Abstract:
This dissertation starts from an interest in protracted environmental conflict in the United States
and takes the stance with respect to environmental conflict (1) that a threat to a resource very quickly
becomes experienced as a threat to the ways of life dependent upon that resource, and (2) that when
multiple ways of life are dependent upon that same resource – and that resource is threatened – and
all wish to sustain their ways of life – then the manner in which they all relate to the resource and to
each other must be transformed, such that both the resource is restored and the ways of life are
sustained. In other words, it is a situation of conflict transformation, rather than of conflict
resolution.
From that beginning stance, the unfolding of the dissertation uses a health care analogue to
provide both a structure for and a way of thinking about what is presented.
In Volume One, in the role of customary practice is cast conflict resolution as it is customarily
practiced in America. It is asserted (1) that mainstream American conflict resolution practice is based
upon an ethnoconflict theory and ethnopraxis that flows unerringly from the attitudes, aspirations,
expectations that characterize the modern American Metro Middle Class; (2) that the American
model would be appropriate within America when everything about the situation and the people
involved in the situation was in agreement with the ethnoconflict theory and ethnopraxis upon which the
American model is based; and (3) that it would be inappropriate when something about the situation
and the people involved in the situation was NOT in agreement with the ethnoconflict theory and
ethnopraxis upon which the American model is based. It is proposed that this ‘something’ can be that
the people have a different ethnoconflict theory and ethnopraxis, and/or that the situation is not about
rights, rules, and/or individual interests.
In Volume Two, given the stance with respect to environmental conflict that a threat to a
resource very quickly becomes experienced as a threat to the ways of life dependent upon that
resource, in the role of the person who is not well is presented a history of the Klamath ecosystem
and the ways of life dependent upon the Klamath watershed from historic times of pristine
environmental well-being to the current times of environmental degradation. In Part One, the story
of the Klamath over the period from 1848 through 2000 is told in such a manner that if (and when)
any member of any player group in the Klamath may read this history, they would be able to say
“You have heard Our story – not only the events and experiences that We bring together to define
Our sense of who We are and have been over time, but also the emotional investment in being who
We are and the emotional turmoil We feel when We experience who We are as threatened.”
In Part Two, it is asserted (1) that the people of the Klamath watershed have an ethnoconflict theory
and ethnopraxis that understands conflict as a tear in the web of relationships and conflict resolution
as the mending of that tear through reconciliation and collaboration; (2) that they initially default to
mainstream American conflict resolution practices, but ultimately revert to the practices of
reconciliation and collaboration; and (3) that it will take a second-order change to accomplish this
transformation of the conflict.
Within this context, in the role of the history of unsuccessful first-order changes is presented
a history of first-order changes in the customary practice of mainstream conflict resolution, from
before 2001 through the chaos of 2001 on up to 2004, just before the Chadwick workshops. In the
role of second-order change is presented the Chadwick workshops which occurred in the twelve
month period of July 2004 through June 2005 and which were the transformative event which
enabled people to relinquish the default use of mainstream conflict resolution practices and to take
up the practices of reconciliation and collaboration on a watershed-wide basis.
The “patient history” subsequent to the Chadwick workshops recounts a slow and painstaking
transformation of the conflict, a turning of a page in the Klamath watershed – from a chapter of
conflict more than a century in the making to a chapter of watershed-wide coordinated interaction to
both restore the watershed and sustain all ways of life in the watershed.
Finally, an epistemology of the Chadwick conflict resolution practice is constructed and
juxtaposed point by point with the epistemology of mainstream American conflict resolution practice
constructed in Volume One, illuminating significant differences between the two epistemologies.
In Volume Three, in the role of alternative practice is proposed (1) an alternative
epistemology and framework for theory, practice, and research, which is characterized as a
Relationship-Building epistemology, and then (2) a framework for conflict transformation based
upon this Relationship-Building epistemology.
In Part One, (1) the alternative epistemology and framework is proposed and then juxtaposed
with the epistemology and framework of the discipline of Conflict Analysis and Resolution,
illuminating the differences between the two; (2) the epistemology of customary American conflict
resolution practice and the epistemology of the discipline of Conflict Analysis and Resolution are
characterized as variants of an overarching Problem-Solving epistemology; (3) the Problem-Solving
epistemology is juxtaposed with the Relationship-Building epistemology, finding that they are
grounded in very different ways of knowing and working; and finally (4) it is proposed that, while the
configuration of people and situation that is appropriate to one is not appropriate to the other, used
hand-in-hand, they can cover all configurations of people and situation.
Part Two envisions a framework for conflict transformation based upon the Relationship-
Building epistemology. This framework provides opportunity for transforming protracted
environmental conflict, for people to build the relationships that could then serve as the foundation
upon which they could stand together to set goals and take action towards sustaining both the
environment and their ways of life. And it is noted that there is nothing to preclude applying any or
all components of this conflict transformation framework to any conflict, domestic or international,
environmental or otherwise, protracted or otherwise.
The dissertation concludes with the assertion that, in the spirit of the health care analogue that has
given form and position to the dissertation, as customary and alternative medicine can work hand-in-hand
to restore the well-being of the person better than either could have accomplished alone, so the Problem-
Solving and Relationship-Building epistemologies could work hand-in-hand to restore the well-being of the
people involved in a conflict situation better than either might have accomplished alone.