International and Regional Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Mediation

Intercultural and cross-cultural mediation in the Western world has emerged as an object of research that has attracted a growing attention over the past thirty years. Meanwhile, static and essentialist notions of culture in communication have been challenged by dynamic and constructivist approaches taking culture as a flux that is changing permanently. The contributions in this book adopt these tendencies to cross-cultural mediation research: They center around the question if and in what ways people from different cultural groups have constructed their own notions of how conflict mediation in cross-cultural settings should be dealt with in particular. In other words: Are there different ways of handling cross-cultural conflict that may be termed as culture-specific? The contributions in this volume reveal some insights to the high complexity of this question.

Contents: Dominic Busch: Preface - Dominic Busch/Claude-Hélène Mayer/Christian Martin Boness: Introduction: International and Regional Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Mediation - Dominic Busch: How Does Culture Affect Conflict Mediation? Disentangling Concepts from Theory and Practice - Claude-Hélène Mayer/Christian Martin Boness/Samuel Togolai Kussaga: Usuluhishi. Terms and Concepts of Intercultural Mediation and Conflict Management from Tanzanian Perspectives - Stella Ting-Toomey: Intercultural Mediation: Asian and Western Conflict Lens - Claudio Baraldi: Is Cross-Cultural Mediation a Technique? Theoretical/Methodological Frameworks and Empirical Evidence from Interaction - Mark Davidheiser: Human Social Behavior, Cultural Perspectives, and Conflict Mediation: A Multi-Variate Analysis of Gambian Dispute Processing - Michelle LeBaron/Nadja Alexander: Exporting Mediation Through Role Plays: Intercultural Considerations in Knowledge Transfer - Claude-Hélène Mayer: Cross-Cultural Business Mediation. The Model of Identity-based Managerial Mediation in International Management - Federico Farini/Viola Barbieri: Mediated Doctor-Patient Interaction. An Italian Case Study - Angela Mickley: National Unity and Cultural Diversity in Conflict Resolution: Capacity Building for Sustainable Peace and Reconciliation in Namibia.