From Maria Volpe (CUNY)

Submission deadline: Friday, 1 December 2023

COVID 19 has had a global impact on virtually everything, including the work of conflict resolvers (Phillip-Jones, 2001). It is important that the lived experiences of those who were engaged in any conflict resolution work as practitioners, trainers, scholars, researchers and teachers be memorialized (Blake, 2023). A wide range of questions have emerged (e.g. see Paulson, 2021): How did COVID impact the larger conflict resolution field? How did conflict resolvers respond? What are the lessons learned? Could conflict resolvers have been better prepared? How has the field changed? What has the field lost or gained? How did you know things were changing? How can the field be better prepared for future crises? Since this issue will focus on conflict resolution practice during COVID, conflict resolvers are being asked to share what worked and what didn’t in their intervention work.

For purposes of this issue, the term conflict resolution is used as an inclusive term that refers to the vast range of processes used to manage differences and make talk work including mediators, peacebuilders, restorative practitioners, consensus builders, facilitators, arbitrators, researchers, trainers, scholars, and teachers. All were impacted (e.g. see Rubinstein & Simmons, 2001). Articles can focus on personal reflections, research studies, new practices, lived experiences. We are eager to collect both recollections in conflict resolvers’ own voices and the emerging research trying to understand what happened. Reflections from those who figured out how to adapt their conflict resolution work as a result of COVID or used their conflict resolution knowledge and skills in creative ways to respond to COVID related circumstances will be given preference.

The Conflict Resolution Quarterly is calling for submissions from those who practice, train, research and /or teach any aspect of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, consensus building, restorative justice to reflect on and memorialize the COVID era as they experienced it, reflected on it or collected information about it. Your creative ideas, including your stories, are welcome while COVID 19 memories are still fresh. Since this issue will focus on practice, the following types of articles are sought: Practice Notes which should be up to 1,500 words, Practice Insights which should be up to 5,000 words

Possible topics on the impact of COVID on conflict resolvers and conflict resolvers’ responses to the pandemic include:

• Ways COVID impacted your work as a conflict resolution practitioner, teacher, trainer?
• What were your initial responses to the pandemic as a conflict resolver?
• Challenges experienced by the pandemic as a conflict resolver?
• Ways your conflict resolution practice, teaching, training changed?
• Ways your conflict resolution practice, teaching, training benefited?
• Negative and positive challenges of COVID on conflict resolvers and the conflict resolution field?
• Most memorable – positive or negative – COVID experience on your conflict resolution related work?

Share your COVID story in your own voice.

Share any relevant data on COVID’s impact on conflict resolution related work.

Guest Editor:

Maria R. Volpe, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice – City University of New York

Keywords: COVID 19, pandemic, online dispute resolution, responses to crises, conflict resolution, mediation, lived experiences, global crisis, technology, virtual, remote.

Submission Guidelines/Instructions

Prior to submission, please carefully read the guidelines for authors and submission of manuscripts and select the submission category – Special Issue.

All submissions will undergo blind review by at least two independent peer reviewers; the Guest Editor will make final decisions.

Inquiries, including questions about appropriate topics, may be sent electronically to the Guest Editor: Maria R. Volpe. The tentative schedule of publication of the Special Issue is Dec 2024.

Submit now

References

For many short articles on COVID and conflict resolution, go to Mediate.com

Blake, S. M. (2023). Mediation Beyond Covid: Hacks, Craics and Crocodile Tears. Waikiki, Wa.: KMD Books.

Paulson, K. (2021). Mediation in the Covid-19 Era: Is Online Mediation Here to Stay?, 51 Southwestern Law Review, 142-155.

Phillips-Jones, C. (2021). The Year of the Expanding Mediation Room: COVID-19 and the Dawn of Party-Centered Digital Spaces. American Journal of Mediation, 14, 181-201.

Rubinstein, R. E. & Simmons, S. (2021) Conflict Resolution After the Pandemic: Building Peace, Pursuing Justice. New York: Routledge.

Sternlight, J. R. & Robbennolt, J.K. (2022). High-Tech Dispute Resolution: Lessons from Psychology for a Post-Covid-19 Era, 71 DEPAUL Law Review, 537-612.

Maria R. Volpe, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Sociology
Coordinator, Dispute Resolution Program  
Director, CUNY Dispute Resolution Center

John Jay College of Criminal Justice – CUNY
Haaren Hall, Room 520.40
524 West 59th Street
New York, New York 10019
Tel.  212-237-8693 
Fax. 212-237-8901 
mvolpe@jjay.cuny.edu
https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/maria-r-volpe