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Introduction:
Ron Fisher, of American University, reflects on the complexity of peace practice, as well as the importance (and difficulty) of understanding the extent of one's own role and expertise, and how they intersect with the roles and expertise of other people.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Complexity, Roles, and Expertise
Ron Fisher
Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution, School of International Service, American University
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Q: Other advice?
A: The other thing I would say is to try and understand the confusion and the
complexity that the context of peace building and other terms now provide to the
field of conflict resolution. Try to chart way in that where you have a good
sense of what you can do, but you also have a good sense of what you cannot do
but what you obviously have to do in concert with a lot of other people and a
lot of other activities and that's not easy because that clear picture is not
available. I really think that is the current challenge and then within that to
maintain again the theory, practice, and integrity of the field rather than
allowing it to basically be co-opted, compromised, or massaged in ways that take
it away from its true base.
Q: Does an intervener have a responsibility to know what else is
going on out there in order to act in coordination with other interveners?
A: Yes, very much so. Earlier your comment about whose responsibility is
coordination was really an important question that more and more people are
raising right now. Obviously it is not easy, it requires a lot of networking and
interfacing and so on but in a sense that is part of a code of conduct. There
has been some pretty good attempts at codes of conduct that include your usual
ethical practice, but also go beyond that to think of your obligations to the
parties and the wider context and other people who are active in that context
and so on. It is a really big challenge, but I think young people coming in to
the field or older people coming new to the field need to really think about
this as a professional challenge of immense magnitude not to be taken lightly at
all. Even if you come from an existing professional base, which many people do,
as a lawyer, psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, whatever. You then build
upon that when you move into the field of conflict resolution or you will
ultimately fail or do something that is not good.
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