The work of conflict mediation: Actors, vectors, and communicative relationality

Abstract

Mediation is a widely used form of third-party conflict management for which research has primarily focused on the role of mediators. But how are the relations between disputing parties constituted in communication involving written texts, such as official letters or medical reports, during mediation sessions? To gain deeper insight into the communicative dynamics through which third-party disputes are created, sustained, and resolved, this article proposes a new theoretical perspective on mediation that illuminates how human beings and written texts can act as vectors for each other, i.e., how they can make important differences in mediation sessions because they carry or convey what someone or something else is saying, doing, thinking, or feeling and, thus, contribute to composing the nature of disputants’ relations. The value of this vectorial perspective on mediation is subsequently demonstrated through an inductive analysis of video-recorded sessions that took place at an administrative tribunal in Canada. By showing how texts (or their absence) can act as (1) conjunctive vectors that contribute to highlighting disputants’ compatibilities and help them find common ground, or (2) disjunctive vectors that contribute to highlighting their incompatibilities and obstruct their dispute resolution, this article advances the academic and professional literature on the role of communication in conflict mediation work, and reveals significant implications for the study and practice of conflict management in organizations as well as scholarship on relational ontologies.