Old Wisdom Customary Dispute Systems from Africa, Asia, and Europe

How a society resolves a dispute follows from how it understands disagreement in the first place. At bottom, peaceful resolution is a form of negotiation, an exchange through which parties try to reach a workable understanding. The impulse to talk a conflict through may be close to universal, yet the shape of that talk is not. Who is entitled to speak, on whose behalf, in what setting, and to what end are all matters that culture decides, and the resulting structures differ markedly from one society to another.