Applying an Academic/Practitioner Analysis to Community Dialogue’s Practice

By Ann Kelleher (Spring 2016)

“I never saw an instance of one or two disputantsconvincing the other by argument.” – Thomas Jefferson1

The earlier report on Community Dialogue, "Local Peacebuilding in Practice: Community Dialogue's Contribution," focused on CD's way of engaging local people in dialogue and reasons for its success. The organization's practitioners have remained true to CD's originating mission of empowering people through dialogue that “deepens understanding of our own and each other’s positions.”2 In developing their practice over the years, CD facilitators have demonstrated the practical feasibility of dialogue as a local peacebuilding strategy. It has proven its capacity to create positive and deeply experienced interactions with difference among Northern Ireland’s local people.

This second report will show that CD's practice also illustrates dialogue's theoretical validity. Dialogue as a field of study benefits from the fact that its leading scholars combine practitioner and academic roles. Their publications have created a substantial conceptual basis for dialogue as both an established subject of academic inquiry as well as a professional way of working.

The previous report included reflections by CD's facilitators, the thinking that explained their methodologies. Subsequently a comparative analysis of CD’s ideas and implementation juxtaposed with relevant published academic/practitioner concepts could strengthen both. Highlighting ways in which CD’s practice reflects as well as remains distinct from that presented in a range of relevant publications could deepen discussions about dialogue’s theoretical validity as well as its practical effectiveness.

Definitions of Dialogue – Similarities about Process, Differences about Purpose

A reviewer could choose from various categories in organizing available information about dialogue. Academic disciplines, for example, deal with dialogue as relevant to their fields of formal study, particularly communication, social psychology, business management, philosophy, international peacemaking and peacebuilding. The nature of participants presents another organizing theme. Examples include interactions of individuals interpersonally, of high-level institutional representatives, or of people from organizations or groups. Categories of practitioners provides yet one more way to sort out dialogue’s patterns of operation; NGOs, government representatives, INGOs, private consultants, law firms, business personnel. These

1 In a letter to Lace︠pe︡de, July 14, 1808 in The Portable Thomas Jefferson, edited by Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Penguin Books, 1975), https://books?id=1hbAavG-aLEC&pg: Accessed October 14, 2015.2 David Holloway, “A Practical Guide to Dialogue, 2004, 19.

inherently descriptive ways to categorize uses of dialogue have their utility yet they do not embody analytically useful distinctions across classifications.

This report will discuss a division among dialogue practitioner/academics derived from reviewing a representative sample of their publications. The difference that surfaced, although less obvious than other organizing premises, has implications both conceptually and for applied practice. Simply stated, writings about dialogue differ over whether or not the process of dialogue by definition includes its purpose. To some authors, the practice of dialogue itself embodies the desired objective. To them the process is the point. Other analysts, however, assert that dialogue provides an effective means to an end, to the larger purpose of a societal change of some sort.

While the distinction between the two views of dialogue as presented above may seem too slight to matter, it puts the emphasis where it belongs according to dialogue devotees. While all in the field carefully attend to process, to some dialogue inherently means the process should produce an issue-based result. For others, dialogue exists to enable better relations among the participants as an end in itself. Each have a purpose in mind, but they differ over its relation to process. The seemingly subtle yet significant distinction among dialogue advocates means that practitioners can make a sensible choice for their own work as they think through their distinctive situational contexts.

A careful consideration comparing the thinking of various authors on why engage in dialogue can cause a healthy exchange of views on an important subject. Practitioners could learn from each other. For example, those favoring the first understanding of dialogue, as fusing process and purpose, may caution those with a means-to-an-end view of the need for taking the time to allow interpersonal connections to develop before focusing on larger societal issues. If this does not happen, the dialogue might merge into a negotiation or even a debate mentality that conjures up defensive reactions. Conversely, those working with dialogue as a way, perhaps the best way, to begin dealing with deep societal differences may note that treating the dialogue process as the point may produce interactions that go on and on and do little to deal directly with a recognized problem.

So far the process in relation to purpose discussion has been presented in a polarized way. Some dialogue scholarship blurs the boundary between process-as-purpose or social change as the purpose of dialogue. The publications of these academic/practitioners convey gradations about purpose that do not fall neatly into the two highly differentiated definitions of dialogue. Thus a more accurate portrayal pictures interpretations of dialogue’s purpose as moving on a continuum, with change as the purpose of dialogue at one end and process itself as the purpose on the other.

Change/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Process/Purpose Purpose

Process as Purpose

David Bohm, the author may other academic/practitioners accept as a founder of dialogue as an area of study, makes the case for the process itself as embodying its own purpose, that of creating deeply experienced human relationships via extended interactions. Bohm’s pivotal book On Dialogue was published as the field began rapidly maturing.

David Bohm

Bohm’s ideas enable profound, multi-layered meanings that have proven foundational for understanding dialogue. His interpretation of dialogue as process has become generally accepted whether or not the designers and participants in a specific dialogue have major change in mind as their desired purpose. Yet in sum, Bohm's analysis presents a vibrant case for dialogue's process as constituting its purpose.

Bohm’s work presents one of the most extensive as well as intensive analyses of dialogue. Theoretically rich, its mining has surfaced many significant assumptions that have been adapted to the wide variety of dialogues in use today. Bohm’s conceptualizations enable practitioners to continually review and revise their dialogue process, sometimes even reconceiving and redesigning it. Bohm defines dialogue as a process that creates “impersonal fellowship” and “participatory consciousness” through developing “shared meanings.” The following offers Bohm’s own explanations of these concepts.

