How do you deal with complicated conflicts, when two or more contradicting positions make a solution seem impossible? How can you transform the conflict so it becomes easier to manage?

Tatsushi Arai, professor at the SIT Graduate Institute, has recently given an interview to the SIT Graduate Institute Blog about his new book, Creativity and Conflict Transformation: Alternative Pathways to Peace. In the interview, he explains how creativity can help to transform intergroup conflicts.

Arai’s idea about what creativity means regarding conflict transformation is very different from a standard understanding of creativity that may come to mind – Michelangelo, maybe, or Einstein. To Tatsushi Arai, creativity for conflict transformation is not something of individual capability, but something that happens in a group. How so?

Tatsushi Arai, Professor in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation

Creative conflict transformation, as Arai sees it, happens through continuous dialogue and continuous interaction. It is shown when a small number of those who are involved in a conflict come up with unconventional ideas about why the conflict exists at all – with a different story about the causes of the conflict. When others feel they can accept these new explanations, the conflict can be transformed: goals shift, the evaluation of the conflict changes – and new solutions become possible.

Arai presents and analyzes 16 examples of how intergroup conflicts have been transformed in the past. The cases he looks at range from conflicts on the community level to international conflicts. He shows how the breakthroughs of conflict transformation became possible and what the elements are that lead to a re-evaluation of the conflict, and consequently to its transformation.

In the interview, you can learn more about Tatsushi Arai, his book, and find examples of what creative conflict transformation can mean. His ideas can inspire our work as AFSers, and improve how we help others connect. To understand the underlying principles of conflicts and how to transform conflicts is to have access to a very powerful tool. When we combine it with our awareness of cultural differences, possible misinterpretations and different ways of how conflicts are approached in different cultures, we can be even more successful and responsible in our day to day lives – in the intercultural environment of AFS and elsewhere.