Cultural Confusion - A Good Thing for Mediation?

Abstract

Greg Bond’s recent post on mediation cultures reminded me of an encounter I had with a group of mediators several years ago. Allow me to share with you my recollection of what happened.

I was conducting a workshop on international and intercultural approaches to mediation for 15 freshly-minted mediators from a European country — all participants were nationally accredited and had completed more than 350 hours of training and assessment. As part of the first day I played a DVD of a real mediation conducted by a people’s mediator in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China. The dispute involved a wife who wanted to separate from her husband; they had one child. After the first few minutes of the video, there were mutterings in the room; after 15 minutes, there were incredulous gasps and stifled giggles. At this point, I decided to pause the film and get feedback from the group. Unanimously they concluded that I must be playing some kind of trick on them and that this could not possibly represent a mediation process. They provided a host of reasons, beginning with the fact that the mediator, after hearing about the dispute, sought out the parties herself, suggested mediation, and then, on her own initiative, invited the parties’ parents and work supervisors to the first joint session. Despite my best endeavours to convince them of the legitimacy of the film, the mediators remained adamant: this was not mediation.