Season 2 episode 11 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we talk about a model to understand some different positions that exist in conflicts.

'This tool forces you to think about what it would be like for you to be in any of these different roles: having caused harm, having been harmed and having witnessed harm. We often don't want to think about the possibility of ever causing harm.'

Show notes, links

Why this is a useful frame: these different positions have different needs; all of us could occupy any of these positions at any one time.

Some links to things mentioned in the episode:

The Karpman drama triangle

The first Exploring Collective Liberation course

And finally, some perennial resources:

our sister facilitation collective Navigate have a conflict facilitation booklet (from back when they were called Seeds For Change Oxford).

See our "What is facilitation?" podcast episode page for more general facilitation resources.

We now have a Patreon! Please help keep the podcast going, at patreon.com/resistrenew. If not, there's always the classic ways to support: like, share, and subscribe!

Transcript

ALI

This is Resist + Renew,

KATHERINE

the UK based podcast about social movements,

SAMI

what we're fighting for, why and how it all happens.

ALI

The hosts of the show are

KATHERINE

Me, Kat.

SAMI

Me, Sami,

ALI

and me, Ali.

SAMI

I'm recording this now, baby!

ALI

Shit, it's a podcast!

SAMI

Okay, so welcome back everybody to the toolbox. So, in this episode, we are going to talk about the different roles that people can play in conflict situation in quite an idealised way. So a person who's harmed, a person who's done some harm, or then a person who's witnessed it.

And this is a way of like thinking about conflict in general, but also like a tool that you can use. So, like always, we're going to think about some pros and cons and like, do a little summary at the end. So, Katherine, what are we talking about?

KATHERINE

So thanks Sami. As you said, it's a sort of triangle of: a person who has done harm, a person who has been harmed, and a bystander. And this is both a frame, so like a way of thinking about conflict in terms of who's playing these different roles, and also a tool to reflect on conflict, either individually or in a group: about what might happen if you are in any of those roles.

So the purpose of the tool is to highlight that there are a range of needs, they're not all going to be the same whatever role you're in. So for example, if you are the person who has witnessed harm, you might need to have someone check in with you. Or you might need to have some time to process what you've seen, or you might need something else.

And then it also highlights the specific needs specific people might have in a group. So if conflict does emerge, you have a bit of a sense as a facilitator, what people in your group might need. Also just want to name that this idea of a triangle in conflict is often used in other scenarios. So the idea of a ‘Drama Triangle’ in maybe more specifically abusive settings, where you have the perpetrator, the rescuer, and the victim roles, is something that this this kind of model is drawing on. So I think, at this point, it'd be really helpful to maybe ground this in an example. So Ali, do you want to talk to us about a time when you've used this tool?

ALI

Sure. So in 2018, R+R ran a course for a weekend. And as it happens, both Katherine and Sami, were participants there. So that's cool.

So the course was called Exploring Collective Liberation. It was kind of all weekend exploring ideas around anti oppression, and specifically around anti racism. And at the beginning of the weekend, we did that whole thing of like saying, kind of, the intention for the space, kind of went into some variation of like, group agreements. And we also wanted to talk about how we would, what we would want if conflict did emerge in the space. And I don't think it did, but it was a space for thinking about what we'd want.

So basically, at the beginning of the other weekend, we just got people in groups, and each group had a piece of paper. And it said, What would you need if you were dot, dot, dot, and that dot, dot dot might be followed by ‘someone who caused harm,’ ‘someone who witnessed harm,’ or ‘someone who was harmed.’ And then we just rotated those bits of paper around. And it was just a good way to Yeah, as, as we've said already about this, this tool is just about thinking, like, what needs are there, everybody in these positions will have needs. And it's helpful to like, surface them from the beginning and think, what might what might we want to do about conflicts if it were to happen. So that's what we did.

SAMI

Can I maybe add a add a thing on there? I, [laughs] I can't remember if this is something that we did it at that weekend. And but I've also, I definitely remember having experienced a variant of it, where there's two kind of questions. So there's one which is like: ‘What would you need as a person inhabiting this role?’ And then like a follow up question, which is like, ‘What would you need from this role as somebody else?’ Whether it was one of the other two roles potentially. So like, kind of making sure you explicitly think both as the person in this role and around the person with this role: what are the needs. And it's sometimes I guess, covered, depending on what you say, just by the first one, but maybe that's another way of thinking about it.

ALI

Cool. So that's a bit of a explanation, an example of this tool frame, to someone want to give us some strengths that they think this this has?

KATHERINE

Yeah, I can start. I think, for me, one of the strengths of this role is thinking about conflict and the roles in conflict and what we need, from a place where you might be in a bit more of a settled emotional state. So rather than trying to work out what you need in the heat of a conflict, giving the group some time to reflect, can just give a little bit of space to needs rather than, rather than not giving any space because you're right in the moment of it.

ALI

Nice. I think the strength of this tool is that it kind of forces you to think about what, what it would be like for you to be in any of these different roles, and all of us tend - are likely to have been in any of these roles at different times. But we often don't want to think about what like the possibility of ever causing harm and asking yourself to think about that and asking yourself, like, what would you need in that time. I think it’s a useful exercise, especially for that part. But I think all of it is useful to like, recognise that the that you can occupy any of these, these positions.

SAMI

Yeah, I think it's like a very, it's a, it's got like an inherently humanising frame right. Like it, it links back to the conversations that we had a number of episodes ago, around, like transformative justice, punishment. And like, I think one thing that comes up a lot, when you talk to, like, transformative justice practitioners, like go to a workshop, things like that, like one of the most common ideas is like anybody is a person that is capable of doing harm. And like, that's a really important tenet, to like, get in your head. And so like, and this is quite a gentle way of bringing that to people, rather than just like, grabbing a mic and running up to them and be like, What would you do when you harm people? Where do you get to harm people tell me about harming people. Like it's a quite a nice way into it.

KATHERINE

And I guess, like one other strength is that this tool can kind of help you explore that you might be in more than one of these roles at different times. So it's also that possibility of moving between roles, and that that can happen even within the same conflict, right. So you might have done something that was harmful to someone else, whilst at the same time also feeling harmed, and helping you hold the complexity of those roles and the different needs that you might have, depending on what's going on in the moment.

ALI

Yeah, that is a weakness, that it doesn't do that. So I think it could be as a strength and a weakness.

KATHERINE

Maybe it’s both? Eliciting the point that you can have things happen more than one at a time.

SAMI

Complexity! Do we, do we think it's true that because it says this tool can help you explore that you could be more in more than one of those roles at different times. So I guess, I mean, I guess it depends on how you interpret it, right? Like, it is, I'd say, as a frame, it inherently positions, those roles as not overlapping. And obviously, you can use the opportunity to highlight like, with any frame, you can use the opportunity to highlight, ‘Obviously, this is a reductive summary of the world. And things don't happen like this normally: it's not true that there's necessarily like all of these three roles.’ For example, maybe there's two of you in a room, whoever, like there's not three of you. Or, like, maybe there are these overlapping roles, whatever. But I'd say I'm not sure I'd say that it is a it is a strength of the tool that it does that because the tool doesn't do that it's a thing that you could do in spite of the tool, I'd say, rather than built into it when using that frame as a tool. Do people agree?

ALI

I think, I think the difference is is one tool helps you think you I as an individual could occupy any of those three roles at different times. And then the tool, like, segments them. And a weakness of it is that what Katherine said is like, actually, I could be in many, all three of those roles at the same time. And that and that's a tool plus is to go beyond.

SAMI

Yeah. Nice. It's like intra versus inter that that distinction, right, like whether it's within the conflicts or across conflict.