Foreword: Bridging Polarised Discourse

Dispute is an unavoidable form of social engagement.This special issue contributes contemporary experiences and perspectives on conflict and on dispute resolution from an anthropological perspective.The authors acknowledge existing discourses among scholars and practitioners in disciplines including law, negotiation, mediation, psychology, and communication (not to the exclusion of others), and it is to these conversations that we contribute.Like our colleagues in other disciplines, anthropologists tend to champion effective management to prevent dispute from developing into long-term harm, damage, or resentful entanglements.However, as this special issue shows, sometimes even our own community of practice can find itself in seemingly unresolvable dispute situations.Active contestation of ideas may foster new insights and improve outcomes or ways of working together.The existing dispute management discourses offer frameworks to help individuals, groups, corporations, and countries move beyond positional arguments to more principled, empathetic and constructive resolution.We bring our insights into bridging polarised discourses, drawing from anthropological research methods such as participant observation (in the field) and ethnography (synthesising observed social behaviours and cultural framings through the lens of theory).That is not to say that anthropology is the 'magic wand' to arrive at peaceful conclusions; but we suggest that it provides methodological and analytical tools with which the roots of conflicting values may be understood-no matter how difficult.This understanding opens the way for meaningful, respectful engagement, increasing the potential for contesting parties to find common ground and potentially common ground, between contesting parties.The authors each contribute important methods and insights arising from their different settings.Their grounded research provides real contexts to theoretical discussion of principles of negotiation.The authors in this volume are not the first in our discipline to contribute to this dialogue.Eminent anthropologist William Ury helped to establish the International Negotiation Network