“Impersonal fellowship” – If we can all listen to each other’s opinions, and suspend them without judging them, and your opinion is on the same basis as anyone else’s, then we all have “one mind” because we have the same content – all the opinions, all the assumptions. At that moment the difference is secondary. It does not overwhelm the individual. There is no conflict in the fact that the individual does not agree. It’s not all that important whether you agree or not. . . . The point is that we would establish, on another level, a kind of bond, which is called impersonal fellowship. You don’t have to know each other. . . . I am saying that this is a reason for dialogue. We really do need to have it. This reason should be strong enough to get us through all the frustration. People generally seem ready to accept frustration with anything that they regard as important.3

“Participatory consciousness” – We are all looking at everything together. The content of our consciousness is essentially the same. Accordingly, a different kind of consciousness is possible among us, a participatory consciousness – as indeed consciousness always is, but one that is frankly acknowledged to be participatory and can go that way freely. Everything can move between us. Each person is participating, is partaking of the whole meaning of the group and also taking part in it. We can call that a true dialogue.4

3 David Bohm, On Dialogue (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 32.4 Bohm, On Dialogue, 26-27.

“Shared meanings” - I’m saying that it is necessary to share meaning. A society is a link of relationships among people and institutions, so that we can live together. But it only works if we have a culture, which implies that we share meaning; i.e., significance, purpose, and value.5

In not explaining dialogue blithely, Bohm implies that the process should not be conducted in a simplified way or at a superficial level.

A great deal of what nowadays is typically considered to be dialogue tends to focus on negotiation; but as we said, that is a preliminary stage. People are generally not ready to go into the deeper issues when they first have what they consider to be a dialogue. They negotiate, and that’s about as far as they get. Negotiation is trading off, adjusting to each other and saying, “Okay, I see your point. It see that that is important to you. Let’s find a way that would satisfy both of us. I will give in a little on this, and you give in a little on that. And then we will work something out.” Now, that’s not really a close relationship, but it begins to make it possible to get going.6

By now a reader may well be asking, how can people who lately were strangers experience the deepening connections needed for real relationship, Bohm’s “impersonal fellowship,” to develop? Bohm provides what can be interpreted as a two-part answer to this question.

First, each participant must become self-aware, noted as “self-awareness of thought” to quote Bohm, in order to discover the depth of one’s own humanity and that of others. Bohm describes the needed “deep and intense awareness” as an experience of “wholeness” comprised of three elements; abstract (cognitive) thought, emotions, and physiological reactions/reflexes. Mutually reinforcing, these three combine as a person’s experience and should not be thought of as separate. When someone struggles in times of tension - intending to be understanding, calm and not aggressive - but carries out actions not in agreement with this intention, the result is contradiction, confusion and self-deception. Then, in order to cover up what otherwise may be self-perceived as weakness or lack of control, the person may think, “I am aggressive, I mustn’t be aggressive.” So actions thought of as aggressive are suppressed. But that means the person is still aggressive, but against her/himself, experiencing stress and striving to overcome self-perceived aggressive impulses. Therefore the situation hasn’t really changed, according to Bohm. Without self-awareness, intentions and actions often do not agree. Such incoherence, to use Bohm’s word, among abstract thought, emotions, and bodily tensions occur when, in spite of trying not to, a person becomes angry. Alternatively, self-awareness of thought engaging the whole person - cognitively, emotionally, and physiologically

5 Bohm, On Dialogue, 19.6 Bohm, On Dialogue, 18. Many other dialogue authors also make a point of contrasting dialogue from negotiation. They elaborate on distinctions between dialogue and other kinds of interactions – negotiation, discussion, and debate.

- enables coherence in reacting to adverse assertions and situations. Dialogue calls for participants to experience coherence, a sense of clam, harmony, and emotional connection.7

Second, participants use their self-awareness to achieve “suspension,” a consciousness Bohm considers as crucial to the dialogue process. Suspension is definitely not an attempt to suppress aggression. For Bohm, learning how to suspend takes repetitive practice and can happen during dialogue. As Bohm puts it, “I want to emphasize again that with anger, violence, fear – with all those things, there can be suspension.” . . . “There is a difference between thinking about the hurt, and thinking the hurt. Thinking about the hurt is saying that the hurt is “'out there,' and I form abstractions about it, like a table.” Then Bohm goes on to suggest a person should “think the hurt, which is to go through the thought and let it produce whatever it’s going to do, which means to let it stand in the body and in consciousness without being suppressed and without being carried out. Suspend the activity.” In actual practice this means feeling the hurt over again. Bohm says, “Suspend the activity in both directions (thinking about and thinking the hurt), and just simply let it reveal itself and see it."8 He thinks even people with great difficulties can learn to “suspend” and not suppress.

This point in the flow of Bohm’s thinking provides an appropriate place to ask, why does the need exist to understand dialogue as deeply experienced relationship-building? May a straightforward and respectful exchange of views suffice at least in some cases? Dialogue advocates – practitioners, academics, policy-makers, commentators – realize the need for a profound interaction process because they are taking on firmly entrenched assumptions and opinions. People often hold their perspectives rigidly, as historically and ethically justified. They have become elements of an identity. When such cultural perspectives clash, particularly in a post-violent conflict society, people with opposing assumptions perceive “the other” as perpetrator and their own group as victims who have suffered vicious wrongs.

Bohm discusses such a situation briefly in labelling these perspectives as “collective fantasies” in which facts are created. Theorists other than Bohm have pointed out that entrenched ethnic-based inflexibility has a monumental head start, having done its polarizing work for decades or even centuries. In rebutting the idea the humans intrinsically harbor a hatred for those different from themselves, Bohm adds a healthy corrective important for dialogue. He says polarized social environments have taken shape, “not because people are intrinsically dangerous, but because of misrepresentations that have generally been accepted.”9 In other words, the deep distinctions we make among culturally defined peoples are socially constructed. Dialogue participants, therefore, can deconstruct divisive understandings but must be open to questioning their own fundamental assumptions. As Bohm states, “The proper structure of an assumption or of an opinion is that it is open to evidence that it may not be right.”10

7 Bohm, On Dialogue, 73-74, 77-79.8 Bohm, On Dialogue, 76-77.9 Bohm, On Dialogue, 60.10 Bohm, On Dialogue, 34.

As a concluding point about Bohm's thinking, this report arrives at the why of his thinking, namely his understanding of dialogue’s purpose. David Bohm presents his position on the issue of whether dialogue’s process embodies its purpose as contrasted with whether dialogue should occur to effect major social change. According to Bohm, dialogue is characterized by the absence of an agenda. He focuses on the process of dialogue itself.

