Understanding Conflict & Restorative Circles
Doug Hamilton
Restorative Circles..
“What does one do when people feel there has been some injustice done, and some people in the middle do not want to talk, communicate?”
< An annual conference of the Communal Studies Association is held with 2 and a half days of scholarly papers being delivered on 20 minute intervals by scholars who study intentional communities both historic and contemporary. There is always good substantial material presented that can relate to communities and organizations.
One paper present at the 2021 conference was on how restorative justice mediation methods can be used to untangle conflict in groups. More than a theoretical talk about this, the paper was a ‘how to do it’ by someone who works within mediation process.
The paper started off with initial observations.. >
From note taking:
Community Justice SystemsPresented by Arjuna da Silva, Earthaven Ecovillage co-founder
Arjuna de Silva:Learning how to get along with each other.
Justice in community, how do we find justice in community?
Getting along or not is different than feeling justice is not being served. These two are different and require different responses.
Using Restorative Circles as a model, (Dominique Barder is the main architect of Restorative Circles)
As a model it does change as community needs change.
1 community is any group of people that shares resources and risks. Sharing and common risks.
Conflict is the most underutilized resource that a community has.
Conflict constantly shows up in life, conflict where something has happened that goes against or changes what we already know or believe. Most of the time we adjust and work it out. Sometimes conflict gets stuck, it gets painful. Then we need methods or approaches that work for us.
Sometimes conflict is not about justice and other times conflict very clearly is about justice. Sometimes community has to develop its own justice system outside of the legal justice system.
The question becomes, “What is the justice system we are relying on?” What can we do, or what do we do if we feel we have been wronged, or someone near us has been wronged. First question, what is our justice system? - and this a great go around for your group.
Second question, how is it working? Do we like that? Do we feel good about it? Do we feel safe with it? Are we accomplishing our needs? Are we experiencing justice?
Then turn to a third question: What would you like? What would work? How would you like to see justice engaged in, within your community?
Engaging justice.. can start from scratch or copy other systems, ‘restorative justice’ is becoming more common in the understanding that restorative justice is the ‘nonpunitive’ approach to righting wrongs, to addressing the feeling of the experience of being mistreated or worse.
Restorative process is one that looks beyond retribution, eye for an eye, and all that humanity struggles with all the time. But looks for building connection and finding ways to undue wrongs, connections that actually heal and help people grow.
People use Nonviolent Communication (NVC) that helps with issues particularly with getting along with each other, feeling understood, feeling included. NVC and other mediation types of approaches work well wherever people are open to this kind of empathetic approach to understanding one another. These are very helpful and important.
There are times that just conversation following a NVC approach to clarifying what our needs are and what we want from one another do not really go to a depth of a more complicated conflict. Conflicts that get suppressed or do not get processed, like a symptom in your body, can really become problematic over time. We don’t realize, we are not thinking about them, and then something comes up and we are stuck in fighting or we can not move an important issue forward, or where people do not talk to each other. There are all kinds of important issues with this.
Working Restorative Circles:
Comparatively-
“..The Restorative Circles model addresses those needs that come up when people are not able to address in an ordinary way, everyday way, or even an NVC way, not able to fully address their needs. Restorative Circles is particularly useful for a community, a group of people, for some of the people in a community. (RestorativeCircles.org)
By example, start in agreeing to have an ‘unofficial’ system for any member who has personally experienced stressors that are not getting dealt with, that don’t feel like they have hope for progress in a timely manner. (someone was told untruths, misrepresented truth, or something done, liberties taken, something changed, or even not a chronic behavior, that someone is finally wanting to call attention to.
With painful or intractable issues that come up a facilitator or mediator can be asked for by a member to facilitate or host a restorative circle with the people who are felt to be involved with these issues. Whether being affected by or affecting other people, this can be asked for. Even if noticed by people outside a group this can be asked for if an outbreak of trouble has taken over the airways, anyone in the community can ask for a restorative circle. Called “members of a conflict community”, “ - -
By practice,
“In asking for a ‘restorative circle’, interviews follow. The facilitator will want to understand what is the trouble, what happened, how do people feel about it, what does it mean to people, and if they are willing to sit down with others, find who else needs to be in that circle. This is part one of the circles and it is called the ‘pre-circle’. The facilitator addresses with the person who is asking for this circle what the issues are. That the facilitator and the requestor can understand if possible how the process works and what the issue seems to be. Then the requestor names other people who ought to be present when the circle is held. Who else is involved or did what.
The list is then made, and the facilitator then is going to ‘pre-circle’ each person who are willing to respond. ‘Pre-circles may be on the phone or in person. 5 minutes or 20 minutes, but a deeper understanding for each individual on the pre-circle list is obtainable with these conversations, with a willingness to attend to the circle.
After the ‘pre-circle' a date is set for everyone to come together. This all takes time and is not needed when there are other ways of recourse. However it can happen.
Something that is key to restorative justice circles is that after a person has interviewed a number of persons about different points of view of something that has happened, some injustice that has occurred, it is important to have another facilitator, different from the facilitator who gathered the pre-circle interviews, to turn to for help in co-facilitation to leave circles facilitated in an ‘omni-directional’ facilitation. To be there on behalf of everyone so that everyone has help is expressing their needs and fully get them met.
When a group agrees to come together, there are a lot of issues that are embraced in the restorative circles model and one of them has to do with “financial co-responsibility”. What is the cost of people even being able to show up and attend a circle. How do we help each other to show up, financially or logistically. This becomes an important part of the formal restorative circles.
When we have done our best to attend to what is needed, including the facilitators, to be comfortable to be able to sit together for a few hours, When the group is seated the facilitators describing to each person begins. There are three basic sections to the circle, the first is a question, “What do you want known by whom in this room about how you feel right now about what happened, about the problem we are here to address?” this is called ‘the meaning round’. Anyone can speak.
Second Question is, “What do you want to be known in the group as feeling or meaning about what was true for you was happening at the time it was happening. This becomes key for the facilitator to help with the intended statement of meaning to reach the other person and a sharing back what was heard, but also so that the whole group will understand.
What might we offer, suggest or request of one another that we might do or could happen in a given amount of time so that this kind of problem might not come up again? Very often this third question is what causes the process to go to another session because there is quite a bit to be worked out in resolve.
Restorative Circles is not a conflict resolution process, it is a conflict understanding process. It is an opportunity to understand one another, how we deal with conflict, and also how we can change the way that we experience and proceed through issues that might trouble us in our communities.