Cultures and Conflicts
ABSTRACT
This
paper aims to discuss how different cultures both individualistic and
collectivist, handle conflicts. There is no question that when it comes to studies
on culture, Africa has generally been ignored. Despite the fact that Africans
are grouped under collectivist cultures, their way of handling conflict may not
necessarily be similar to how for instance Asians do it. Therefore, this paper
aims to encourage a discussion on how conflicts were and are managed in the
African context after looking at all the generalities.
Every
society has a culture and every society has a conflict to deal with. It is said
that to err is human and since human beings do make mistakes that end up in
disagreements or conflicts, there has to be a way to resolution. This paper
will look at how different cultures perceive and go about resolving such
conflicts. There is no doubt that culture shapes our perceptions and determines
what we view as a conflict hence there is need to define what culture is as
well as giving examples from Africa, Asia and Western nations of the practices
and the meanings they bring into a conflict.
It
is evident that in doing research on this topic, one notices a lot of material
is written on Western and Asian cultural relations especially the United
States, China and Japan but less when it comes to Africa. This has to do with
the fact that the study of cultural relations was highly motivated by issues of
diplomacy and trade among those nations. However, it does not mean that
Africans never have conflicts, it is more a question of interest or perhaps
having been grouped among collectivist cultures, there was no incentive to dig
deeper. This paper will endeavor to do justice to the African way of conflict
resolution considering the fact that there are some areas of variations even
among collectivist cultures. Going by Hofstede’s cultural dimension of
individualism and collectivism, the first part will deal with conflict
resolution in individualistic and collectivist cultures, the second part will
cover the African context and the final part a summary or conclusion.
So What is this About Culture and Conflict?
Martin
and Nakayama (2010) define culture as learned patterns of behavior and
attitudes shared by a group of people. Culture outlines what a given people
hold as their values and are ready to enter into a dispute where such are
violated or even shape how disputes are processed. Since such understandings
and practices are shared by a group of people, culture therefore influences
what people can enter into conflict about and how they will go about it or
rather resolve it (Ross, 1993).
According
to Gibson and McDaniel (2010), conflict is a situation whereby two or more
parties have opposing or even competitive views. There are many sources of
conflict which again may vary depending on the cultural background and
dimension although that is beyond the scope of this paper, the focus will be on
conflict resolution. Nevertheless, as Gibson and McDaniel (2010) put it, there
are some variations in how different cultures view sources of conflict with one
study finding out that Americans looked at conflict as coming from the need to
win and individual rights whereas the Japanese stated that compromise and duty
violations cause conflicts.
Conflicts
can surely occur when there is a divergence on how interests are perceived. Martin
and Nakayama (2010) state that conflict involves perceived or real
incompatibility of goals, values or expectations between two or more
interdependent individuals or groups. In the West conflict may be looked at as
an opportunity to foster better relations but in Asian cultures it can be looked
at as unproductive for relationships.
Conflicts in Individualistic and Collectivist
Cultures
Individualistic
cultures are generally associated with Western nations where there is a lot of
emphasis on individual achievement whereas Collectivist cultures are associated
mainly with the Africans, Asians and Arabs where keeping relationships is
prominent. Morris et al. (1998) state that cultural differences tend to
interfere with smooth resolution of conflicts. They further argue that in a
study comparing the West and Asian managers, cultural differences in conflict
style and cultural values show that the Chinese rely more on avoiding style
because of the high value they place on conformity and tradition whereas
Americans bend more towards a competing style because of their high preference
of individual achievement.
It
is evident that one’s cultural orientation dominate how conflicts are resolved.
It is also important to pay attention to the cultural values and conflicting
styles since there is a general agreement among scholars that values have a
role to play in conflict styles in that individualistic cultures are composed
of direct modes of expression while indirect communication is seen among
collectivist cultures. As indicated earlier, there can be variations in how
conflict is perceived and managed among societies with similar cultural
dimensions as again Morris et al. (1998) maintain that even among the Asians
and despite being highly collectivist, there are certain differences in
conflict resolution because the Chinese take a more avoidance style in order to
preserve relationships yet Indians seek a solution that is mutually beneficial
to all and are more active due to influence of British norms.
