Lederach: Constructive Social Change

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The process of transitioning from conflict to forgiveness and reconciliation, thus also a transition between these characteristics, is referred by Lederach as constructive social change. The goal of it is to "change the flow of human interaction in social conflict from cycles of destructive relational violence toward cycles of relational dignity and respectful engagement." He advocates that the path to realize constructive social change to end conflict is through negotiations, peace arrangements, and most importantly, a shift to a context-based, permanent and dynamic platform "capable of nonviolent generating solutions to ongoing episodes of conflict." Although Lederach intends constructive social change as a method of achieving peace for conflicts …show more content…

There have been on many occasions that I am confronted with interpersonal conflicts, some more serious than others. One of the most serious conflicts I have encountered involved my parents, yet it was also one that had the biggest positive impacts in my life. The conflict took its roots when I started high school. Due to our economic situation, my parents worked strenuous jobs with inflexible, long hours. As a result, they depended on my older sister and I to watch over our three younger siblings. Unlike my sister, I was involved in afterschool athletics, which then divided my time between home and school even further. This created an imbalance; my older sister took most of the responsibility of taking over my siblings. Due to this, my parents were not supportive of my involvement of extracurricular. This escalated when my parents left their jobs to open up a small family restaurant; as the business starting to pick up, not only did they need my sister and I to help at home, but also help at the restaurant. Since athletics were time consuming, I could not divide my time to cater my parents' …show more content…

Other conflicts would arise, almost like a tangent from the original source of the problem. The fights escalated, and neither my parents nor I addressed the issue appropriately. Instead, we would resort to not speaking, mostly because of my immaturity I did not know how to find a resolution to my conflict. By the end of my senior year, the conflict had escalated to a high degree I thought it was best if I moved out. I moved out a few weeks after high school graduation for the summer. At the time, I was experiencing many emotions. I was resentful towards my parents for allowing the situation to escalate to the point that it did, I was upset because I was not living at home and felt hopeless about the situation. For three months neither one of us took steps forward to forgive one another and reach reconciliation. We were both too upset to put our pride away and try to do so. We instead carried around the emotional baggage of the

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