MOVING FROM CONFLICT TO HARMONY: The Role of Dialogue in Bridging Differences

This chapter explores specific ways in which structured dialogue can provide a space to meaningfully explore the tensions that are inherent in intercultural conflict, with a goal of helping participants move toward greater intercultural harmony. From a dialogic perspective, the tensions that result from conflict are both a potential obstacle to productive exchange and simultaneously key to resolving conflict. Dialogue offers the possibility of bringing diverse elements together to help build a complex and inclusive world, two key aspects of harmony. When opposing views are explored in a thoughtful and safe environment, with judgment and resolution suspended until the issues are adequately examined and all voices have been appropriately heard, a creative breakthrough becomes possible in which the paradox of opposites is transcended by synthesis. When this synthesis occurs, tensions are transformed into positive energy that can drive momentum toward intercultural harmony.