It wasn’t a deep gully or a dangerous one, but it was just the right size to challenge three elementary age siblings. They agreed to pool their abilities and build a model suspension bridge stretching from the edge of the pine forest to the sandy soil across the ravine using only the three tools they had with them: a pocket knife, a ball of string, and a bucket. Daniel, age twelve, was fascinated by how things worked and spent his free time constructing models from complicated diagrams and taking apart, fixing, and putting back together everything from toasters to lawn mowers. Joel, age eight, could “see things” in his head, often visualizing in three dimensions before sketching or modeling with clay the inventions his mind created. I was a typical middle child who, at the age of ten, already made relational connections between people and could translate the ideas and feelings behind the project so that my brothers could understand each other and work together. It took two days and many hours of work, but finally a beautiful model bridge, perfectly balanced and held together by the string stays, tiny whittled railings, and mud packed pavement, crossed the gully joining the two sides and allowing a constant flow of play cars and imaginary people. Little did I know then that bridge building would become my life’s calling!
Sometimes in my position as an intermediary, I feel trapped and stretched between the two parties while filtering all of the communications and carrying the weight of the relationship. I jump into action. Far too often, as I push, pull and risk getting stepped on, I am converted into an easy convenience that excuses the parties from doing their relational work. I compared the difference between being a bridge builder and attempting to be the bridge itself when I learned about triangulation. Bridge builders accompany the construction process. Once the creation is complete, the parties, not the builder, are responsible for maintaining the bridge and for continuing to grow in their knowledge and understanding of each side. The bridge, on the other hand, must forever carry the weight of the relationship. I recognize that I often confuse my role as a bridge builder with being the bridge itself.
I sat around the table at with a group of life long bridge builders. They were people whom I had just met but felt like I had known for a long time. Like myself, these people were all Third Culture Kids. According to Pollock and Van Reken in Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing up Among Worlds, “a Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background” (19). Tears and laughter mixed together as we talked about our challenges, privileges, and pain along with the special skills and perspectives that TCKs can bring as global intermediaries into peace building. I began to read about Third Culture Kids after this gathering and recognized that many of the perspectives, skills, prejudices, and biases that affect my bridge building come from my personal history as a TCK.
The worst question someone can ask me is “where are you from?” The question always highlights the uncomfortable reality of my confused identity. The effective mediator must be able to stand at ease in his or her own shoes. John Paul Lederach recognizes importance of self-awareness and emphasizes the need to be aware of the “cultural assumptions” one brings into a conflict (101). However, I find it difficult to unravel to the knots created by the multiple cultures that form my tangled identity. “In the formation of a sense of personhood and identity, the TCK experience has [. . .] [a] paradoxical potential [. . .] to be either a source of rich blessing o a place of real struggle.” (Pollock and Van Reken 147) It was while I was reading an article by Michelle LeBaron that suddenly I realized that my stormy identity crisis could also harbor precisely those experiences I most need to tap into as I become a multicultural mediator. In building bridges between Chileans, Americans, Mexicans, and Paraguayans, traditional and liberal churches, city and country folks, young people and adults, I have the possibility of seeing my “. . .role not as a prescriber but as a guide, not as a keeper of a catalogue of givens, but as a repository of possibilities [. . .]” (LeBaron 13). As I continue to struggle with my identity, I can develop a unique style of leadership. “Process leadership [. . .] comes in the form of structuring dialogue in collaboration with the parties, but more fundamentally in creating and holding the space where something new can be brought into being” (LeBaron 13). My greatest bane can also become my most precious gift.
“The job of culturally appropriate process design is to develop a process that invites multiple dimensions of meaning into the forum, while addressing significant power imbalances and traumatic histories that contributed to a focus on particular aspect of cultural identity” (LeBaron 5). A bridge builder carefully watches over the process of building the bridge. If the bridge is to withstand floods and constant use, its initial design must be thought out with all of the possible difficulties in mind. If new information is uncovered during the construction, then the design must be adapted to incorporate the new challenges. In my work as a cross cultural mediator, I feel that I need to explore the significance of process – structure in designing meetings, delegations, worship services, and other activities. Programs must be designed with a careful structure so as to communicate across languages and cultures and to address historic and current issues. However, they must also be flexible enough to integrate the insights gained from storytelling and relationships.
When Daniel, Joel, and I finished our bridge, we celebrated with a ritual. Not having the customary ribbon or scissors, we tied the last bit of string across one entrance and managed to cut it, a midst a great deal of shouting and clapping, with the dulled blade of the pocket knife. The ceremony sealed the success of our efforts and marked the beginning of “real play” where we drove the toy cars and trucks honking and beeping from one side to the other.
LeBaron, Michelle. “Mediation and Multicultural Reality.” N.p., n.d. (Class Reader)
Lederach, John Paul. “The Mediator´s Cultural Assumptions.” Mediation and Facilitation
Training Manual. Ed. Carolyn Schrock-Shenk. Akron: Mennonite Conciliation
Service, 2000. 101-105.
Okun, Barbara F., Jane Fried, and Marcia L. Okun. Understanding Diversity: A Learning-
as-Practice Primer. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole, 1999.
Palmer, Parker J. The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring.
N.p., n.d. (Class Reader)
Pollock, David C., and Ruth E. Van Reken. Third Culture Kids: The Experience of
Growing up Among Worlds. London, UK: Nicholas Brealey, 2001
Shirch, Lisa. “Ritual: The New (Old) Tool in the Conflict Transformer´s Toolbox.”
Mediation and Facilitation Training Manual. Ed. Carolyn Schrock-Shenk. Akron:
Mennonite Conciliation Service, 2000. 125-127.
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