Abstract
I focus on the process of dealing with conflict and working for peace in this paper. I believe that we need new perspectives to deal with conflict, and empathy is one of basic tools to support the process of dealing with conflict. Empathy is not the purpose, but the tool for transformation at the systemic and personal level. There are many levels of conflict from in the family, in the community, in a country to in the world. We discuss a lot about how to deal with conflict, how to solve the conflict, and how to build peace. A question in the process of dealing with conflict is, do we use "peaceful" means? The empathetic process of conflict transformation tells us what is really going on at a given moment. When you deal with conflicts, recognizing the 'reality' is required, because without knowing what really happened, we cannot transform conflicts. It often happens that conflicting parties see different realities in conflict situations, because conflict parties use only their own perspectives. We should share responsibilities to deal with conflicts, and work together. Through asking questions to conflict workers/trainers in the field, I reconsidered empathy in conflict transformation in this paper. The research questions were: Do conflict workers/trainers believe that empathetic process is needed between conflicting parties? What makes conflicting parties unable to empathize with each other? What is helpful for increasing empathy between conflicting parties? How do conflict workers/trainers deal with emotions of conflicting parties, especially anger and fear? For constructive confrontation, what is required
Recommended Citation
Tada, Noriko, "Conflict transformation and empathy : how conflict workers/trainers in the field see and use empathy in conflict transformation" (2000). Capstone Collection. 420.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/capstones/420