South African Experiences with Identity and Community Conflicts

Abstract

This article compares and contrasts two conflict interventions conducted during the difficult and dangerous period of political transition in South Africa in the early 1990s. Politicized ethnic violence was dividing black African communities, threatening the ongoing national negotiation process and the transition to democracy. In the Thokoza township east of Johannesburg, the structures and methods of the South African Peace Accord were unsuccessfully employed in an effort to prevent or mitigate ongoing violence. At the same time, in the Meadowlands section of Soweto, west of Johannesburg, a combination of processes grounded in alternative assumptions and methods allowed the community to take first responsibility for its own conflict handling and peacekeeping functions, ultimately transforming the local situation into a stable and nonviolent one. A case of using `action research' as an alternative strategy for engaging conflicted parties in dialogue and problem-solving, when they profess unwillingness to be involved in more explicit peace processes, is described and explored. The article suggests, among other things, that in a situation of community conflict a labor mediation framework which regards the parties to the conflict as necessarily adversarial, and intervener behavior that reinforces the perception of adversariality, is not ideal for creating safe spaces for dialogue, or for allowing a sense of shared community identity to prevail over ethnic, political, or other divisive influences.

Dimensions of Conflict Resolution in Ethnopolitical Disputes

“…Diplomats and civil servants can come to know each other over a relatively extended period of informal private discussions and formal workshops conducted by group process experts such as Herbert Kelman (1990). Community groups have met at times for dialogue on both instrumental and identity type concerns in Israelioccupied territories (see Kriesberg, 2001) and in South Africa (see Bremner, 2001), especially in multicultural towns such as Israel's Neve Shalom. Northern Irish youth have been brought together in small-scale projects for ecumenical dialogue and joint activities.…”

“…This case affords an opportunity to evaluate elite and rank-and-file approaches, and instrumental and identity concerns, against the backdrop of varied mediation attempts, many of which proved insufficiently comprehensive. Davin Bremner (2001) takes us to the township level in South Africa to discuss contrasting effective Some of the findings indicate that elite approaches become most effective when supplemented by or combined with lower-level sustained contacts and discussions. This might include informal meetings by private citizens such as those that paved the way for resumption of leadership-level Israeli-Palestinian talks in the mid-1990s (Kriesberg, 2001.…”