In addition to a course on statelessness at our BA-level, I am also teaching a course on conflict resolution for our MA-students this summer term. Both courses fall under the subdiscipline of legal anthropology, which is my specialization. I am looking forward to exploring legal anthropological and legal sociological approaches to this important topic. We’ll start out by laying the theoretical ground, differentiating between conflicts and disputes, between adjudication and settlement, and between the various institutions that can be addressed for actors intending to file complaints and grievances.

In the seminar, we will also have a guest lecturer, who is the current acting Ombudsman (*woman, that is) of the University of Konstanz. Together with her, we will explore  the different possibilities the university provides in terms of mediation and solving disputes and conflicts.

The first part of the seminar is focused on classical publications on conflict and dispute resolution that drew on ethnographic data gathered in a colonial context (Gluckman, Gulliver). After a critique of this type of literature (Spittler), we will read and discuss a case study on a village in Bavaria (Todd) to turn the ethnographic gaze onto ourselves.

We will then familiarize ourselves with the important concept of “harmony ideology” (Nader) within the context of “alternative dispute resolution” (ADR).

Laura Nader

Through a series of more recent publications, we will approach conflict and dispute resolution in the contemporary era, starting with sharia councils in the UK (Billaud), neotraditional courts of elders in Kyrgyzstan (Beyer), and the particular set-up of international bodies such as “special courts” aimed at conflict resolution in Sierra Leone (Anders).

Here is the syllabus of the seminar.