In the dialogue group we are not going to decide what to do about anything. This is crucial. Otherwise we are not free. We must have an empty space where we are not obliged to do anything, nor to come to any conclusions, nor to say anything or not say anything. . . . As Krishnamurti used to say, ‘The cup has to be empty to hold something.” We see that it is not an arbitrary imposition to state that we have no fixed purpose – no absolute purpose, anyway. We may set up relative purposes for investigation, but we are not wedded to a particular purpose, and are not saying that the whole group must conform to that purpose indefinitely. All of us might want the human race to survive, but even that is not our purpose. Our purpose is really to communicate coherently in truth, if you want to call that a purpose.11

Related Explanatory Concepts

University courses on dialogue supplement their reading lists with books and articles providing relevant concepts from a wide variety of thinkers, among them Walter Fisher, a Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California. In “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm”12 he considers the nature of being human and arrives at the conclusion that humans must be understood as storytellers. This narrative paradigm contrasts with the traditionally understood rational paradigm13 that has its place but not as the “reigning paradigm” that it currently occupies. “Narrative paradigm, like other paradigms in the human sciences, does not so much deny what has gone before as it subsumes it.”14

“By ‘narration,’ I refer to a theory of symbolic actions – words and/or deeds – that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create, or interpret them. The narrative perspective, therefore, has relevance to real as well as fictive worlds, to stories of living and stories of the imagination.”15 According to Fisher, the narrative paradigm consists of understanding people as quintessentially communicating through storylines, telling each other sequences of events and observations that carry meaning,

11 Bohm, On Dialogue, 17.12 Walter R. Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument,” Communication Monographs, 51, (March 1984): 1-22.13 Fisher explains rational world paradigm on page 4: Since humans are essentially rational beings, the mode of human decision-making and communication is argument. The conduct of argument is ruled by the dictates of situations and rationality is determined by subject matter knowledge, argumentative ability and skill in employing the rules of advocacy in given fields. The world is a set of logical puzzles which can be resolved through appropriate analysis and application of reason conceived of as an argumentative construct. 14 Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm,” 3.15 Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm,” 2.

Recounting and accounting for are stories we tell ourselves and each other to establish a meaningful life-world. . . . Recounting takes the forms of history, biography, or autobiography. Accounting for takes the form of theoretical explanation or argument. Recounting and accounting for can be also expressed in poetic forms: drama, poetry, novel, and so on. . . . (The character of narration and the style will vary) but each mode of recounting and accounting for is but a way of relating a "truth" about the human condition. . . . The idea of human beings as storytellers indicates the generic form of all symbol composition; it holds that symbols are created and communicated ultimately as stories mean to give order to human experience and to induce others to dwell in them to establish ways of living in common, in communities in which there is sanction for the story that constitutes one’s life.16

So symbols and stories may vary but humans have in common the need to make meaning and to order experiences.

Further references to Fisher’s thinking also reinforce some of dialogue’s basic practices. “The narrative impulse is part of our very being because we acquire narrativity in the natural process of socialization. That narrative, whether written or oral, is a feature of human nature that crosses time and culture. . . . Narratives enable us to understand the actions of others because we all live out narratives in our lives and because we understand our own lives in terms of narratives.”17 . . . “The stories that we tell one another would enable us to observe not only our differences, but also our commonalities.”18

Fisher’s contribution to an academic analysis of dialogue infers the importance of interpersonal relationships, and this connects with the thinking of Martin Buber’s concept of “relation.” An early to mid-twentieth century philosopher, academic courses on dialogue often include ideas from Buber’s book I and Thou, first published in 1923. Considered by some dialogue exponents as establishing a “philosophy of dialogue,” Buber furnishes applicable concepts that, in addition to “relation” include understanding “you” as different from an “it.” thereby connoting relationships as understood by a wide variety of dialogue advocates. In this Buber anticipates Bohm.

The life of a human being does not exist merely in the sphere of goal-directed verbs. It does not consist merely of activities that have something for their object. . . . .All this and its like is the basis of the realm of It.But the realm of You has another basis.. . . . Whoever says You does not have something: he has nothing. But he stands in relation.. . . . .One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity.

16 Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm,” 6.17 Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm,” 8.18 Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm,” 15.

. . . . .All actual life is encounter. The relation to the You is unmediated.19

Fisher and Buber provide central themes underlying the process-as-purpose understanding of dialogue. Together they highlight humans as narrators, engaging in meaningful interaction via the idea of you - including “the other” to use current phraseology - as “relation.” Building healthy relationships becomes an end in itself. The existence of constructive relationships would mean societal issues could be dealt with as part of normal life, since conflict is part of being human.

When conflict produces problems impeding effective responses, one of the reasons has to do with people’s defensive reactions to what they perceive as opposing ideas. The reactions erect obstacles to effective interaction. Here is where the work of Jack Gibb can enter the discussion of dialogue.20 His vast publication record includes what has become the classic article on “Defensive Communication.” Because defensive communication festers at the core of deeply rooted societal conflicts, the following conveys the first paragraphs of Gibb’s article in full. They explain a general problem dialogues must process.

One way to understand communication is to view it as a people process rather than a language process. If one is to make fundamental improvement in communication, one must make changes in interpersonal relationships. One possible type of alteration – and the one with which this paper is concerned – is that of reducing the degree of defensiveness.

Defensive behavior is defined as that behavior which occurs when an individual perceives threat or anticipates threat in the group. The person who behaves defensively, even though he or she also gives some attention to the common task, devotes an appreciable portion of energy to defending himself or herself. Besides talking about the topic, (the person) thinks about how he/she appears to others, and how he/she may be seen more favorably, how to win, dominate, impress or escape punishment, and/or how to avoid or mitigate a perceived attack.

