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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:
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. I only know the difference between those things because they talk about it as a joke in the in the film Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore I think, classic film.
ALI
You are definitely putting yourself in a particular generation there.
SAMI
[Laughs] I don’t know what you mean. That’s a very popular film that people still remember today.
ALI
Shall we go on to some weaknesses, I feel like we go into the blur between them now.
Some weaknesses.
KATHERINE
Yeah, I guess one for me is around like this tool, I think invites a level of vulnerability within the group and it invites the group to go to a depth of reflection around harm, that can give the sense that the the space is is going to be held for that depth. And I think then there needs to be some reflection across a facilitation team about whether you can hold the group at that depth. And so if you’re opening space for people to really think that harm will be handled well in the space, what other tools do you need to be able to work through conflict and harm as it arises? Do you want to be inviting that depth basically, because this tool will take the group there?
SAMI
Nice. Oh, Ali.
ALI
I was just gonna say a another weakness is potentially, that there is like a baseline assumption within this tool that people don’t want to cause harm, and that they want to be reflective, reflective when they do. And that’s not – I think that’s generally true. I think most people do want that. And also, sometimes people, when you ask them to think about what they need, when they’ve caused harm, they might just say some less than pleasant things. And then you have to think about what you’re gonna do about that. And that, yeah, it’s complicated, especially when it’s like, in an organisation where there, there are hierarchical positions, if someone in a hierarchical position of power, says that they don’t really mind if they cause harm, then that’s quite a strong thing to say. And then there’s, yeah, how do you, how do you manage that within that hierarchy where there is power? That’s tricky. That’s very tricky.
SAMI
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think there’s, we’ve already talked about a little bit about how like with all kind of frames, it’s a little bit reductive in terms of the thing around – doesn’t help you explore being two roles at the same time. And I think maybe one of the other things that it misses out on is that it kind of implies, like, a real separation of the roles that may not necessarily be relevant, like so for example. It implies that like being a bystander is a distinct role, in general from being a person who like, does the harm or is harmed, whereas often that role of bystander is a lot more complicated than that. In that so like, for example, like if you’re a bystander to like long running harassment, are you really a bystander at that point? Or like, are you complicit with the thing that’s happening? And so like, it doesn’t necessarily speak well to some of those like nuances of like, potentially complicity around the bystander role or things like that. I was just gonna keep listing other things. But I’ll stop talking now.
ALI
I guess another weakness is thinking about how you want to frame it. So it’s not a weakness, but more of a consideration, again. Of like, where you use this tool will affect how you want to use it, and how you want to frame the definition of harm. For instance, like, the example we gave at the beginning is like a course of mostly strangers or loosely connected people. So we use quite a broad frame there. But when we say harm, like, everybody is going to be imagining different scenarios in their head and have different experiences they’re bringing with them. And that can be challenging, because we’re talking about very different experiences. And what you need in like, more extreme versions of harm are going to be less for, going to be different to, you know, more microaggression-y, like passing comment kinds of harm, like the needs are going to be quite starkly different. So it might be worth thinking about how you frame that.
And, yeah, related to like that depth of where you want to go, like Katherine share- shared at the beginning, a little minute ago. Maybe if you’re in a longer standing group, maybe you want to be more specific and talk about particular kinds of harm. And that could be more helpful.
SAMI
It links back to that point we made, I think, in episode one around like the importance of clarity of language. When we, when we talk about a lot of this stuff, harm can be a box that you can put a lot of different meanings into.
KATHERINE
I guess. Yeah. But this speaks to another weakness for me around like clarifying needs, which this tool does do quite well in terms of saying the range of needs: that’s explicitly what it’s asking for. But what it doesn’t do is in the moment, tell the facilitator or whoever’s holding the space, what need to prioritise because it’s likely you’re going to have conflicting needs.
So it could be that when harm happens, some people really need there to be a pause, and for there to be a break and a breather, whereas other people really need it to be dealt with and named and framed in the moment. And for there not to be a pause. And there has to then be a choice point.
So I think this tool to deal with that challenge needs maybe a bit of an additional stage around a decision or an agreement among the group around if harm of some kind maybe specifically named levels of harm are happening in the group. ‘This is the path that we’re going to follow and why.’ Otherwise, you’re kind of in the moment as a facilitator having to make a snap judgement across however large the group is number of needs, which can be very challenging if they are divergent from each other.
SAMI
Yeah, I think like, it’s, there are like opening up tools and closing down tools, right. And this is very much an opening up tool like this opens and unpacks a lot of information that then you’ll probably need to do something with. [Laughs]
I guess, whilst also acknowledging the point that we’ve made before, around how like, which I think we talked about the safest places policies, things (there’ so many links between the episodes this season!) and around the difficulty for making like, rules that are totally ungrounded from specificities and context, and how that can be a challenge. And how often stuff does need to be a little bit reactive.
KATHERINE
I think, though, that this may be back to a strength, but there is a sense of at least then there are reference points. So when you’re in the moment of a conflict, you can reflect back at the group: ‘Okay, these are some of the things that we heard from you, or what’s needed with thinking to go down this path now, because of what we’re hearing from the group’ and check out or at least have some sense of accountability back to what the group has, has shared previously and doing this exercise.
SAMI
Nice. Can we think of any more strengths, weaknesses or considerations? Or should we should we wrap up and move on to top takeaways?
KATHERINE
Top takeaways, I think.
SAMI
Great. I’ll start. So, we’re all just looking at each other…
So I think for me, the top takeaway is that like, I think especially when you’re talking about like quite general, like notions of harm, I think it can be a bit limiting. And that can be like a challenge. So I think for example, it’s if you’re planning an event, then talk about like, what if people like, say shitty things like harass each other at the event. If you’re talking like if you work in something like domestic violence, then like being really specifically talking about like, interpersonal abuse, things like that. So like, make sure that it’s matches the context that you’re working in, and isn’t too general.
ALI
My top takeaway would be that it helps recognise that anyone can be in any of these three positions, especially thinking that any of us can, and probably will be in a harming role at different times. And we don’t tend not to want to think about that. And it’s also about recognising that you are still human in those, in that harm position, and you’re still going to have needs, and that’s okay. And it’s worth thinking about what those needs might be.
KATHERINE
I guess, for me, I think this is a tool that can really deepen the vulnerability of a group and our understanding of each other. And also it can make the space feel safer than it is. And so as a facilitator, really thinking, Are you up for and able to hold that level of depth, vulnerability and space for considering harm in this way?
SAMI
Nice. Can I under random note that kind of undermines their lovely top takeaways, because it’s not a top takeaway, but it is just a it’s a small thought that maybe we should have mentioned before. Is like, there is often like an intent and intention behind the use of the terms like ‘person who has done harm’ or person who has that ‘person who has been harmed,’ and things like that, like often you’re trying to describe, like roles that people can play in a way that tries quite intentionally to set them up as like not essentialist categories. So you’re not like ‘The Harmer’ as like because that kind of maybe can be read as like a thing that you always do. I think this inherent to you and things like that, rather than like talking about the behaviours that you’ve done. So like the wording often like person who has done harm can like be quite a mouth like a mouthful, but it’s often intentionally chosen is probably a good thing to note. Seamless
KATHERINE
Great. That was good, that was good!
ALI
Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Resist+Renew podcast. Thanks as ever to Klaus for letting us use this backing track and to Rowan for doing all the transcription on this season.
If you want to find out more about Resist+Renew as a training and facilitation and collective check out our website, resistrenew.com, or on all the socials. And if you want to support the production of this podcast, you can do so at patreon.com/resistrenew. That’s it for this week. Thanks for listening and catch you next time. Bye bye.