Transforming Conflict: Communication and Ethnopolitical Conflict

(Paperback)

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Description

This student-oriented book introduces and explains the dynamics of conflict and resolution_particularly in ethnic, ethnopolitical, and intercultural or intergroup conflicts. Providing a basic overview of the elements of group conflict, ethnicity, identity, and diasporas, the book also explores the role of the mass media and key ways of using communication principles to understand and resolve conflict. It focuses on how to resolve problems by changing relationships and building new patterns of communication, not just managing or settling problems through acceptable political agreements. Transforming Conflict is a valuable text or supplement for courses in conflict resolution as well as international, group, or intercultural communication.

Reviews

No topic is more pertinent to contemporary social problems than ethnic conflict. Ellis integrates a wide array of political, psychological, and media literature to analyze symbolic and communicative approaches to ethnic conflicts. Challenging traditional perspectives, he presents a refreshing and powerful way to integrate micro processes with macro-political approaches through focusing on communicative relationships. This book is a must-read for practitioners, students, and scholars who aim to promote second-order change and conflict transformation. -- Linda L. Putnam, Texas A&M University
Transforming Conflict is an admirable achievement. Don Ellis has produced an excellent and timely book examining not only the material and psychological causes of ethnic conflict but also bringing in the under-analyzed but crucial aspect of communications. Conceptually clear and empirically informed, this book is a must-read for students of ethnic conflict. -- Richard C. M. Mole, University College London
Here is a most timely addition to our libraries: a book about getting along when nobody wants to get along. Todays problems will not be solved by yesterdays solutions. We can learn from our history; that is how we develop new solutions. If you are confronted by conflict that resists resolution, that seems to strike at the essential identity of some of your members and seems impervious to all that has worked before, this may be just the book for you. -- Rev. Dr. David Moffet-Moore, Ph.D., D.Min.

Author Bio

Donald G. Ellis is professor of communication at the University of Hartford.