The Village

It takes a village…is generally followed by - to raise a child.  However, it seems after reading the material for this week’s class we could apply this phrase to a multitude of dispute resolution processes including Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR).  We have touched on the many ways that ECR can happen, but many of them were laid out for us in A Work in Progress (Bellman 2003).  From public meetings to “permanent” commissions this document provided us with a matrix to systematically determine what process should be employed with a given set of circumstances.  In reading this I found myself identifying that most of the time we hear about public meetings and rarely hear of groups having workshops, setting up advisory committees, or negotiating.  Why is this?  At first blush it seems that most public meetings are being held because the law requires, they include the greatest number of people, and take the least amount of resources.  However, many of the comments made fall on deaf ears or are addressed, but not seriously considered.  The public meeting can probably be done in a way to show the support of the “village” and I’d be very interested to hear from others experiences how this can be accomplished.

Setting the stage again jumped out at me in the Guide reading (Dukes et al. 2001).  It really does “take a village” to select and then develop an appropriate ECR process.  Beyond selecting the participants, but recognizing the importance of setting ground rules and goals as a group is vital to a successful process.  While it can probably seem pointless to spend hours discussing the picketing and ongoing corporate activities (Dukes et al. page 40) these discussions should have a place in the process and are important.  Being able to have these discussing in the ECR process, although at times heated, are the exact benefit of participation.  This example illustrated the point that you don’t have to agree on every aspect of life to complete as successful ECR.  Participants need only to come willing to be part of “the village.”

Photo via: Anduze