Such inner feelings and outward acts tend to create similarly defensive postures in others; and, if unchecked, the ensuing circular response becomes increasingly destructive. Defensive behavior, in short, engenders defensive listening, and this in turn produces postural, facial and verbal cues which raise the defense level of the original communicator.

19 Martin Buber, translated by Walter Kaufmann, I and Thou (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), selection of quotes from pages 54 to 62.20 Gibb became an internationally known leader in the field of group psychology. His teaching at several universities and many publications flowed from his decades of extensive experience researching while working with a wide variety of groups in business, government, and voluntary sector organizations. Of particular note is Gibb’s role as director of the National Training Laboratory in Bethel, Maine funded by the Group Psychology Branch of the U.S. Office of Naval Research. During his highly regarded career as a leading academic/practitioner he became known in the field for originating Trust Level Theory.

Defense arousal prevents the listener from concentrating upon the message. Not only do defensive communicators send off multiple value, motive and affect cues, but also defensive recipients distort what they receive. As a person becomes more and more defensive, he or she becomes less and less able to perceive accurately the motives, the values and the emotions of the sender.21

Dialogue facilitators must deal with defensive behavior since participants often challenge each other’s assumptions, including those involving identity. In the rest of his article Gibb explains how to accomplish this difficult undertaking by developing a “supportive climate.” The reverse of “defensive climate,” Gibb lists its six elements as:

- speech that is descriptive and nonjudgmental instead of evaluative; - treating issues that arise as problems to be discussed, using neutral information-seeking

speech, rather than as opportunities to exercise control;- spontaneity of speech said with openness, rather than as evidencing strategies for gaining

the upper hand particularly with hidden motivations or gimmicks to fool others;- empathy not neutrality by indicating respect and valuing not detachment;- equality not superiority;- provisionalism not certainty in a willingness to experiment with one’s own attitudes, ideas

and behavior while engaging in a shared investigation with others in the group.22

Additional Process-as-Purpose Authors

Compared with Bohm’s conceptual approach, most other dialogue authors emphasize an applied approach in their writing; for example, the book Dialogue: Rediscover the Transforming Power of Conversation by Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard, consultants at The Dialogue Group, a management consultancy in Austin, Texas. The book’s authors discuss dialogue more procedurally than Bohm while still treating it as an end unto itself. A hint at Ellinor and Gerard’s orientation may be found in the Introduction: “A cultural norm in Western society has been to focus attention on end results and productivity” in the assumption that all will be well when trend lines begin moving up. This mentality, when put into practice via administrative actions, creates stress because it usually means speeding up. “While we may be partially aware of a need for new ways of working together, we are not quite sure how to find them.”23 Ellinor and Gerard then go to explain dialogue as one of the “new ways of working together.”

The book’s Part I, “What is Dialogue?” emphasizes dialogue as “an inquiry into and an examination of underlying assumptions.” This approach sees authenticity as derived from the

21 Reprint of Jack Gibb, “Defensive Communication,” Reprint from the Journal of Communication, 11, 2, (September 1961): 141-148, 1. 22 Gibb, “Defensive Communication,” 2-5.23 Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard, Dialogue: Rediscover the Transforming Power of Conversation” (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998), 6.

experiences of participants. Ellinor and Gerard also discuss “release of the need for specific outcomes” and elaborate on a “suspending of judgment.” Both implicitly echo Bohm. The authors define dialogue as a search for collective meaning by listening deeply to one’s self as well as others. Dialogue happens at a unhurried pace in its accepting of silence and allowing participants to invent what works best for them as a group.24

While locating the Ellinor and Gerard book on the Process/Purpose side of the continuum it should be noted that it does present dialogue as useful in social issue advocacy. In the section on "Guides for Creating and Sustaining Dialogues" in Chapter 6 - Order from Chaos, the authors include information under the heading “Balance Inquiry and Advocacy.” Thus Ellinor and Gerard indicate that they realize many of the people using their book may well employ dialogue as a means to help participants move together toward a specified result.

Another author, William Isaacs, reinforces the Ellinor and Gerard emphasis on dialogue as a process. At the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founder of Dialogos, a consulting company in Cambridge Massachusetts, Isaacs asserts that, “Dialogue addresses problems farther ‘upstream’ than conventional approaches. It attempts to bring about change at the source of our thoughts and feelings, rather than at the level of the results our ways of thinking produce.”25 Merging in the Middle

Stephen Littlejohn and Cathy Domenici provide an example of dialogue authors whose work seems to straddle the distinction about dialogue’s purpose. As practitioners and founders of the Public Dialogue Consortium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, they have written a book titled Engaging Communication in Conflict – Systematic Practice. Littlejohn and Domenici separate their analysis of dialogue as process in the first two chapters from the rest of their book as they go on to detail how dialogue enabled constructive responses by stakeholders in several conflicts. The work of Littlejohn and Domenici deals with dialogue as attending to human relationships and then moves on to consider it as a strategy for producing results. Therefore we can place their thinking at the middle of the continuum.

The following presents an In-depth discussion of the process-as-purpose part of the book. In Chapter 2 - Dialogue, Littlejohn and Domenici define dialogue as “a different kind of communication that honors relationships above individual perspectives, positions, and interests.26 In the sections “Dialogue Honors Relationships” and “Risk and Safety in Dialogue” the authors explain the essential elements identified previously in this report: such as, “dialogue makes it possible to explore our contexts of meaning,” “dialogue makes it possible to explore our differences,” “dialogue makes it possible to explore common ground,” and several relevant guidelines for facilitators. The guidelines include “provide a structure that feels safe,”

24 Ellinor and Gerard, Dialogue, 26.25 William Isaacs, Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 20.26 Stephen Littlejohn and Cathy Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict – Systematic Practice (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2001), 26.

“solicit agreements on the discussion ground rules,” “promote good facework (otherwise known as respect),” “ respond to willingness and felt need,” “find a shared level of comfort,” “leave an out,” and “maintain impartiality.”

