The TRANSCEND-Peace Development Environment Network started with geopolitical macro and mega conflicts; many well known and dramatic.\u00a0 But conflicts in daily life, at school, in couples-family, at work may be even more dramatic; at the micro level within the persons involved, between them, in the context, and at the meso level of social groups.<\/p>\n
Macro and mega, between states and regions, nations and civilizations, may also matter, like micro personal and meso social conflicts matter for macro and mega conflicts within and between negotiators-mediators.\u00a0 Any act of violence, like bullying at school, quarrels in the family or at work may actually not express hostility toward the victim but be directed toward the “system”.\u00a0 A feeling of being trapped in general may be expressed as violence at school, in a couple-family, at work.<\/p>\n
But higher levels generally prefer a lower level focus; not on them and the level they represent, but at the bully or the quarrelsome person.\u00a0 Psychologists may be mobilized to handle “the difficult person” when seen more deeply what is at stake is a highly problematic system.<\/p>\n
For a nonviolent handling we have to have all levels in mind, and that is the essence of our SABONA<\/i> project, TRANSCEND in daily life.\u00a0 The word means in Zulu: “I see you”, I take you in, all of you, all levels!<\/p>\n
I present here a table with three columns for the three types of “daily life”, and ten levels for theory and practice. Lack of adequate analysis leads to single-level reductionism and interventions at the wrong, usually meaning lower, levels.<\/p>\n
For therapy sensitivity to intra-column multi-level conflicts is indispensable, not only focusing on perpetrator or victim and their narratives, but also on relations, contexts, structures and cultures in which they are embedded.\u00a0 Sensitivity to inter-column transfers of conflict energy is also needed, as frustrations in one may easily come out as aggression in the other. <\/b><\/p>\n