by Justin Minion ’23 In Part I of this series, I have covered stakeholders battles that would likely be described as “distributive.” For instance, the stakeholder battles between the Conservative Law Foundation and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and between the MBTA and the MassDot would likely be examined through the lens of zero-sum bargaining. In […]
By Justin Minion ’23 On a Wednesday evening in April of 2014, Jack Wright, the interim project manager for the Green Line Extension, stood on stage at a town hall meeting and faced an angry audience of residents from Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge. Jack informed the audience that funding for the much-anticipated Community Path, which
By Patrick Maxwell ‘21 To wrap up this blog series, let’s think back to the first entry of this series, and the concept of “conflict resolution infrastructure” that was introduced there. Conflict resolution infrastructure is the set of processes, decision rules, specialists, and sources of truth that govern how a conflict is managed—and as
by Oladeji Tiamiyu ’20 In recent months, America has experienced significant social upheaval, ranging from the nation-wide protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd to the attempted insurrection of the Capitol that led to the deaths of 5 individuals. In July 2020, Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia established truth commissions in
Election Day has come and gone. At this moment, we sit with anxious uncertainty about the outcome in the Presidential race, as key states continue to count the millions of legitimately cast votes that remain. The color-coded maps are ubiquitous but incomplete, the pundits spin out endless speculative scenarios. And we wait.
What we’ve learned from the election – no matter who wins Read More »
When we launched the “Thanks for Listening” podcast in the fall of 2018, our goal was to explore what seemed like deep and growing political polarization in the U.S., and to find out what was being done about it. We wanted to be able to tell a hopeful story about people and organizations who are working to “bridge the partisan divide in America,” as we said in the opening of each episode. And for both of the authors, hope was something we needed; the political and social dynamics at play at the time seemed to be posing dire stress tests to some of the basic premises of our work.
Reflecting on the Journey of “Thanks for Listening” Read More »
In light of the pandemic, dialogue practitioners are finding inventive ways to not only transfer dialogue online but also reimagine how traditionally in-person activities can be conducted online more effectively. A new way of making remote dialogue more engaging is to incorporate game-like elements to make the online experience more life-like. Carla Luna talks about how in her new blog.
Only a Game: How Elements of “Gamification” Can Enrich Online Dialogue Read More »
In-person interaction is now largely unavailable to us. Can digital connections ever be as rich? In visual art, the term “negative space” refers to the space around the subject of an image. M.C. Escher’s Sky and Water I provides a vivid example: the birds at the top of this graphic print start out as positive
Finding the contours of our virtual lives Read More »
Originally published on the Indisputably blog as part of the Theory-of-Change Symposium . You can find all the submissions for the symposium here. As we approach the next election, we continue to confront important challenges about engaging across deeply felt differences. Our country remains polarized, and many feel disconnected from those whose views differ
Engaging Deep Differences Online Read More »