Chapter 2 also offers a section on “Dialogue as a Constructive Conversation,” thereby echoing Ellinor and Gerard’s "conversation" orientation. The Littlejohn and Domenici discussion adds a useful element not elaborated on previously in this report by providing an extended consideration of listening as a key to “treating people like people.” The authors point out that participants can become non ego-involved thus enabling them to become interested in the experiences of other participants that are different from their own. Then participants become ready to “stand at the threshold of dialogue,” . . . “able to listen well to one another’s life experiences and good reasons for their views,” even views about intensely held polarizing issues.27

Littlejohn and Domenici’s major emphasis on listening includes a page-long description expanding on “some of the things that good communicators listen for.” These clarify how good listening means more than paying attention and recalling information accurately. The authors elaborate on such elements as “lived experiences,” “values,” “contexts,” “differences and levels of difference” and “common ground and levels of common ground.”28 The discussion develops about how dialogue contributes to the creation of mutual respect by participants.

Other sections in Chapter 2 also point out important skills that dialogue needs and develops. The “Asking Questions” section highlights this often “overlooked skill involved in the art of listening. It is crucial because it tunes you in to what the person is saying and expands what you learn.” Questions must evidence “true curiosity” . . . as “designed to learn more about the other person’s experience” . . . “must be open, nonjudgmental, and designed to learn more.”29 Littlejohn and Domenici then proceed to offer two pages of recommended questions for facilitators in several story categories, such as about what the situation described means to the storyteller, who is involved, and inviting reflection on shared concerns. Later the authors emphasize “appreciative questions,” asking participants, even in an extremely acrimonious group, to reflect on the positive. For example, in a dysfunctional work environment, “Tell about a time in your career that was very positive for you, that energized you, that led to a positive result, or that had special meaning.” Also, to foster a more upbeat atmosphere, “Share one thing you all could do together to make it easier to integrate a diversity of personal and professional styles.” These examples illustrate the authors’ emphasis on encouraging participants to think of themselves as a group that can work together.30

At this point, a useful mention can be made of Littlejohn and Domenici’s reference to Robert Kegan and his insightful book In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. They note that Kegan “explores many ways that human beings manage differences,” from

27 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 33-34. 28 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 37-38.29 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 38.30 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 43.

“small children learning to distinguish the self from others,” to later when people “can come to accept and embrace differences.” Littlejohn and Domenici go on to say,

But the world in which we now live requires even more than this. Contemporary life requires that people find the truth in many points of view, even opposing ones. . . . Kegan tells disputants to “value the relationship, miserable though it might feel, as an opportunity to live out your own multiplicity; and thus, focus on ways to let the conflictual relationship transform the parties rather than on the parties resolving the conflict.” He calls this “a kind of ‘conflict resolution’ in which the Palestinian discovers her own Israeli-ness, the rich man discovers his poverty, the woman discovers the man inside her.”31

Kegan’s thinking opens up a whole new dimension to dialogue, one not discussed at length by Littlejohn and Domenici but requiring a maturity and a personal capacity reminiscent of Bohm’s call for “suspension.”

In their assertion that “Dialogue is personal, exploratory, open, and unpredictable,” plus their explanation of its characteristics as process, Littlejohn and Domenici agree with other academic/practitioners. Yet at the end of Chapter 2 - Dialogue, the authors signal a movement away from authors reviewed thus far. Littlejohn and Domenici lead into the rest of the book by avowing that through dialogue they seek to discover the heart of the matter, build respect, defuse polarization, build a context for collaboration, and use dialogue creatively.32 The last two objectives imply dialogue as a means to an end. It must be said, however, that the authors state, “We do not always have a dialogue primarily to solve a problem or settle a dispute, but it can serve as a stepping-stone toward this end.”33 Yet the rest of their book presents well analyzed case studies of how dialogue has worked to solve or manage conflict issues - Part II Conflict in Small Systems, Part III Moving to More Complex Systems, and Part IV Toward Better Social Worlds.

The following description of the Change/Purpose part of Littlejohn and Domenici’s book selects the chapter potentially relevant to the work of Community Dialogue. Chapter 7 - Working With Public Issues, provides concepts, observations, and recommendations based on Littlejohn's and Domenici's consultant experience. It demonstrates how a dialogue process creates the effective human interaction patterns needed for significant change to happen, how process and change reinforce each other in practice.

Chapter 7 begins with an explanation of why conflicts call for dialogue. Usually the participants in community struggles view their differences as interest-based. In one sense they actually are, yet Littlejohn and Domenici point out an underlying factor that does not surface often in contested discussions and negotiations. “These conflicts are difficult in part because the very identities of the parties are at stake. Losing means having to give up water rights,

31 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 46.32 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 48-50.33 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 50.

employment opportunities, money, minerals, or an endangered species. It also means giving up some part of ourselves, our history, culture, and traditions.”34

In dealing with such deeply felt identity-based issues, participants need to see themselves apart from the actual content and issues. They need to forego winning-and-losing thinking and see themselves as networked within a larger system. The authors make practical suggestions about how to encourage and practice thinking in system terms. They offer topics for small group discussion, such as how participants see their specific roles, interests, responsibilities and connections in society. Then participants in small groups are asked to think and talk about the dialogue event itself in drawing a “system map” on butcher paper complete with roles, assets, gains, and hopes for a successful event.35 Here Bohm’s “participatory consciousness” and “self-awareness” concepts apply in initiating the detachment needed for “suspension,” the ability to analyze one’s own commitments and perspectives as though from the outside.

Chapter 7 moves on with several pages about “Constructing Safe Environments.” The authors provide explanations of several guidelines, not all applicable in every dialogue setting, but noteworthy because they demonstrate creativity and can apply in many contexts.

