In the last installments of Urban Life, Urban Life #2, Urban Life #3, and Urban Life #4
we looked at some normative reasons for cross-cultural conflict and #4 started to deal with the solutions to these reasons for conflict. This
post will look at some more of the solutions to these reasons of conflict. This is Part 5 of a 6 part
series on Cross-Cultural Conflict.
Language
How
do we deal with the issues of language within our cross-cultural relationships
in order to avoid conflict? I think
there are several practical things. The
first is the priority of the relationship. As Elmer alludes to in his book: relationships
are foundational to conflict resolution; with the priority on relationships
when someone says something off kilter, odd or rude (to the hearer) the person
can know (because of a good relationship) the person probably didn’t mean what
was said in the way it was interpreted.
DeYmaz in his book: Building a
Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church he brings to light a simple language
misinterpretation. He states: “For
instance, a White woman recently asked an African American woman, “Is that your
hair?” Fortunately, the two had
developed a friendship over time—one that enabled the Black woman to view the
inquiry more as a faux pas than anything else” (DeYmaz, 2007, pg. 85).
It
was the relationship that secured the ability for the White woman to ask an
offensive (to the Black woman) question and not result in conflict. We must become people who seek after
relationships with others in order to be more understanding of others and going
right away to understanding rather than anger when something might slip by that
is offensive.
Conflict
Resolution
Most of Elmer’s book Cross-Cultural Conflict deals with
several different ways in which to handle conflict resolution with people of
different backgrounds. In essence it
boils down to educating oneself on the world and understanding there are
several different ways to go about this.
The main thing a Westerner needs to understand is that two-thirds of the
world does not do or handle face-to-face confrontation well. Elmer makes a good and bold statement about
America in his assessment on its people’s ability to resolve conflict: “If the
nation is to have a future that includes peace and prosperity, all of its
peoples must not only coexist but learn to value, affirm and build upon each
other’s diversity” (Elmer, 1993, pg. 34).
Again, here comes the key to relationships, we must be able to learn how
to speak each others conflict resolution language. In his book, Elmer lays out several ways to
go about conflict resolution with non face-to-face people: Mediation and
Mediator, a One-down position of vulnerability, telling stories and proverbs,
inaction, misdirection, silence and indefinite persons. There are chapters dedicated to each idea but
the ideas are solid and would work well with two thirds of the world.
Understanding
of God
This one may be the easiest to
rectify within ourselves, because we have interacted with folks who love Jesus
but who see God a bit differently than we ourselves do. Here, we need to hold to sensitivity, love
and the dedication to the relationship as pinnacle ideas. God sometimes needs to be described different
ways in order for Him to be correctly understood. This ties into the ideas that
go with language and how nuances in verbage can change an entire sentence and
cause it to mean something completely different than what was originally
intended. Understanding God can happen
in much the same way. Matriarchal
societies maybe need to hear of God as Mother before anything else and
Patriarchal societies need to hear of God as Father before everything
else. We need to be aware of different
(not inherently wrong or bad) understandings of God and seek to speak to the
understanding of the people we are speaking to.
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