Mediator, indispensable author, and first tenured chair of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, Adam Curle (1916–2006) was the shuttle throughout the war of Biafra (1967–1970) between Biafrans and the Nigerian government to prepare solutions to end the crisis.
Distrust of the Other and Confidence in the Third Party
In a situation of conflict, past experience leads a person or a group to be suspicious of the other. Based on a negative experience, one fears the worst:
With the same interlocutor: A party was “fooled” once, and no longer wants to take a chance. Once bitten, twice shy.
Or with other interlocutors in a similar situation: A party suffered from harmful events elsewhere and does not wish to risk a recurrence.
Past painful experiences drive caution and reluctance, which manifest themselves even when the causes have vanished. With attentive and benevolent ears, the mediator probes and explores what has happened, uncovering the sources of distrust in order to move forward. This suspicion may appear during joint or private meetings. An understanding of real or perceived risks helps to elaborate guarantees or other acts likely to restore confidence.
Distrust of the other pushes someone toward a third party, who might not be discarded the same way. When the mediation idea emerges in a suspicious party's mind, another question is quickly raised: who would be this neutral person who inspires enough confidence to overcome such ingrained suspicion? Often, the confidence in a potential third party precedes the very idea of mediation. As one first thinks of someone trustworthy, the idea of mediation comes later.
The American hostage crisis in Iran
In the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, with the arrival of Khomeini in power, a grave diplomatic crisis was precipitated when US citizens were held as hostages at the US embassy in Tehran in 1980–1981. There was no confidence between the two countries. On both sides, an outrageous rhetoric obstructed all contact. Algeria, on the other hand, enjoyed the confidence of both sides. Algerian diplomacy opened channels of communication between the two camps, working toward the resolution of the crisis.
These seven justifications above underline how mediation helps to go beyond an unsatisfying past, bereft of communication and trust, dominated by an escalation of negative emotions, the imbroglio of problems and reciprocal misunderstanding, marked by the absence of shared rules and a meeting space. Mediation happens at a particular juncture in order to understand the past and try to move toward a promising future.
A Future to Reconstruct: Seven Justifications in Favor of Mediation
Facing conflict, the finality of mediation for parties is less about agreeing on the past than about helping them build a future suitable for each of them. What is at stake is the durability of the agreement, which mediation takes into account by responding to seven new justifications, this time to move forward.
Preserving Relationships
One needs to “separate the people from the problem” (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1991) in a conflict. Even if some conflicts concern mostly the resolution of a problem, nevertheless the human, or intersubjective, component reveals itself as decisive in finding a way out of the problem.
In other cases, the damaged relationship is more important than the problem itself, which is only a symptom. Thus, addressing it constitutes a principal objective of mediation. It is not conceived as a moral question, but as a contextual necessity. Reality puts people or groups in contact, brought to stand alongside one another and to interact not only because they want to, but because they cannot do otherwise, at least in the near future. Here are many examples.
Ex‐spouses – Two hypotheses can be distinguished. The first one requires a more sustainable relationship.Divorce with childrenParents need to maintain relations, even minimal, to better assume their respective role as parents. Children will be grateful that their mother and father know how to talk to one another and continue to exchange