- Involve the public early, when the atmosphere still feels safe.- Invite people into “a new kind of communication.”- Deal with the most difficult issues in small, private groups first.- Create distance by using “simulations” or “games.”- Ask people what they need to feel safe.- Provide structure and strong facilitation.- Treat participants as collaborators rather than competitors.- Put community leaders and authorities in a serious listening role.- Plan ongoing processes in which safety and trust can develop over time.- Build on prior success.- Frame issues in safe ways.36

Under the heading “The Appreciative Turn,” Littlejohn and Domenici make suggestions about ways of moving dialogues from a negative to a positive atmosphere. In this continuation of their Chapter 2 consideration of this subject, they recommend that facilitators turn attention to exploring the future. Also, when a dialogue group is ready having taken the needed time to work through concerns and complaints, “One way to make a transition from the negative to the positive is to broaden the context of the discussion. If a group seems to be stuck in a conflict about building a hospital near a particular neighborhood, you might say, ‘I’m struck by how important the quality of life is here in this area. Could you talk for a while about what is

34 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 170.35 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 172-173.36 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 173-181.

important to you in this high quality of life?’”37 This personalizes the conversation thereby reflecting points made elsewhere in this report.

Another Chapter 7 topic, issue framing, may seem straightforward. But to experienced facilitators it deserves focused attention, is not easy, and requires knowing the conflict thoroughly. Canned topics and formats will not do. Applying a range of skills and knowledge of the relevant local situation leads to choices from a wide range of options; for example, sometimes best leave the issue open and somewhat vague. Other times a very specific and clearly defined statement will work better. Issue framing benefits from using the local language or “grammar” in some cases, and from rather formal and explicit phraseology in other situations. “Often, we let the issues emerge organically from the discussion of a group” in preparation for the dialogue.38

In an extended discussion of “public deliberation” as a concept, the authors recommend a “systematic and careful discussion of an issue.” In this, as in issue framing and other topics in Chapter 7, Littlejohn and Domenici show their focus on process. In explaining public deliberation, as opposed to a series of speeches advocating different points of view, the book’s authors provide a multi-stage definition.

First, deliberation is focused on a well-defined issue and options. Everyone is asked to concentrate on the issue as defined and to think critically about the option. Second, deliberation is organized around the aspects of the issue and action alternatives. Third, participants are asked to weigh the pros and cons of various alternatives. And fourth, deliberation connects the issue to actual personal experiences, perspectives and values.39

Again the personalization element of the dialogue process appears in the fourth step of public deliberation.

Final points in this review of the Change/Purpose part of the Littlejohn and Domenici book deal with capacity building. The authors recommend the CVA model, imaged as a triangle with concerns, visions, and actions (CVA) at each corner connected with arrows, thus creating a flow model.40 Facilitators have used the CVA diagram effectively in a wide variety of contexts including study circles, small groups, sustained dialogues, large-scale community visioning events, and training sessions.

Finally, Chapter 7 asserts a generalization learned from many case studies: the process of dialogue must continue over multiple years. “We learn that good community conflict

37 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 182.38 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 184.39 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 188.40 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 190-191.

management is a never-ending process. It is always something you work at, never something you work out.”41

To summarize Littlejohn and Domenici’s placement in the middle of the Change/Purpose – Process/Purpose continuum, in the “Dialogue” chapter the authors explain how participants learn to experience and appreciate each other as individuals, howbeit with distinctly differing views. This dimension of dialogue then creates the needed basis for participants to move on by constructively working out how to mitigate major conflicts, as analyzed in subsequent chapters. Thus the Littlejohn and Domenici book balances their process-as-purpose approach to dialogue with dialogue as a means to change by reducing or resolving conflicts.

Purposeful Change

International peacemaking and peacebuilding authors who advocate dialogue emphasize its effectiveness as an approach for transforming an intractable, even violent conflict into one amenable to peaceful change. This situates them on the “Change/Purpose” end of the continuum. One such author, Norbert Ropers with the Berghof Foundation in Berlin, begins his “From Resolution to Transformation: Assessing the Role and Impact of Dialogue Projects” with four classifications of dialogue. The third and fourth directly focus on dialogue’s purpose as “alternative dispute resolution.”

1. Position dialogue. Ropers expresses doubts that this merits inclusion because it simply means exchanging views. It seems Ropers here refers to the general public’s meaning of dialogue as distinguishable from that of its practitioners.

2. Human relations dialogue. In this understanding of dialogue differences of opinion on issues becomes secondary since the aim is to establish good relations among participants via mutual acknowledgment and increasing respect. Here Ropers considers the process of dialogue as the point.

Ropers’ next two versions of dialogue break new ground in this report since they both directly consider a dialogue process as designed to achieve social change.

3. Activist dialogue – Interactions to find common ground or take joint action, or both.

4. Problem solving dialogue – The most ambitious of the four, in this case dialogue is the way to systematically work through the substance of participant differences if conflicts have highly escalated. This agreement-oriented process generally requires a third party as facilitator.42

41 Littlejohn and Domenici, Engaging Communication in Conflict, 171.42 Norbert Ropers, “From Resolution to Transformation: Assessing the Role and Impact of Dialogue Projects” in Andreas Wimmer, Facing Ethnic Conflicts: Toward a New Realism (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 175-176.

A second academic/practitioner noted as a dialogue advocate, Harold Sanders, founded and served as President of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue. This organization fosters “a public peace process designed to change relationships among those in deep-rooted human conflicts.”43 Sanders’ extensive career in U.S. government service includes the National Security Council and culminated at the State Department as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

Information available on the Sustained Dialogue (SD) website clearly locates the organization on the Purpose/Change end of the continuum while, as all dialogue advocates do, also emphasizes dialogue as process.

SD is a unique change process which (1) focuses on transforming relationships that cause problems, create conflict, and block change; and (2) emphasizes the importance of effective change over time. Since transforming relationships requires an ongoing effort, SD gradually develops over a five-stage process. This multistage approach serves as a guidepost for SD programs and for those in conflict to create sustainable change in their relationships and communities.

