Negotiating Conflict through Music: The Case of the Tsonga Tingoma Ritual

Abstract

Tingoma is a three-day ritual conducted by Tsonga people to facilitate communication between the living and their Ancestor spirits, and to ensure that there is no disharmony between the beings in these two realms. Using a tingoma conducted for Eunice Maluleke as a case study, we argue that this ritual not only negotiates tension within an individual (body and spirit), and between an individual and his or her Ancestor spirits, but also functions as a site through which larger social and political tensions are addressed. Further, we propose that the structure of tingoma as it is practiced today inscribes and negotiates inter-ethnic tensions of the past. In the second part of this article we examine the ways in which tingoma has been affected by, and engages with, more recent power struggles and related identity politics, specifically those relating to the religious and political affiliations of people residing in South Africa's Limpopo province since the early 1980s.     

The Incarcerated Parent: Examining Mother-Child Conflict at the Margins through a Bio-Ecological Lens

ABSTRACT

This study examined conflict, parenting communication style, and attitudes regarding the parent-child relationship for a marginalized special population: incarcerated mothers and their children. Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological perspective served as a guiding framework, based on its ability to consider family interactions across ecological contexts, both proximal and distal to the developing child’s home setting. Fifty incarcerated mothers in the central U.S. provided in-depth interviews and individual self-report surveys. Findings indicate that incarcerated mothers most frequently used an authoritative parenting communication style in conflict situations that ended positively, and authoritarian style in conflict that ended negatively. Authoritative parenting was associated with incarcerated mothers’ reports of greater satisfaction with parenting. Study findings suggest that parenting communication style can help support efforts to reduce recidivism. Contextualizing these findings within Bronfenbrenner’s model, the present study affirms the role of proximal as well as distal factors governing relational communication between incarcerated mothers and their children.     

Conflict resolution through voluntary provision of property protection

This paper reports the results of an experimental test of Nash equilibrium predictions of voluntary provision of property protection in a contest with an endogenously determined prize. The experiment investigates whether the mechanism of allowing irreversible contributions to security prior to choices over production and conflict induces positive provision of property protection due to the strategic effect on conflict, resulting in greater production. We find robust evidence that contributions to security increase with sequential decision-making, resulting in less conflict. However, there is no evidence that production increased. There is evidence larger groups resulted in less property protection and greater conflict.     

An Investigation into the Role of Image Repair Theory in Strategic Conflict Management

This study investigated the effectiveness of image repair strategies and contingency theory perspectives in crisis management. A content analysis of news releases and reports on sexual assaults at the Air Force Academy in 2002 found crisis communication is a dialectic process serving to change the perspectives of the institution and the media over the crisis period. A proactive approach was most effective in generating positive media coverage. Bolstering was the most effective image repair strategy and apologizing was ineffective. The study suggests a complexity approach to crises might better prepare communicative entities to deal with a crisis.     

Conflict and Conflict Resolution in a Cooperative: The Case of the Nir Taxi Station

What conflict resolution mechanisms dodemocratic worker cooperatives generate and to whatextent could these mechanisms be called democratic? Thiscase study tries to address these questions by examining both conflict and conflict resolution in ademocratic organization, a 66-year-old taxi cooperative.The conflicts presented stem from three main sources:ethnic origin, local division of labor, and“class” affiliation. These conflicts are resolvedthrough different processes, ranging from a joke-tellingritual to a formal tribunal composed of elected judges.Discussion centers on unique aspects of conflict resolution in a democratic worker cooperativeand their implications for studies of conflictresolution in nondemocratic firms.     

The Symbolic Origins of Conflict in Divorce

Divorce often constitutes a dramatic transformation of a close, personal, and usually harmonious relationship into one that is deeply antagonistic and bitter. Explanations among family researchers typically focus on opposing material interests, the adversarial nature of the legal system, latent or manifest conflict in marriage, or psychological reactions to the pain of divorce. A broadly designed fieldwork investigation of divorce suggests an important dimension largely ignored by these explanations: the symbolic or cultural. This article describes the process by which a sample of divorcing subjects confronted and solved major interpretive dilemmas posed by virtue of the shared meaning they and those around them had of marriage. It shows that the ways in which they solved such dilemmas created an oppositional structure by which they subsequently effected divorce.     

The Effects of Briefly Interrupting Marital Conflict

This study examined couples’ (N = 94) behavior resulting from two proximal change interventions. One was a spousal “compliments intervention” to increase positivity, and the other was a “criticize intervention” to increase negativity. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two intervention conditions or a control group. There was no main effect in affect from the pretest conflict discussion to the posttest conflict discussion between the interventions or control group. However, a manipulation check on how couples acted during either intervention produced a significant interaction effect. Pretest affect during conflict and marital satisfaction significantly predicted couples’ construal of the intervention. Professionals may need to monitor how couples use specific interventions and direct the processes how the intervention is construed by the couple.     

