Central to a transformational approach to conflict is the idea that conflicts must be viewed as embedded within broader relational patterns, and social and discursive structuresand must be addressed as such. This implies the need for systemic change at generative levels, in order to create genuine transformation at the level of particular conflicts. Central, also, to this book is the idea that the origins of transformation can be momentary, or situational, small-scale or micro-level, as well as bigger and more systemic or macro-level. Micro-level changes involve shifts and meaningful changes in communication and related patterns that are created in communication between people. Such transformative changes can radiate out into more systemic levels, and systemic transformative changes can radiate inwards to more micro- levels. This book engages this transformative framework. Within this framework, this book pulls together current work that epitomizes, and highlights, the contribution of communication scholarship, and communication centered approaches to conflict transformation, in local/community, regional, environmental and global conflicts in various parts of the world. The resulting volume presents an engaging mix of scholarly chapters, think pieces, and experiences from the field of practice. The book embraces a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as transformative techniques and processes, including: narrative, dialogic, critical, cultural, linguistic, conversation analytic, discourse analytic, and rhetorical. This book makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing dialogue across and between disciplines and people on how to transform conflicts creatively, sustainably, and ethically.

Peter M. Kellett is associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.Thomas G. Matyók is associate professor and head of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Chapter One Disarticulation and conflict transformation: Interactive design, collaborative processes, and generative democracyChapter Two Indigenous principles and communication strategies: Extending Lederach to designing research for and as conflict transformationChapter Three Transforming conflicts over sustainability through dialogueChapter Four Liberias Pen-Pen riders: A case-study of a locally driven, dialogic approach to transformation, peacebuilding, and social changeChapter Five Post-genocide dialogue: Negotiating transitional justice and mediating collective traumaChapter Six Beyond Dialogue: Conflict transformation through ritualChapter Seven A politics of contagion as a liberatory framework for social policies on homelessnessChapter Eight Pariahs among us? Transforming conflicted constructions of urban street dogs in IndiaChapter Nine Rhetorical re-envisioning in conflict transformation: The power of renaming for peace with justiceChapter Ten The 2014 Scottish independence referendum: Conflict attentive to communication ethicsChapter Eleven Communicative contact and the transformation of ethnopolitical conflictsChapter Twelve Preventing violent extremism through government and community partnershipsChapter Thirteen Reconciliation via compulsory communal labor: Opportunities and challenges uncovered by participatory ethnography research in post-colonial RwandaChapter Fourteen Students Talk, Listen and Act to Transform Conflict: A Case Study of a Service-Learning Project in Central Minnesota, U.S and Kajiado, KenyaChapter Fifteen Transformational pragmatics in the MENA uprisings: Reterritorialization in MoroccoChapter Sixteen A new set of tools for mediation: Connecting culture, conflict style, and outcome preferenceChapter Seventeen The Democratic Republic of Congo: language as tool of social cohesion or inter-provincial social conflictChapter Eighteen Engaging Narrative As Rights-Based Peace Praxis: Framing, Naming, And Witnessing In Overcoming Structural Violence And MarginalizationChapter Nineteen War, Peace, and MediaChapter Twenty If peace is a process, what is a war? The transformation of media coverage of a violent conflict