Sustained Dialogue differs from other change making processes through its focus on understanding the nature of community relationships, which are often the “problem behind the problem. Our method for changing society is to focus on the five elements of relationship:

1. Identity, as a sum of experiences, 2. Interests, what are cared about as well as needed, 3. Power, the ability to make change, control resources and influence alongside others, 4. Perceptions, assumptions right or wrong about others’ choices or identities, 5. Patterns of interaction, expected rules of how people relate.

The website also offers a short-hand version of the process clearly leading to action.

“who” – deciding to engage,“what” – mapping and naming, “why” – probing problems and relationships,“how” – scenario building, “now” – individual and collective action.44

An article by Sanders published in 2002 elaborates on the concept of sustained dialogue. He explains his expansion of dialogue’s definition from connoting constructive verbal interactions to include taking action, citizens “acting together because they are concerned about particular problems.” Thus public groups engage in problem-solving via sustained 43 Harold Sanders, “The Virtue of Sustained Dialogue Among Civilizations,” International Journal on World Peace, 18, 1 (March 2001): 35.44 http://sustaineddialogue.org/our-approach/ . Accessed November 9, 2015.

dialogue, “Through a continuous process of interaction they create a cumulative agenda, a growing body of shared knowledge, and an evolving context in which they do things literally together.” Citizens “find common ground for ways of talking, thinking, and working together.”45

The United Nations Development Program provides a third example of dialogue as designed “to bring about sustainable change,” as stated in the UNDP document “Why dialogue matters for conflict prevention and peacebuilding.” Its title clearly indicates dialogue’s purpose. The document’s first substantive section outlines four main points that reflect a general understanding of process, one similar to that of other dialogue authors. Under “What is the importance of dialogue?” the following are noted and described briefly: “dialogue is an inclusive process,” “dialogue entails learning not just talking,” “dialogue recognizes one another’s humanity,” “dialogue stresses a long-term perspective.”46

The document offers a second outline, this one on “How does dialogue differ from – and complement – other processes?” It clearly shows dialogue exists to enable conflict reduction/resolution: “dialogue is not a one-size-fits-all strategy,” “dialogue requires that basic conditions be present first,” “dialogue is meant to complement other forms of diplomatic or political processes, or lay the groundwork for future and more formal talks, not replace them,” and “the process is different from other forms of conversation.” The following full statement of the last mentioned purpose of dialogue illustrates UNDP’s linking of dialogue as process and result oriented guidelines.

The process is different from other forms of conversation. In dialogue there are no winners. Whereas the purpose of negotiation is to reach a concrete settlement, the aim of dialogue is to bridge communities, share perspectives, and discover new ideas. “Time and again,” as Nelson Mandela once said, “conflicts are resolved through shifts that were unimaginable at the start.”47

The rest of the document discusses “What are some areas where dialogue can make a difference?” and “What are some important lessons for policymakers?”

Clearly the dialogue process the UNDP authors have in mind seems similar to, and perhaps some would contend, almost the same as that of purpose-as-process dialogue authors. Yet experienced facilitators would need to discuss at length whether or not the process-as-purpose dialogues and those considering process-as-preparing-for-change would create comparable interactive environments. A wide gap could exist between Process/Purpose and Change/Purpose dialogue atmospheres. The case can be made that facilitators in results-oriented dialogues could have a tendency to merge into a mediator role and move the process along, either subtly and behind the scenes, or more overtly in making suggestions. As for the

45 Harold H. Sanders, “Two Challenges for the New Century: Transforming Relationships in Whole Bodies Politic,” Political Psychology, 23, 1 (March 2002): 152-153.46 “Why dialogue matters for conflict prevention and peacebuilding,” February 2009, 2. www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/.../dialogue_conflict.pdf. Accessed October 4, 2015.47 “Why dialogue matters for conflict prevention and peacebuilding,” 3.

participants in Change/Purpose dialogues, they may not venture far from their roles as representatives of groups, governments or organizations as they interact as individuals. Therefore they have to balance within themselves the tension between peacemaking with its need for protecting group interests, and experiencing emotive interconnections as individuals. In contrast, participants in process-as-purpose dialogues can feel free of this tension.

Yet given the evidence of negotiation breakthroughs brought on by dialogue processes, clearly they did create connections among people from conflicting and even warring communities. Thus dialogue remains the appropriate designation for such peacemaking because representatives began to see each other as individual human beings with families, personalities, perspectives, histories, and interacted on a deeper level. Bohm’s “impersonal relationship” can be said to apply.

To summarize this section’s understanding of dialogue’s purpose as creating conditions for social change and peacebuilding, the “Abstract” of an article by Barbara S. Tint, Professor of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, clarifies the case.

Dialogue is a group process utilized in a range of contexts to address a multiplicity of issues related to interpersonal and intergroup relations. At its most fundamental, dialogue refers to a process where parties come together with the goal of increased mutual understanding. It is distinct from other forms of group interactions in its intention, goals, structure, and process, which are designed to elicit safety, understanding, learning, and often healing and transformational shifts in conflicted contexts. Dialogue has often been used as a peacebuilding tool in conflicted societies and recent decades have shown an increase in the use of structured dialogue as a means of addressing intergroup conflict and long-standing communal issues. Today, in fractious communities worldwide, dialogue is employed at different stages of societal fissures to increase understanding between parties and to create possibilities for relational transformation.48

Community Dialogue’s Place on the Continuum

Its materials and facilitator practice locate CD on the Process/Purpose end of the continuum. Community Dialogue’s facilitators demonstrate a deep understanding of their primary responsibility as relational, which the description of their practice in the first report by this author makes evident. Yet a detailed analysis indicates that CD leans a bit toward the middle of the continuum. The organization’s funding applications always assert content topics in stating the proposed project's objectives and CD's public education materials also reflect a Purpose/Change orientation.

48 “Abstract” of “Dialogue Methods” by Barbara S. Tint in Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, Daniel J. Christie editor. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1002/4780470672532.wbepp0831/abstract;jsessionid=F5D2243490C4EFF41DFA73A.fo2t01. Accessed November 14, 2015.

