What Moves Us: Dance and Neuroscience Implications for Conflict Approaches

Abstract

Despite its worldwide use in grassroots confl ict approaches, dance, and the body more generally, remain largely unaddressed within confl ict theory and conventional practice. We argue that the body is an essential focus of confl ict theory and a ready resource for confl ict practice by exploring the implications of compelling discoveries within the fi eld of neuroscience. Examining the embodied dimensions of cognition, emotion, and memory, the physical roots of empathy, and the relationship of right-and left-brain processes to confl ict, we outline neuroscientifi c underpinnings of dance-based approaches to confl ict and the range of creative tools that arises from its use.I'm not interested in how people move, but in what moves them. Pina BauschC onfl ict is-among other things-often accompanied by a sense of inertia, a feeling of being bound up in discomfort, a visceral need for a shift. While much confl ict resolution training and intervention is centered around cognitive analysis, a new wave of theory and practice draws on the arts to inform choices and frameworks (Liebmann

Reflective practice and mediator learning: A current review

“…79-107). Attention to emotion and the body as other means of "reflecting" are also broadening the scope of reflective practice, such as linking mindfulness practices with mediator best practices (Beausoleil & LeBaron, 2013;Friedman, 2015;Goodman, 2013). The arts, such as painting, dancing, or guided imagery, are also used as means of coaxing unconscious knowing to the surface (Marsick, Weaver, & Yorks, 2014, p. 574).…”

Choreography, controversy and child sex abuse: Theoretical reflections on a cultural criminological analysis of dance in a pop music video

“…In a more empirical context, recent research in conflict and trauma studies undertaken collectively by legal scholars, neurobiologists and psychologists (e.g. Beausoleil and LeBaron, 2013; LeBaron and Alexander, 2012) foregrounds the understanding and appreciation of the therapeutic aspects of dance and movement as mechanisms through which victims and survivors of crimes such as sexual abuse in childhood or rape in war experience, sediment and access these traumas in and through the body, to enable victims to seek justice and promote healing and reconciliation in damaged lives and communities. It is argued that such emerging research is crucial to developing practical and humane alternative modalities of testimony and witness conventionally sutured to verbal language (see Heydon and Powell, 2016), as well as informing legal, therapeutic and restorative justice regimes and public knowledges of crime in more humane somatic forums, all important issues for criminology and the criminal justice system.…”

Mediation and Emotions: Perception and Regulation

“…149 The need for connection is mirrored by the urge to achieve it: as Beausoleil and LeBaron put it, 'we are neurologically wired for mutual understanding and feeling.' 150 Bowlby's Attachment Theory posits that an attentive, empathic caregiver creates a physically and emotionally secure environment, helping regulate a child's emotions and, crucially, reduce stress. The child can then develop into an emotionally secure adult, able to regulate her emotions, and become an emotionally attuned parent in turn.…”