At
this point, let us look at the aspect of mediation which varies too when it
comes to acceptance. Cultures that avoid conflicts are more receptive to
seeking third-party involvement. In reference to Leung (1987) research, Inman
et al. (2014) claim that he found collectivistic Chinese subjects prefer
bargaining and mediation to resolve conflict more than individualistic American
subjects. This is because collectivist cultures put a lot of emphasis on
interpersonal harmony and face management which shall be touched on later. Looking
at the impact of cultural differences at the international level, Inman et al.
(2014) assert that cultural differences decreases the chances of disputants
opting for mediation due to anticipation of difficulty in dealing with the
other side, social identity which can be ethnocentric in nature and cultural
perception towards the mediator. The choice of Ghanaian diplomat the late Kofi
Annan and Condoleezza Rice the former United States Secretary of State who is
of black descent to mediate in Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence gives a lot
of weight to this argument. The same applies to the selection of former Prime
Minister Raila Odinga by the African Union to mediate Ivory Coast’s political
crisis in which both the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and his opponent
Alassane Outarra claimed victory in the presidential runoff of 2010.
To
elaborate further on the issue of face management as promised in the previous
paragraph, face recognition theorists contend that members of individualistic
societies like the United States use a more dominating conflict resolution
style that can be broken down as confrontational, controlling and solution-oriented
in order to save their own face whereas members of collectivist cultures such
as China, South Korea and Taiwan lean towards obliging or integrating conflict
resolution style which is a less direct conversational style because they are
more concerned about saving the other person’s face (Martin and Nakayama, 2010).In
Asia and Africa, conflict resolution is not about winning, making one look weak
or embarrassing the other party but ensuring there is harmony and respect long
after the dust has settled.
The
other thing we need to look at is language which forms a great component of
culture. Cultures have different signaling languages hence there can be trouble
if a signal is misread or wrongly transmitted. In conflict situations, Arab
speakers may threaten the life and property of their opponents but have no
intention of actually doing it although the aim is to buy time and intimidate
the other party. It is believed that the United States threats of action were
misinterpreted by the Arabs as mere talk and Saddam Hussein’s threats were
misinterpreted by the West as serious prior to the Gulf War of 1990 (Martin and
Nakayama, 2010). Individuals from Western nations can as well commit the error
of reading silence by Asians to mean consent and on the other hand the Asians
thinking that direct adversarial arguments common with Americans is
unreasonableness and a lack of respect.
Going
back to Hofstede’s cultural dimension of power distance which can be defined as
the degree of inequality in power between a less powerful individual and a more
powerful one, this raises the question of whether power distance influences who
is involved in conflict resolution? Ghosh (2011) argues that in high power
distance associated with collectivist cultures, decisions come from superiors
to subordinates and they are expected to obey without objection. In low power
distance societies, there is more exchange of ideas between the leader and the
led. Gibson and McDaniel (2010) add that there is a concern for authority among
the Chinese to the extent that they tend to avoid conflicts especially if
someone is of higher status so hierarchy matters. In Africa, older people are
respected and listened to when it comes to conflict resolution and sometimes
not necessarily because of their competence but because of their age. There will
be a look at the African context in more detail in the next section but in
Kenya, there are council of elders in almost every tribe and although they
become more visible as elections approach they are high up in the hierarchy
when it comes to conflict resolution and they do command respect. At least the
prominent ones include the Luo council of elders, the Kalenjin council of
elders and the Kikuyu council of elders. The fact that politicians work hard to
associate with them indeed says something.
Conflicts in the African Context
African
culture which is communal is generally categorized under collectivist cultural
dimension. The previous section looked at how different cultural dimensions go
about conflict resolution but you get to realize that a lot of those studies
did not involve the African continent that much going by examples given. This
part is therefore dedicated to looking at conflict resolution through the eyes
of Africans, making use of a few studies that were picked up. A key focus will
be on the pre-colonial times before African culture got diluted by the colonial
scramble for the continent. Oyeniyi (2017) writes that in African culture
especially before colonization of the continent, people feared and believed in
the wisdom and judgement of the elders hence their decision would never be
questioned. It is these values and beliefs that formed the basis for conflict
resolution.
