PCM Plenary Session: When the Center Cannot Hold: Conflict Transformation in an Age of Polarization

For its Plenary Session, the PCM Conference welcomes David Brubaker,  director of the MBA Program and serves as Associate Professor of Organizational Studies in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. Mr. Brubaker has 30 years of experience in workplace mediation and training and in organizational and congregational consulting. He has consulted and trained with organizations throughout the U.S. and in a dozen international settings including Northern Ireland, Mozambique, Angola, Nepal, Myanmar, Egypt and Jordan. He is the author of numerous articles on conflict transformation and Promise and Peril: Understanding and Managing Change and Conflict in Congregations (published by The Alban Institute), and co-author of The Little Book of Healthy Organizations (Good Books). David will discuss the drivers of polarization, how polarization impacts relationships and systems, and the tools and processes that can transform a polarized conflict. Polarization refers to the process by which more and more people in a society come to hold opinions at the more extreme ends of the spectrum, while the number of people in the moderate center dwindles. Conflict transformation practitioners face both a challenge and an opportunity in the face of societal polarization, as our work is more demanding than ever…and yet has never been more essential.

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