CAPSTONE: Conflict Analysis Models

Conflict analysis is central to understanding the context and content of any conflict. It is also critical for the person doing the conflict analysis to have a good understanding of who they are as a conflict resolution practitioner, including the frames with which they view the conflict analysis. Our worldviews, assumptions, values, and beliefs shape how we frame and create meaning from conflicts that we choose to examine, and how we understand the dynamics of those conflicts. Therefore, to conduct an impartial analysis of any conflict, and add value for the stakeholders involved, self-awareness is crucial. This course is the foundation for developing the necessary mindset for conflict analysis. We want you to be able to enter any situation and ask the question, “What is really going on here?” and to use that inquiry to uncover underlying needs, issues, and assumptions. In this course, in addition to increasing your self-awareness as a conflict resolution practitioner, you will explore and become familiar with diverse conflict analysis approaches and tools, beginning with creating a conflict map to identify the actors, dynamics, and structures that are creating, escalating, and perpetuating the conflict. You will work with a variety of conflict analysis tools to examine the stakeholder perspectives and will be asked to identify issues that surfaced as a result of this analysis. You will define goals for your inquiry that correspond to the conflict issues you have identified and coalesce thematically around a specific purpose of appropriate scope for your capstone study. You will utilize the Coordinated Management of Meaning and Case Study frameworks to engage in desk-based qualitative inquiry using secondary sources. You will put theory into practice by interpreting the secondary data through the lens of applicable theory. The data will be further analyzed using CMM models and conflict analysis tools as a means of surfacing several needs to be addressed in your intervention design (in the next capstone course). This course is the first of three (3) required courses of the capstone sequence. In 6050, students will complete conflict analysis for their capstone case study. In 6250, students will design an intervention that addresses the needs identified in their earlier analysis. In 6350, students will consider sustainability, as well as monitoring and evaluation strategies for their proposed intervention.