In
the African traditional set up, there would be attempts to resolve a conflict
at the family level before it eventually went to the village level although in
both cases elders would still be involved. The magnitude of the conflict
determined where it could be resolved even though certain cases were handled
purely at the communal level. The disputants were expected to tell the truth
with the guilty admitting their wrongdoing and requesting for mercy. It is this
format that the Gacaca courts in Rwanda have followed in dispensing justice for
the victims of the genocide witnessed in 1994 when the Hutu came down on the
Tutsi, moderate Hutu were also killed. Since African societies lived
communally, conflicts were resolved in a cordial and harmonious way without any
formalities. Compliance was guaranteed partly due to fears of the consequences
of not doing so. The fears of not doing so would include illness, drought or
floods as well as crop failure. Key aspects of conflict resolution was about
forgiveness, truth, achieving social justice and coherence within the
community.
However,
there was widespread use of African traditional religion, rituals and some
cases violence in dealing with a conflict. Ross (1993) opines that the Ndembu
of Zambia used ritual activity to resolve disputes between individuals and
groups whereas the Jale in New Guinea permitted killing someone of another clan
as long that individual had killed one of their members. In reference to Laitin
and Kertzer, Ross makes a case that culture is usually expressed in shared
symbols and rituals that bring about common responses providing a link between
the individual and the larger group in terms of interests and actions. In
Kenya’s Luhya and Luo cultures, chicken as well goats and cows are used in
dispute resolution either by being offered as sacrifice or as a gift. When it
comes to the African traditional religion, Coe, Palmer and elShabazz (2013) write
that it was more about ancestor worship with elders who were considered as the
living representatives of ancestors taking charge. This kind of worship was
essential in conflict avoidance, resolution and enhancement of co-operation
within the traditional communities. Rituals were needed at times to appease
ancestors for instance the Tallensi from Ghana performed the ritual of
reconciliation if ancestral taboos were broken so that peace could prevail.
Finally,
something interesting was how certain disputes were resolved among the Luo and
Maasai in Kenya. According to Coe, Palmer and elShabazz (2013), lactating
mothers from the groups in conflict would be asked to exchange their babies so
that each could suckle the breast of the mother of the opposing group to
establish kinship and lead to reconciliation. Meanwhile due to an ever
increasing backlog of court cases, the Chief Justice of Kenya David Maraga has
on several occasions called for other alternatives to conflict resolution
including the use of traditional courts more so when it comes to land issues.
The only downside is that despite their capability to resolve cases much faster
than the formal judicial processes, traditional courts like Maslah in Mandera
in the North Eastern part of Kenya have been accused of miscarriage of justice
when it comes to issues of defilement and rape of women.
Conclusion
Being
human, it is difficult to avoid conflicts and since conflicts interfere with
our relationships, it is important to find ways of resolving them. This paper
has gone into detail on how different cultures perceive and manage conflicts. A
key guideline has been Hofstede’s cultural dimension of individualistic versus
collectivist. The issue of power distance and face management has been
discussed as well. Considering the fact that earlier studies neglected the
African culture with a lot of emphasis having been put on Western and Asian
cultures, this paper endeavored to do some justice to the African continent.
In
Africa especially before colonization, there was a focus on reconciliation with
the aim of maintaining the relationship after the dispute has occurred. Led by
the elders who were also looked at as representatives of the ancestors, the
rituals of reconciliation would include offerings such as gifts or exchange of
food and drink, sacrifices like burning or ritual killing and performances such
as song and dance with the final aim being forgiveness. Conflicts between
individuals could end up being addressed by the entire community since an
offence against one person meant offending his or her entire lineage. These
rituals and practices are passed on from one generation to the other although
the influence of Western culture, religion and increased urbanization has
diluted the impact and application of African traditional culture in conflict
resolution.
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