T his article draws on recent, critical work dealing with culture theory, ethnicity, multiculturalism, and intergroup relations. Although based heavily in "theory," it seeks to address the nexus between conflict resolution theory and practice and aims primarily to contribute to the work of practitioners functioning as third parties and intervenors in intercultural and interethnic conflicts and disputes. Two conceptions of culture are proposed and analyzed in some depth: a technical, "experience-distant" sense of the term, crucial for conflict analysis (and also for education and training); and an affectively laden, often politicized, "experience-near" sense of the term, at the root of so much intergroup conflict and, thus, implacably implicated in effective and ethical intercultural practice.