Group Conflict: Preparing for the worst and working toward the best

According to Rachel Brown, if you want to protect against group-targeted violence, you have to change the way leaders communicate, and shift the narratives we tell ourselves and each other about our identities.  

Brown has worked across Africa, Asia, and Europe, and several years ago, when she and others started to observe all the warning signs for identity-based violence emerging in the United States, she and her organization began working here, as well. 

In October 2023, CARE LAB brought Brown in to speak with an intimate group of our “201” participants: senior Senate staff leaders who have passed through our 101 Three Dinners series and are looking to go deeper into understanding practices of conflict management, bridging, and relationships building. 

Less than a week after the long process to name a new Speaker of the House had concluded, and only three weeks after Hamas’s attack on Israel and the subsequent outbreak of war in Gaza, the topic of group-based conflict could not have been more relevant or emotionally potent.

Brown’s presentation explored the ways that leaders, citizens, and community leaders construct rigid and seemingly monolithic narratives about identity during conflict. Messages about outside threat further activate these identities, and make it easier to dehumanize anyone associated with “the other side” or forget about other important aspects of our identity.

In reality, all people have multiple identities (think “parent,” “nature lover,” “peacemaker,” etc), and one strategy for avoiding dehumanization and extreme violence is to activate other elements of people’s identities. Brown led the group through an activity of identity listing that led us all to better understand the complexity of our own identifications, and ways that they have shifted, becoming more or less relevant in different times and situations. 

Two case studies she presented, from the Rwandan genocide and the Bosnian war, revealed how local leaders can intentionally activate alternative identities in order to counteract violence and uphold religious and local values of care and belonging.

Implementing communication-based strategies can seem incredibly difficult in today’s world, in which conflicts boil over throughout vast global social media networks, narratives seem impossible to control, and truth is increasingly elusive to identify. The dinner participants, as they reflected on the increasingly frightening and persistent threats that they face as the leaders of Senate offices, were keenly aware of how violence permeates throughout society and institutions in this atmosphere.

Brown made an observation that inspires some hope. Violence and conflict reduction strategies are most effective when a network of trust that crosses group and party lines is already in place before the worst happens

As we look ahead to the 2024 elections and the wide range of possible outcomes and cascading impacts, we know how important it is to build these networks NOW. 

As one Senate Chief of staff recently told us “[Because of CARE LAB’s dinners] I now have a ‘pick up the phone and talk through’ relationships with three Chiefs on the other side of the aisle.” This is how we prepare for the worst, while working toward the best.