Mediation and the Value of Human Agency

Presented by Professor Baruch Bush

Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 12 noon AET

Students and practitioners of transformative mediation often underemphasise the importance of client ‘empowerment’ – the opportunity for clients to recapture the sense of agency that conflict has compromised. Why does the achievement of client empowerment often go unseen, even when its value has been explained and emphasised in written work, in training and otherwise? The effort to answer that question makes sense only if one accepts the deeper premise that client agency – and human agency in general – is a core value whose furtherance should stand at the centre of any client assistance process. That premise lies at the heart of transformative mediation theory and practice, and other related processes. What justifies that premise? What is it that explains the value placed by transformative mediation adherents on this phenomenon of human agency per se? That question, and possible answers to it, are the subject of this talk by Professor Bush.
Students and practitioners of transformative mediation often underemphasise the importance of client ‘empowerment’ – the opportunity for clients to recapture the sense of agency that conflict has compromised. Why does the achievement of client empowerment often go unseen, even when its value has been explained and emphasised in written work, in training and otherwise? The effort to answer that question makes sense only if one accepts the deeper premise that client agency – and human agency in general – is a core value whose furtherance should stand at the centre of any client assistance process. That premise lies at the heart of transformative mediation theory and practice, and other related processes. What justifies that premise? What is it that explains the value placed by transformative mediation adherents on this phenomenon of human agency per se? That question, and possible answers to it, are the subject of this talk by Professor Bush.

About the Speaker

Professor Bush is the Rains Distinguished Professor of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Maurice A. Deane School of Law, at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York. He is also a co-Founder and Board Member, Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation.

Professor Bush’s scholarship and teaching focus on mediation and alternative dispute resolution. He is one of the originators of the ‘transformative approach’ to mediation, as explained in his best-selling book The Promise of Mediation (1994, 2nd edition 2005), co-authored with Dr Joseph Folger and translated into six languages. Professor Bush has practised, taught and written about mediation for over 40 years, authoring five books and more than 30 articles/chapters on mediation and ADR. His latest article is “Hiding in Plain Sight: Mediation and the Value of Human Agency”. In 2017, Professor Bush received (together with co-author and colleague Joseph Folger), the Association of Conflict Resolution’s ‘William Kreidler Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Conflict Resolution’.

Please note that this Zoom meeting will take place at 12 noon because of the time difference between Melbourne and New York.
This VADR CPD event is free for VADR members (non-members $25) and carries one CPD point. If you would like to register, email admin@vadr.asn.au.