If you’ve been involved in activism, social justice, political or community organising spaces for any length of time, you have probably encountered some degree of conflict in your group or organisation. Sometimes it feels like all people do in our movement spaces is fall out! And other times it can feel like conflict bubbles away for a long time without anyone ever naming it, until it bursts to the surface. Sometimes people end up falling out over very specific, even minutiae details, and other times conflict arises over fundamental values and beliefs.
Its important to remember that these problems of course aren’t specific to movement spaces - whenever groups of people gather, communicate, and make future plans, they end up in conflict. However - maybe because of the passion, energy, commitment or determination that activism takes - when conflict arises in our movements it can feel particularly difficult or damaging.
Considering how common conflict is, it is surprising how little we think or talk about it. Understanding and having some skills and knowledge on how to engage around conflict in ways that helps us to build stronger groups and organisations (rather than damaging - or even destroying - them) is really important.
In this blog post we’ll explore some elements of what conflict is, and one strategy for responding to it in a grassroots activism or community group. However, considering the scale of the topic, this article will only serve as an introduction. At the bottom you’ll find some resources you might find useful.
What is conflict?
This might seem like a very obvious question to start with, but how often do you actually think about conflict - what it is, why it happens, our strategies for managing and resolving it?
When we first think about “conflict”, we might think of protracted violence or even wars, or significant disagreements that extend for long periods of time. Maybe it makes you think of arguments, raised voices, relationships breaking down over unresolvable issues.
These are all definitely part of conflict, but conflict is also an everyday, unavoidable, normal part of being human. Conflicts occur whenever two or more people have different opinions, values or needs. Conflicts can be over seemingly trivial things - like who does the washing up - or much bigger, life-changing issues. They can occur between two people, in small and large groups, or at a societal level.
While conflicts are inevitable, how we deal with them isn’t. We have a lot of power over how we choose to react, communicate, and relate to others. Some people try to avoid conflict (often quickly acquiescing, allowing others to dictate the outcome), while others escalate conflict into an argument or worse. Many of us carry the hurt and pain of previous conflicts that have been very difficult experiences, and this impacts how we make choices about how we choose to act in the future.
However, we also often already have many of the skills, techniques and attributes needed to be able to manage and resolve them, but learning how to use these takes time, patience, empathy. Our movement spaces can - even should - be spaces where we can practise resolving conflicts in ways that uphold the value and dignity of everyone, including ourselves.
Why do conflicts happen?
Conflicts can happen for a whole host of reasons:
Misunderstandings or incorrect information
Personality clashes and different communication styles
Different perspectives on priorities, objectives or goals
Resentments and jealousy
Conflicting values or beliefs
Different needs or desires
There are also specific drivers of conflict in groups and organisations working for social change, such as: our internal cultures or structures, informal or unbalanced hierarchies, ineffective communication, a desire “to make change happen” or “get the job done”.
However, we can often end up in situations where unresolved conflict festers - rather than dealing with issues at hand, we find ourselves ignoring them or trying to move on. Rather than finding resolutions to conflicts we can end up relying on a
What can we do about them?
Resolving conflicts can be tricky. Seeds for Change - an organisation that supports groups campaigning for social and environmental justice - uses the image of an iceberg to illustrate one approach to understanding and resolving conflicts.
Above the surface are our “positions” - this is our initial response, or solution to the conflict. But below the surface are our “interests” (what we think is important, or worried about). These are rooted in our “needs” (the things everyone requires if they are to feel happy and content - things like being understood, respected, and a sense of belonging).
For example, lets imagine a climate action group where two volunteers, Stephen and Emma, have clashed over how a press release should be written. Stephen thinks (his “position” is) he should do the work himself, but Emma’s position is a group should work on it together.
Stephen might take that position because he thinks its important to get the work done quickly, while Emma is worried one person shouldn’t have so much control over the task getting done. These “interests” are rooted in needs: for Stephen to feel efficient and effective, for Emma that the group has a strong sense of shared responsibility for something that feels important.
Stephen | Emma | |
Position | I should write the press release on my own | We should find a time this week for several people to discuss and work on it. |
Interest | Getting the job done quickly | Worried about one person having too much control |
Need | To feel efficient and effective | To feel the group has shared responsibility |
When we start to pull back the layers, what initially looked like a very polarised issue (and perhaps one where it would be easy to come to assumptions about egos, or mistrust) suddenly becomes much more relatable. We can empathise more with both sides, and we might be able to see a way through the conflict. Rather than looking at the outcome in terms of one person winning while another loses (“do we go with Stephen or Emma’s position?”) we can begin to look at creative ways to meet everyone’s needs.
Relationships
Approaching conflict in this way relies on people being ready to be flexible, to communicate, to take risks, to engage with the needs of others and to share their own, and to recognise that finding common ground means committing to building better relationships. Sometimes, when people have become very entrenched in their positions (perhaps because that’s the only way they can see their needs being met), it becomes very difficult to draw people closer together again. In these situations it can mean that groups need mediation or other types of support Again, this sort of relationship breakdown is visible in all sorts of relationships, not just in movement spaces.
The prize - as it were - for groups learning better ways to manage conflict is better relationships between members of the group, with stronger and more trusting bonds. In turn, this helps us to build groups and organisations where people are able to make better decisions, consider taking greater risks, commit more of their time and energy, feel more empowered, and ultimately focus on achieving the groups goals in a way that is energising, even regenerative.
If you want to explore these issues in more depth I have listed some resources below on managing and resolving conflicts in groups.
Resources
Working with Conflict in our Groups: a guide for grassroots activists, by Seeds for Change. Available at https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/resources (listed under “skills for working in groups”)
A series if short exercises on understanding and resolving conflict, by Friends of the Earth Europe: https://youngfoee.eu/news/how-to-deal-with-confict-in-your-activist-group/
Blog post from the Movement Strategy Centre: https://movementstrategy.org/blog_post/addressing-and-accepting-conflict-for-stronger-movements/
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