Options
“Hmmm, maybe we could mediate?“
Mediation is not just for resolving disputes that have already happened, it is a process that can be used to negotiate in a unifying way; bringing all experts and authorities together democratically to create robust directions and working agreements. Use mediation for survey and consultation, brokerage, pitching, collaborative negotiation and for prevention of disputes. This is true for Business, Family, Community, Intercultural or Government environments.
Moreover, applied mediation philosophy and practices can be used to unite, and build self and community power and resilience for healing. See Process Advocacy, Conflict Coaching and Mediation Therapy below.
The mediation process is based on voluntary, confidential and good faith participation by all the parties and the mediator. The mediator acts as a facilitator and bi-partisan overseer of the process to enable parties to arrive at common ground and/or an agreement together. The parties use the process to talk and hear about issues or things they need to discuss, discover common interest and needs, negotiate terms (based on interests and needs) and ultimately make their own agreement. By the parties’ mutual agreement, parties might also have support people to help them through the process.
The mediator is always measuring factors like balance of power between parties to ensure everyone has a voice, parties’ authority to decide over the issues or things being discussed so that agreements are viable in action, if parties are reality testing options being considered so there is robust and solid agreements, safety of participants before during and after mediation, and generally keeping a mind to parties having an improved circumstance after mediation compared to before.
For me, the primary ethos that drives mediation is all party empowerment.
Keep in mind there are several forms of mediation. It is worth asking your mediator which model they will use. Typically mediation uses facilitative mediation, but there are several other types like narrative mediation, transformative mediation or evaluative mediation. My default mode is facilitative mediation.
“Hmmm, maybe we could conciliate?“
Conciliation and Restorative Conferencing is like mediation in many ways: democratic, focused on parties owning their decisions, favouring holistic peace-making. The major difference however, is that one or some in the confernce circle have power to give advice. This might include the faciliator, but it might also include experts, lawyers, family elders, church leaders, officials. In any case those able to advise are pre-identified in the design aspect of the conference. Having advice function is useful for many reasons including; if deadlocks are foreseeable, decisions require an uncommon expertise, or if the cultural context is more amiable to this mode.
Like mediation, in the outset of conciliation all the parties are viewed as equal actors and subjects. Restoractive Conferencing however requires one party to be pre-identified as a perpretor, offender or actor and the other as a victim, survivor or subject etc. This might be achieved by the accepted decision of a court, police, teacher, or community elders etc. It is by this means that restorative conferencing has an account of parties rights inbedded in the process, whereas mediation and conciliation tends to leave the protection of parties’ rights to the parties themselves.
It is up to the parties and the facilitator to determine which of these processes best suits their needs. Sometimes a blend of any or all of mediation, conciliation and restorative conferencing can be useful too.
“Hmm, maybe mediation would help to sort things for the better?”
Family mediation is mediation for family and intimate relationships.
It invites writers and thinkers to explore alternative worlds, reinterpret the present through speculative lenses, and consider futures shaped by justice, creativity, and cultural continuity.
Grounded in Afrofuturist philosophy, this pillar embraces non-linear time, visionary design, and re-enchantment — opening pathways to futures that expand, rather than constrain, human potential.
For power, ethics, and the structures we build.
Human Systems looks at the frameworks — political, technological, social, and economic — that influence daily life and collective futures.
It examines how new technologies challenge old assumptions, how governance adapts to rapid change, and how communities resist or reshape structures that no longer serve them.
This pillar encourages a critical yet imaginative view of progress: not as inevitable, but as a system humans actively design.
For cities, movement, and the geographies of belonging.
Urban Cosmos views cities as dynamic ecosystems shaped by culture, migration, infrastructure, and aspiration.
It explores how urban spaces carry memory, how diasporic communities create belonging across distance, and how Afrofuturist ideas can inspire new forms of architecture, mobility, and communal life.
This pillar treats the city as both a physical place and an imaginative realm — where new futures are continuously rehearsed.
“Hmm maybe we need to heal together?”
Mediation Therapy combines the benefits of all mediation philosophy and models to enable parties in their own power to heal broken or breaking relationships; by releasing the issues, hearing perspectives and gaining understanding around those issues, and if required, deciding on truth and how it might be addressed collaboratively. In the meantime the process is learning for parties to transition from positional and transactional bases of strife to resilience, by co-existing in process and coming to know how to harmonise. This is especially relevant for families having difficulties, but could be applied to colleagues or friends too.
To take a Mawul Rom analogy, Mediation Therapy is like having a boil on your body, and to heal that boil one needs to squeeze that boil until all the puss is out and clear blood starts to flow, then if needed, medicine and bandaging can be applied to prevent an ongoing infection. The puss is the issues and the blood is understanding. The medicine is mutual recognition of common ground and truth, if needed the means to collaborate in ways to address needs and desires found within the issues, and ultimately having the skill to live in process and harmonise together.
Compared to regular mediation, this corresponds to extra time in preparation to enable parties to clearly identify the issues disrupting the relationship and the means to communicate those issues from each parties own perspective, these issue are then “squeezed”
Kendall Trudgen Mediation 