Resources

Recommended Reading

CT is a compass - it tells us what to tend to as we negotiate conflict. Within this broad approach, various streams of work share a commitment to fostering constructive conflict. The CT Collaborative at Middlebury seeks to expand the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of our students, staff, and partners. CT One-Page Overview.

The books and articles below have helped inform our initial approach to conflict transformation. If you are student, staff, or faculty at Middlebury, you can see more of our resources at our Canvas site, Conflict Transformation Curriculum. You will be prompted to “enroll” in the course, and then will have full access to our library of readings and exercises.

What Is Conflict Transformation?

Amanda Ripley, High Conflict: Why we get trapped and how we get out (Simon and Schuster, 2021).

• This clearly written book distinguishes between high conflict and healthy conflict. The appendices are helpful guides to recognizing and preventing high conflict. 

John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2005). 

• Lederach identifies four dispositions as critical to conflict transformation: a focus on relationships, complexity, creativity, and risk-taking.

Bruce Dayton and Louis Kriesberg, Constructive Conflicts: From Emergence to Transformation, sixth edition (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022). 

• A seminal textbook in the field of conflict studies. Kriesberg is also a frequent writer on conflict transformation.

Julian Portilla, “What Exists Is Possible: Stories from Conflict Resolution Professionals,” Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 24:2 (Winter 2006): 241–48.

• This short piece draws from 60 interviews with professionals working to break through intractable conflicts. It describes four “virtues”—listening, humility, patience, and hope—and two conundrums—concept of neutrality and how to move from talk to action.

Resources by Middlebury

Collaborative in Conflict Transformation, “What is Conflict Transformation?” and “Conflict Transformation and the Liberal Arts” (2023).

• One-page summaries of Middlebury’s approach to understanding and teaching Conflict Transformation.

Agnes Stinson Roche and the Schools Abroad staff, “Toolkit: Integrating Conflict Transformation at Middlebury Schools Abroad” (2024).

• This toolkit is a curated resource that provides guidance and information to support Schools Abroad as they integrate Conflict Transformation into various aspects of programming: courses, excursions, research, internships, exchanges, guest speakers, and more. This is a living resource that will be updated periodically.

Conflict Transformation Curriculum Canvas site; Middlebury login required.

• The purpose of this page is to support faculty, staff, and students who are interested in integrating CT skill-building into their courses and activities. 

Critical Self-Awareness

Barry Kroll, The Open Hand (University Press of Colorado, 2013). 

• Shared by BLSE Associate Director Lyndon Dominique with Netta Avineri (MIIS) and Linda White (College). Dominique: “I think Barry’s work fits squarely in the spirit of CT by the way he approaches Argument as a bodily as well as a rhetorical practice with peace as a deliberate outcome.”

Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs & Implications for Social Activism (2021). 

• Shared by Betsy Vegso (PfP): “A powerful, critical read which also remains hopeful about the possibilities for change.”

Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know (Viking Press, 2021).

• “In a world of aggressive certitude, Adam Grant’s latest book is a refreshing mandate for humble open-mindedness. Think Again offers a particularly powerful case for rethinking what we already know…”—Financial Times

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are (Hyperion, 1994).

• This is one of the core texts in Melissa Hammerle’s course Contemplative Education. 

Dialogue and Deliberation

Levine, Peter, and Nancy Thomas, “Deliberative Democracy and Higher Education,” in To Serve a Larger Purpose, Saltmarsh and Hartley, editors (Temple UP, 2011).

• This scholar-practitioner duo defines dialogue as “a process of talking and listening with the express purpose of building relationships and fostering mutual understanding” (159).

Longo, Nicholas, and Timothy Shaffer, Creating space for democracy: A primer on dialogue and deliberation in higher education (Stylus Publishing, LLC, 2019).

• This edited volume identifies dialogue as essential for learning and for the civic skills necessary for  democracy. There are multiple chapters from different organizations that use dialogic practices. 

NCDD 2014 Engagement Streams

• This document from NCDD (a practitioner-scholar network on deliberation and dialogue) maps out different dialogic approaches and describes structured dialogue as part of conflict transformation.

Intercultural Competence

Netta Avineri, “Nested Interculturality: Dispositions and Practices for Navigating Tensions in Immersion Experiences” In D. Martin and E. Smolcic (Eds.) Redefining Competence Through Cultural Immersion: Teacher Preparation for Culturally Diverse Classrooms (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 

• Avineri identifies dispositions to foster (e.g., critical empathy, ethical engagement) and the tensions that emerge in intercultural immersion experiences. 

Schirch, Lisa, and David Campt, The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects (Good Books, 2007).

• Schirch and Campt bridge dialogic practices and intercultural communication. Campt led a 2018 workshop at Middlebury on campus free speech, and his work advances transformative discourses on race and racism.

Beth Fisher-Yoshida, ”Reframing conflict: Intercultural conflict as potential transformation.” Journal of Intercultural Communication, 8:1 (2005): 1–16.

• Fisher-Yoshida directs the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program at Columbia and highlights self-awareness and communication as contributors to conflict resolution and transformation.

Restorative Practices

Desiree Anderson, “Co-opting Restorative Justice in Higher Education,” chapter 8, in Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing Our Realities, Valandra, E. C., Yazzie, R., editors (Living Justice Press, 2020).

• Shared by Ashley Laux (CCE): “Facilitators of restorative justice must do the work of developing their multicultural competence…the ‘awareness, knowledge, and skills that are needed to work effectively across cultural groups and to work with complex diversity issues.’” (153)

Morrison, B., M. Thorsborne, and P. Blood (2005). Practicing Restorative Justice in School Communities: The Challenge of Culture Change. Public Organization Review: A Global Journal. 5: 335–357.

Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice: revised and updated (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2015).

Mediation

adrienne maree brown, Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation (AK Press, 2021).

• brown was the Clifford 2021 keynote speaker on the long work of climate change. This book draws from Black feminist thought, climate and community activism, indigenous communities, and more. She offers core principles, self-assessment tools, and a distinction between facilitation and mediation. 

Bush, R. A. B., and JP Folger, The Promise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict Through Empowerment and Recognition (2005).

• Shared by Betsy Vegso (PfP): “The transformative model of mediation proposes that moral growth in interpersonal conflict is possible by empowering oneself and recognizing ‘the other.’”

William Ury, The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop (1999). 

• Ury has shifted from the concept of mediator/negotiator (aka “third-party”) to a vision of the community as “the third side”—roles that support peace: provider, teacher, bridge-builder, mediator, arbiter, equalizer, healer, witness, referee, peacekeeper.