by Maithu Bùi (CCC)
2024

Conflict 

We consider Conflict as a methodology, as a commitment to transparency and accountability, while navigating conflicts. It requires active engagement and perseverance in discourse and confrontation to foster understanding, reconciliation, and ideally, improved conditions. It is a process and skill that demands not only resources like dedication to time, but also the ability and willingness to engage exhaustively in care work. At its best, Curating Conflict is a collaborative act aimed at finding better solutions, establishing a shared understanding of clear and transparent objectives among multiple stakeholders, while challenging dominant narratives and creating spaces for diverse perspectives to coexist and interact. Care, as a guiding principle, encompasses compassion, empathy, and responsibility towards others in action. How can we genuinely do care work and build support systems and strategies to stand in solidarity with those in need? In contrast, fake solidarity engages in performative acts and symbolic gestures. If compassion means suffering together, then caring means enduring suffering and the disagreeable by taking responsibility and holding each other accountable. Curating Conflict is an approach that genuinely values diverse perspectives in conflicts and aims to maintain open spaces for people to freely express their views. Holding these spaces open is crucial and requires creating environments where individuals feel empowered to express themselves without fear of reprisal or censorship. Maintaining open spaces for free expression and confronting uncomfortable truths fosters understanding, reconciliation, and resistance.

Carewashing and Careshifting

Carewashing, like greenwashing and artwashing, is a surface-level approach, that exploits the rhetoric of care for marketing or branding purposes and relies on the appropriation of performative acts and symbolic gestures. It lacks genuine impact or accountability and does not challenge power structures or systems to maintain a sanitized image. Careshifting redirects the public attention to a conflict for which there is a wider public consent. It happens when institutions and institutionalized people prioritize image and reputation management over substantive action. Careshifting is the easiest to detect when a conflict to avoid is most obvious in the public eye. At its worst, it ends up scapegoating easy targets. Both tactics are conflict avoidance tactics that SILENCE or downplay the uncomfortable and seek to suppress dissent, while maintaining a facade of harmony. This approach stifles meaningful dialogue and compassionate improvements and perpetuates systemic injustices. It is through collective efforts to confront conflict and challenge oppression that more just and compassionate communities can be created. Curating Conflict as a methodology and Carewashing are therefore contrasting methodologies for addressing conflicts within institutional contexts.

Code of Care = Commitment to Confront Conflict

• Commit to transparency, accountability, and social justice whenever attempts at carewashing, careshifting, and scapegoating could be made.

• Instead of avoiding conflicts, embrace conflict as a method for finding better solutions and understanding.

• Identify areas where conflicts and tensions are present and could arise, both within and outside institutions.

• Approach conflicts with openness and fairly compensated care work.

• Challenge dominant narratives and power structures.

• Recognize and address inequalities and injustices within the space.

• Be transparent about the processes, decisions, as well as the level of support and solidarity.

• Explain the rationale behind your actions.

• Commit to perseverance in discourse and confrontation to foster understanding, reconciliation, and ideally, improved conditions.

• Establish protocols to ensure consistency based on established and agreed-upon rules and procedures.

• Share institutional infrastructures and procedures to facilitate the development of better solutions. 

What if referring to a conflict is turning into a conflict? In our editing process we decided to keep the text that might cause a conflict and juxtapose is with a contextual/institutional note. By keeping both interpretations of a conflict, we allow the reader to learn about the contradictions, rather than glaze over them. Here are some of the editorial notes that adresss conflicts:

e.g.: you want to hold space open for others, but also distance yourself from their position as an institution. Use a disclaimer:
„DISCLAIMER:  The answers in the interviews do not represent the views of nGbK.“ [1]

or

„All texts published here reflect the opinions of the respective authors and working group members and are not congruent with those of the association.“ [2]

Name the conflict by its name without othering

Be prepared to engage in care work, always reserving time and space for adjustments.

e.g.:  “genocide”
„Editor’s note by nGbK: To the time of publishing, Germany is on trial before the International Court of Justice defending itself against Nicaragua’s accusation of complicity in genocide in the Gaza Strip. In the case of South Africa against Israel, the International Court of Justice on 26 January 2024 ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent any acts that could be considered genocidal according to the 1948 Genocide Convention.“ [1][3]

e.g.: “BDS”
„Editor’s note by nGbK: On May 17, 2019, the Bundestag adopted a motion entitled „Resolutely opposing the BDS movement - combating anti-Semitism“ and condemns the BDS campaign and the call to boycott Israeli goods, companies, scientists, artists and athletes: No organizations that question Israel’s right to exist should receive financial support. The federal states, cities and municipalities are called upon to support this stance.“ [1]

e.g.:  “Jewface”
„See Wikipedia: “Jewface is a term that negatively characterizes inauthentic portrayals of Jewish people. The term has existed since the late 1800s, and most generally refers to performative Jewishness.”“ [3]

Compassion:

• Build empathy and understanding towards others.

• Unlearn violence through informal and formal education and training.

• Learn to understand and respect everyone’s experiences and perspectives.

• Prioritize the voices of marginalized individuals and communities.

• Provide and create platforms for them to share their experiences and perspectives.

• Protect these voices by supporting their position, rather than scapegoating them.

• Create space and opportunities for dialogue and critical engagement.

• Invite multiple perspectives to find better solutions together.

• Actively listen to marginalized voices, implementing protocols and procedures to ensure inclusivity.

Action:

• Take action to address underlying issues.

• Promote and insist on better solutions within institutions.

• Follow up and establish sustainable and adaptable procedures.

• Ensure that efforts go beyond performative acts and symbolic gestures.

• Be transparent about the kinds of support offered and provide support and solidarity.

Reflect and Repeat:

• Check if conditions improved 

• Continuously and critically reflect on practices and strategies in focus groups. Be honest.

• Collect and evaluate feedback from stakeholders regularly.

• Include external consultation with different perspectives, expertise, and practices.

• Learn from what worked and what did not work.

• Proactively update infrastructures, procedures, and approaches.

• Schedule dedicated time and plan resources for updates.

• Repeat. Better solutions are not a one-time event.

[1] nGbK Disclaimer and Editor’s note by nGbK in: Do we have to like each other to care for one another?
[2] nGbK – Curating through Conflict with Care (CCC) and nGbK – CCC Symposium 2023 with Contributions
[3] Editor’s note by nGbK in: What are legitimate grounds for claiming an identity?