The Accommodation of Conflict in the Merger of Two Religious Denominations

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of migration on the occupational prestige and mobility of about 4000 U.S. men aged 35–64 in 1951. The analysis is based on data from the 1951 Six City Survey of Labor Mobility. The findings show that migrants are superior to non-migrants, with few exceptions, in mean socio-economic statuses. Migrant superiority was due to initial advantages for men 35–44 only. Men over 45 who migrated lost part of their initial advantage relative to non-migrants. The regression slopes describing the relationship among son's education, father's prestige level, and son's 1949 occupational prestige did not differ between migrants and non-migrants. A fairly consistent interaction with age appeared in the data—migrants 45 years and older suffered set-backs in their careers compared to younger migrants.     

Refracted Knowledge: Viewing Families Through the Prism of Social Science

I reinforce a vision for family science in which we routinely step back from our research to consider the fit of the empirical world with the reality of everyday life. This vision suggests that we pursue the methodological advances of the past decade but remain mindful of the limitations of the scientific approach. Such mindfulness will help us attend to both similarity and variability in families and in family‐life experience. A responsible social science also requires that we attend to rhetoric or how we communicate. I reflect on the practice of humility as a way to achieve these goals.     

Promoting Constructive Conflict from a Conflict Transformation Perspective: The Case of Community-Based Collaboration in Korea

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on developing constructive conflict management in community-based collaborations for macro social workers. Using a conflict transformation perspective as a conceptual framework, we identified significant factors and their dynamic relationships in promoting constructive conflict in the context of 5 community-based collaborations in Korea. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that responsive coordination was a strong predictor of increased perceptions of constructive conflict. Further, a multiple mediator model indicated that open communication was indirectly associated with perceived constructive conflict by enhancing both equal decision-making and responsive coordination. We conclude by highlighting practical implications of our study.     

由伊拉克战争论“文明冲突论”本质

9·11事件仿佛揭开了伊斯兰文明与西方文明冲突的序幕。这场冲突具有宗教文化差异的表象性,但根本的原因是利益之争。可以说,西方人提出文明冲突是为维持其霸权制造理由。前不久发生的美伊战争就是一场美英为争夺中东势力范围挑起的侵略战争,并不具有文明冲突的特征。     

末世论和全球社会政治冲突——以巴以冲突为例

宗教原教旨主义者的末世论成了全球社会政治冲突一种不可忽视的动因,它不仅导致了许多国家内在的社会政治断裂,也加剧了当今伊斯兰世界与西方的矛盾和冲突。巴以冲突就是一个末世论产生重要影响的典型个案。末世论是以色列的信仰者集团、美国的基督教右翼积极在巴勒斯坦被占领土上推进定居点运动,阻扰和平进程的重要动因。这两者的进攻性行动破坏了伊斯兰世界的认同,损害了他们的权利、尊严和拯救前景,从而引起哈马斯、真主党等激进伊斯兰主义者同样带有末世情结的伊斯兰群体以"圣战"为主要形式的抗争。     

The Foreign in Mandel'shtam's Poetry at the Beginning of the 1930s. A Look Through the Prism of Translation

Abstract

Mandel'shtam's poetry reflects a feeling of alienation from his surroundings both as a poet, whose calling endows him with unique perceptiveness, and as a person crushed by the Soviet regime. This alienation is concretized in different ways: familiar places and scenes are estranged and distanced, foreign names and places are mingled with native loci, and direct references are made to an encounter with foreign elements.

This paper offers readings of two poems through their versions in translation. Since translation attempts to familiarize the foreign, much can be gathered from these versions about the nature of the foreign, or alien, elements in each poem. The first of them, 'He …' ('Don't tempt foreign languages …'), presents ambivalent emotions aroused by foreign speech. In the second poem '' ('I'm still far from patriarch …'), the speaker strolls through Moscow, where he feels a stranger and a native inhabitant at once. The translations indicate to what extent each text is felt to be foreign through the degree by which they mitigate and familiarize it. They also shed light on the poems in specific places. Finally, the popularity of a given poem in translation often indicates its universal appeal. Thus, the present study suggests the comparative examination of translations as a method of reading and interpreting poetry.     

由伊拉克战争论"文明冲突论"本质

9·11事件仿佛揭开了伊斯兰文明与西方文明冲突的序幕.这场冲突具有宗教文化差异的表象性,但根本的原因是利益之争.可以说,西方人提出文明冲突是为维持其霸权制造理由.前不久发生的美伊战争就是一场美英为争夺中东势力范围挑起的侵略战争,并不具有文明冲突的特征.     

末世论和全球社会政治冲突——以巴以冲突为例

宗教原教旨主义者的末世论成了全球社会政治冲突一种不可忽视的动因,它不仅导致了许多国家内在的社会政治断裂,也加剧了当今伊斯兰世界与西方的矛盾和冲突。巴以冲突就是一个末世论产生重要影响的典型个案。末世论是以色列的信仰者集团、美国的基督教右翼积极在巴勒斯坦被占领土上推进定居点运动,阻扰和平进程的重要动因。这两者的进攻性行动破坏了伊斯兰世界的认同,损害了他们的权利、尊严和拯救前景,从而引起哈马斯、真主党等激进伊斯兰主义者同样带有末世情结的伊斯兰群体以圣战为主要形式的抗争。