The CD website in early 2015 illustrated the organization’s essential process-as-purpose orientation as well as its modification by a tendency to acknowledge a general societal purpose. The site stated CD’s mission as motivated by process: “We are committed to a dialogue process, developed over the years, to help transform understanding and build trust among people who often hold opposing political, social and religious views.” Yet the website’s wording about the 2012-2016 Transformational Dialogues Project stated a social purpose aim: to engage people at all levels in dialogue that challenges racism and sectarianism, and encourages peacebuilding.

An insightful CD booklet, published in August 2004 and written for the general public, presents a clear, cogent and compelling statement leaving no doubt that process-as-purpose commands center stage in Community Dialogue’s practice. Under the heading “Do We Always Stick To A Theme?” The booklet explains:

The dialogue process is a journey. While we may begin with a particular theme the dialogue may take a different direction. What Community Dialogue does when this happens is very important. We normally go where the dialogue takes us. We find that this results in something exciting, worthwhile and often unforeseen. We think that the reason for this is that people are being honest and passionate about what really matters to them. We follow that honesty and that passion of feeling instead of attempting to steer people away from it and back to a planned theme.49

This statement endorses David Bohm’s thinking, noted earlier in this report, that dialogues should not have a set agenda. Another section in the booklet, “What We Do Not Do,” continues explaining CD's open-ended process.

We do not tell you what to think or if you are right or wrong. That is your responsibility. We aim to encourage you to think and to question.

While dialogue is a skill integral to conflict resolution, negotiation, mediation and other forms of problem solving, Community Dialogue does not practice conflict resolution, negotiation, mediation or other forms of problem solving as part of its process. But while we do not attempt to solve problems through our dialogue, the process can help to transform the individuals involved in those problems.50

However the publication’s very next statement introduces the hint of more nuance in interpreting CD’s role, while in the end it reiterating process as the point.

Relationships between divided people may on occasion develop and ideas about the way ahead may become clear as a result of our dialogues. But this is entirely a matter for those who experience it. Community Dialogue offers dialogue as a process and as a

49 David Holloway, “A Practical Guide to Dialogue,” The Community Dialogue Critical Issues Series, Volume Two, August 2004, 12.50 Holloway, “A Practical Guide to Dialogue,” 14.

tool. What, if any, concrete actions result from participation in the process or application of the tool is a matter for the concerned individuals.

The purpose of Community Dialogue is to provide dialogue as a process and a tool to deepen understanding of oneself and others through listening, sharing and questioning. The understanding that participants reach as a consequence of the dialogues that they engage in are not determined in advance by Community Dialogue and are the sole responsibility of the participants. Dialogue may lead to better community relations and reconciliation or it may lead to a clarification of why we cannot agree and why we must follow separate paths.51

All CD facilitations encourage participants to follow up on subjects arising as the group dynamic develops. In creating an “impersonal fellowship,” to note David Bohm’s concept, participants have freedom to mine rich and interesting thematic veins that surface during the interaction process. Community Dialogue’s facilitation enables a group to go in whatever direction emerges from its participants’ conversations no matter how tangential to the announced topic.

Community Dialogue considers connections between and among participants the purpose of "dialogue" in noting the word's ancient Greek origins. Dialogos combines two other Greek words, dia meaning through, and logos meaning word. “Dialogue, therefore, suggests a stream of meaning flowing among, through and between us, out of which may emerge some new understanding. As such it is a process rather than an end result in itself.”52

Dialogues produce participatory, cumulative thought as David Bohm notes when he discusses his participatory thought concept. He explains participatory thought as flowing from the realization by people in dialogue that relationships are at the heart of being human.53 Also Walter Fisher portrays humans as interacting amid “unending conversation,”54 akin to Bohm’s “shared meanings.”

Deep into CD's “A Practical Guide to Dialogue” booklet, a section labeled “A Tool For Conflict” introduces a purpose-as change tendency: “Conflict of itself is neither good nor bad. It is a natural, necessary and inevitable consequence of life. But it is how we use conflict that renders it good or bad, creative or destructive. This is where dialogue comes in because it is a tool which we can use to mold conflict into a creative, positive and productive process. It does so by deepening our understanding of the positions of others and ourselves and of the conflicts between others and ourselves.”55 Given this last sentence, clearly CD arrives again at its central Process/Purpose orientation.

51 Holloway, “A Practical Guide to Dialogue,” 14-15.52 Holloway, “A Practical Guide to Dialogue,” 18.53 Bohm, On Dialogue, 84.54 Fisher, “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm,” 6.55 Holloway, “A Practical Guide to Dialogue,” 19.

A later booklet section, “Question, Question, Question,” provides further confirmation of CD’s process-as-the-point commitment: “Dialogue aims to transform understanding of issues through open, honest sharing and deep listening. It does not aim to provide answers. It does aim to leave people questioning. One of the most important outcomes of a dialogue is not what answers the participants have arrived at but what questions they leave with.”56

Conclusion

This report demonstrates that dialogue has developed as an area of academic credibility as well as of professional accomplishment. In addition, all the academic practitioners cited value process as the essential element in defining dialogue. This signifies that the practice of dialogue avoids rigid distinctions in that during interactions participants show a complex and shifting mix of experiences, perspectives, backgrounds and positions.

The blurring of boundaries between people that happens in the practice of dialogue illustrates how the seemingly neat divisions in societies become more abstract and less related to real world application as participant interactions proceed. Also, publications and classrooms can create useful categories for focusing analytical thinking but they should be tested by fieldwork in cooperation with organizations such as Community Dialogue. Inevitably direct experience doing the work produces a blurring of conceptual as well as assumed societal boundaries. The personalization of knowledge and experience that emerges in effective dialogues embodies a healthy corrective to set assumptions of all sorts, thus vindicating dialogue's emphasis on process.

56 Holloway, “A Practical Guide to Dialogue,” 19.