Posts Tagged ‘Language of Opposites’
Creating Peace One Step At A Time with Kenneth Cloke
How important is conflict resolution to you? What are you doing to prevent, manage and resolve conflict in your daily life…your neighborhood, community and throughout the world? Conflict resolution and peace building are important tools for effective communication in order to assure clarity and acknowledge the interests of all individuals in a dispute. These tools allow us to examine ourselves and the language we use in conflict. The impact of language in conflict affects us, the people around us and the diverse world we live in. In a special episode, The Language of Conflict, Kenneth Cloke will join us to share his thoughts, experiences and expertise about how our language can easily escalate conflict or if thoughtfully used can deescalate and expand our understanding of each other.
Kenneth Cloke is a highly regarded conflict resolution professional and practitioner. His continuous work and personal journey through this field are important as he explores the ways in which to create a non-violent world. Cloke’s global work, teaching, research and overall knowledge has lead him to write numerous books on conflict resolution including his latest book The Dance of Opposites. This book focuses on a new vision for conflict resolution a “conflict revolution” that examines the language of conflict and how the brain responds to conflict. In addition he has authored and co-authored 11 books including Conflict Resolution-Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism, The Crossroad of Conflict-A Journey Into the Heart of Dispute Resolution, and Resolving Conflicts at Work: Eight Strategies for Everyone on the Job. Cloke has served as mediator, arbitrator, attorney, coach, consultant and trainer and specializes in resolving community, grievance, workplace disputes, collective bargaining, organizational and school conflict, sexual harassment, discrimination lawsuits and public policy disputes.
Most importantly he has taken his teachings and shared them around the world in Universities, colleges and other training programs at schools like Antioch University, Occidental College, Pepperdine University School of Law and Harvard University School of Law. Teaching in subjects such as; law, mediation, conflict studies, urban studies, political studies and other social sciences that can help create change in the community you live in.
His dedication and passion for peaceful tools for resolving conflict has pulled him in a direction to do amazing things. He has worked internationally in over 20 countries including Austria, Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, and China just to name a few. He is the President and Founder of Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBB). MBB is an organization dedicated to building a peace “Able” world, promoting skills of peace and mediation worldwide. They offer primary services to include:
- Mediation (e.g., commercial, community, court, organizational, narrative, peer, evaluative, facilitative, transformative),
- Mediation advocacy,
- Dialogue,
- Restorative justice (e.g., restorative circles; peace circles), and
- Process design & facilitation.
MMB also has current projects in Colombia, Israel, Kenya, Liberia and other places to promote and use conflict resolution as an effective tool for peace.
Kenneth Cloke is the Director of Center for Dispute Resolution, which is a private center that offers a variety of services with a broad range of experience from multi-disciplinary professionals. The Center has been operating over 15 years. Kenneth Cloke is like many of us. He is dedicated to helping and creating change using effective tools for people all over the world. Remember any and every effort to resolve conflict non-violently makes a difference.
To learn more about Kenneth Cloke, listen to the upcoming show, January 14th at 7pm CT The Language of Conflict.
Written by
Tierra Henry, Graduate Student, University of Baltimore, Dispute Resolution Program