(This post is being republished because of technical problems when it was first published). I want to use this month’s blog to riff off Greg Bond’s recent insightful blog, because he’s touched on core issues of language, making sense and personal reflection. That post arrived almost in the wake of an email quoting jazz pianist…
This blog is no more than a list of ten TED and TEDx talks that I have found inspiring and that relate to mediation, in the broadest sense of the word. I thank the friends and colleagues who recommended them to me, and recommend them on to readers. Rita Preston, Every Kid Needs a Champion….
– “You will cut the damn tree down”, one neighbour said. – “Not a chance!” answered the other. – “In that case, I have nothing else to tell you…” – “As you wish…we may also sit here in silence…” Having said that, both parties crossed their arms, backed in their chairs and stared at each…
Over recent years the number of (mainly law) student mediation moots around the world has increased at a remarkable rate. In addition to well-known venues in Paris, Vienna, and Goa, I have heard of events in Bangalore, Bhopal, Chicago, Hanover, São Paulo, Sydney … and Hamburg. There will be more. This is a bug that…
Greg Bond’s recent post on mediation cultures reminded me of an encounter I had with a group of mediators several years ago. Allow me to share with you my recollection of what happened. I was conducting a workshop on international and intercultural approaches to mediation for 15 freshly-minted mediators from a European country — all…
This is another blog in the spirit of earlier entries along the lines of “what would you do with XXX at your table.” The challenge will emerge in the course of reading. Myth and metaphor, and the etymology of mediation, are amply available to convey the mediator’s task of steering between – or finding a…
“An action-oriented citizenship is, first and foremost, engaged with other people in the creation of shared social spaces and in the discourse that such spaces make possible. Through participation and conversation, we reproduce our social meanings through time: that is what culture is. Squares and institutions, walkways and stadiums, these are the places where the…
This post is in part a roundabout response to Constantin-Adi Gavrila’s recent Kluwer mediation blog, in which he writes about a conversation with a friend who was convinced that all mediators need to be lawyers. The argument goes that to mediate you need to be a qualified lawyer, have legal knowledge of the disputed matter,…
Forty-five years ago, Professor Christopher Stone published a paper entitled “Should Trees have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects”. [45 Southern California Law Review 450–501.] Two years later, that paper had morphed into a book of the same title, with the subtitle, “Law, morality and the Environment” (1974; 3rd ed, 2010; OUP). Stone’s objective…
I have given a little thought as to whether my work as a mediator fits into one of the well-known “styles.” I do not see myself as an evaluative or directive mediator, but I do sometimes tell clients how I see their options. I would say I am a facilitative mediator, but as perhaps most…
