Re-imagining conflict: navigating fields of tension as 'working in the space between'

这项奖学金将使我能够分享关于我们如何理解和处理冲突的理论和实践的新的重要见解，以及这与使协作工作计划更具可持续性和强健性的关系。它强调了在这种情况下早期干预的重要性，并提供了一种工具（在可视化方法中），允许对群体动态进行实时可视化表示。这样的图像可以立即向协作团队传达团队中哪些方面进展顺利，哪些方面在他们的互动中存在障碍。它为干预提供了一个理想的起点，以客观和易于理解的形式提供了不可否认的群体流动记录。从多学科团队到本地服务交付，从商业伙伴关系到解决世界上最复杂的问题，协作工作在我们生活的各个方面都在增加。这种模式的转变需要在不同的团队和不同的组织文化中工作的新技能，但很少有时间去理解支撑成功合作的团队动态和人际关系。从我自己多年从事跨文化和多部门合作的经验来看，我知道这不是一件容易的事。由于个人和公司的兴趣和工作方式各不相同，提供无缝、优质的服务变得越来越困难。工作文化的差异可能是极端的——例如，志愿组织社区工作者的热情与金融办公室要求的一丝不苟的细节——对合作伙伴组织和提供工作的个人的期望也可能是极端的。此外，变化和不确定性是协作工作的一个持续特征，要求组织和个人管理协作结构的内部动态（谁掌握预算、做出决策、主持会议）以及更广泛的社会和政治变化（金融衰退、政治意识形态、全球流行病）。当紧张点没有预料到或解决时，消极冲突的机会就会变得更大，低级的不满会迅速导致退缩、不遵守规定和大量浪费资源——金钱、时间、人员和合作的可持续性。通过关注群体互动中的“热点”，并通过可视化群体动态（见下面的例子）使它们更加可见，以创造性和可持续的方式承认和处理冲突点变得更容易，并避免浪费。这项重要的研究重新定义了冲突是正常的，而不一定是破坏性的。重要的不是冲突本身，而是如何处理冲突。来自博士研究的可视化例子，显示了一个中心群体参与线被笑声打断——NB不允许我在这里包括图像。该方法的全部独创性在于如何将个人和组织之间的“空间”视为一个紧急空间。这增加了测量非语言数据、可视化交流、观察和可视化能量类型和笑点的新方法。这种方法对我来说是全新的，至少在冲突研究中是如此。虽然它被正确地视为一项试点研究，并因其创新性而对其主张持谨慎态度，但它仍有令人兴奋的进一步试验、测试和发展的潜力。至少我们可以更好地理解合作冲突研究中的群体动态，提供一个指标，说明一个群体如何在要求苛刻和‘混乱’的环境中重新定位自己，以提高能量和创造力，这些环境是所有层次的合作和冲突的特征。”汤姆·伍德豪斯，和平与冲突研究名誉教授，博士考官

This fellowship will allow me to share new and significant insights from theory and practice around how we understand and work with conflict, and how this is relevant to making collaborative work programmes more sustainable and robust. It stresses the importance of early intervention in such situations, and provides a tool (in the visualization method) that allows a realtime visual representation of a group's dynamic. Such an image immediately conveys to a collaborative team what is moving smoothly in the group and where there are bumps in their interactions. It offers an ideal starting point for intervention, providing an undeniable record of group flow in a format that is objective and easily understood.Collaborative working is on the rise in all aspects of our lives, from multidisciplinary teams to local service delivery, in business partnerships and in tackling the world's most complex problems. This paradigm shift requires new skills in relation to working in diverse teams and across very different organizational cultures but little time is given to understanding the group dynamics and interpersonal relationships that underpin successful collaborations. From years of working in cross-cultural and multi-sector collaborations myself, I know that it is not an easy task. Providing seamless, quality services becomes increasingly difficult as individuals and companies come together with their varied interests and ways of working. Differences in working cultures can be extreme - the passion of a voluntary organisation community worker versus the meticulous detail required by finance offices, for example - as can the expectations of partner organisations and individuals delivering the work. In addition, change and uncertainty are a constant feature of collaborative working, requiring organisations and individuals to manage the internal dynamics of a collaborative structure (who holds the budget, makes decisions, chairs the meetings) as well as broader societal and political shifts (financial recession, political ideologies, global pandemics). When points of tension are not anticipated or addressed, the chance for negative conflict becomes much greater and low-level dissatisfactions can quickly lead to withdrawal, non-compliance and a considerable waste of resources - money, time, personnel and collaborative sustainability. By focussing on the 'hot spots' in group interactions and making them more visible by visualizing the group dynamic (see example below), it becomes easier to acknowledge and work with points of conflict that will inevitably arise in a creative and sustainable manner, and to avoid that wastage. This important research reframes conflict as normal, and not necessarily destructive. What is important is not conflict itself but how it is approached and dealt with. Example of visualization from the PhD research, showing a central group engagement line intercut by laughter - NB wont allow me to include image here.'The full originality of the approach lies in how 'the space between' individuals and organisations is seen as an emergent space. This adds new ways of measuring nonverbal data, of visualising communication and of observing and visualising energy types and laughter points. The approach is genuinely new to me, at least as applied to conflict research. While it is correctly seen as a pilot study and cautious in its claims because it is so innovative, it nevertheless has exciting potential for further trial, testing and development. The promise at least is that we may well be better equipped to understand group dynamics in collaborative conflict research, providing indicators of how a group can re-orientate itself to improve energy and creativity in the demanding and 'messy' environments that characterise collaborations - and conflicts - at all levels.' Tom Woodhouse, Professor Emeritus, Peace and Conflict Studies, and PhD Examiner