The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing: A Hopeful, Practical Approach to Dialogue

by David Anderson Hooker

Overview

Will prove valuable and timely to mediators, restorative justice practitioners, community organizers, as well as leaders of peacebuilding and change efforts.

When conflicts become ingrained in communities, people lose hope. Dialogue is necessary but never sufficient, and often actions prove inadequate to produce substantial change. Even worse, chosen actions create more conflict because people have different lived experiences, priorities, and approaches to transformation. So what’s the story?

In The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing, David Anderson Hooker offers a hopeful, accessible approach to dialogue that:

• Integrates several practice approaches including restorative justice, peacebuilding, and arts
• Creates welcoming, non-divisive spaces for dialogue
• Names and maps complex conflicts, such as racial tensions, religious divisions, environmental issues, and community development as it narrates simple stories
• Builds relationships and foundations for trust needed to support long-term community transformation projects
• And results in the crafting of hopeful, future-oriented visions of community that can transform relationships, resource allocation, and structures in service of communities’ preferred narratives.

Hooker presents an important, stand-alone process, an excellent addition to the study and practice of strategic peacebuilding, restorative justice, conflict transformation, trauma healing, and community organizing.

This book recognizes the complexity of conflict, choosing long-term solutions over inadequate quick fixes. The Transformative Community Conferencing model emerges from the author’s thirty years of practice in contexts as diverse as South Sudan; Mississippi; Greensboro, North Carolina; Oakland, California; and Nassau, Bahamas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680991666
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	07/12/2016
Series:	Justice and Peacebuilding
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

David Anderson Hooker, PhD, JD, MDiv, is an independent practitioner and scholar with more than 30 years’ experience in conflict transformation, peacebuilding, and community organizing. Hooker has worked in family, organizational, community, and national contexts throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and the US. He is co-author (with Amy Potter-Czjaikowski) of Transforming Historical Harms (Eastern Mennonite University, 2012).

Table of Contents

Chapter I Overview 1

What's the Story? 4

About this Book 6

Toward Healed and Reconciled Communities 10

Outline of the Book 11

Chapter II Word Matters-Glossary of Terms for LBTCC 13

Narrative 14

Problem Story 15

Dominant and Preferred Narratives 16

Performative 17

Traumagenic 18

Convener 20

Facilitator 20

Problematic 21

Reconciliation 22

Chapter III What Are Transformative Community Conferences? 25

Qualities of Transformative Community Conferences 25

TCC Is Not the Same as Dialogue 37

Chapter IV An Outline of the TCC Model 41

A Word about Participants 42

Basic Steps of the Model 45

Chapter V The TCC Model-Part 1: Mapping Narratives 47

Practice Dialogue 47

1 Mapping Community/Organizational Narratives 50

1.1 Externalizing Conversations 50

1.2 Mapping the Impacts of Problematics in All Spheres of Life 61

1.3 Summarizing the Impacts of Dominant Narratives 65

1.4 Reverse Mapping: Identifying Unique Outcomes as the Basis for an Alternative Story 68

1.5 Comparing Dominant and Alternative Narratives 70

Chapter VI The TCC Model-Part 2: From Mapping to Action Planning 73

2 Determining Participants' Preferred Narratives 73

3 Building a Transformation Strategy 75

Summary of a TCC Process 78

Chapter VII Skills for TCC Facilitators 81

Facilitated Engagement 81

1 Deconstructive Reflection 82

2 Double Listening 86

3 Naming Absent but Implicit Ideas 87

How a Facilitator Listens, Identifies, and Re-authors an Alternative Story 89

Chapter VIII Transformative Community Conferencing in Action 93

Racial Violence in Greensboro, NC 93

Community Seeking Transformation: Newtown, Gainesville, GA 103

Some Adaptations of TCC Methods for Working with Organizations 108

Chapter IX Now What?-Conclusion 113

Notes 117

About the Author 121