When Will Academics Contest Intellectual Conflict?

Abstract

Academics have conflicts over ideas with some regularity, yet they contest only some of them. When will they do so? We draw on a theory of conflict management developed by Donald Black and others to explain the response to intellectual conflict. Drawing on interviews with 70 professors at two universities, we find that the contestation of intellectual conflicts is predicted by their social geometry. Academics are more likely to contest conflicts over the validity, ownership, and production of ideas when the conflict spans greater distances in relational and functional space, originates from a lower elevation in vertical space, and is a larger actual or potential change in vertical space.

Rejection of Containment Policy in the Management of COVID-19 in Kenyan Slums: Is Social Geometry an Option?

“…Ideally, the design should "grow" closer relations with the host population. This observation is supported by Black's (1998) and Cooney and Phillips (2017) views that when efforts are made to 'normalize' relationship, people that would otherwise develop hostility against foreigners turn out to be 'friendly' and exercise tolerance.…”