The last week (January 26th), Myriam Cabrera, PERCAN Project expert, launched the publication “The Communication and Conflict Management” by the Asociacion Civil Labor and CooperAcción.
The main objective of “The Communication and Conflict Management” is to increase awareness between stakeholders involved in the mining sector that conflict management is essentially a continuous communication process. At the same time, it is a constant search that begins by a collective understanding of what mining is as a human activity.
Parallel, it should be noted that all communication process involves a risk: of being misunderstood or that the communication alters. In most cases, this risk has a false interpretation: people listen to what they want, but not what it is really said.
The main message is that all conflict starts when companies, communities, governments and other stakeholders communicate each other (either talking, delivering or collecting information, making organization and/or coordination activities).
Paradoxically, the mechanisms search for the conflict management is carried out by communication processes. In other words, conflicts are created through communication processes, but they are also managed through processes of communicative action.
The importance of communication for creation and conflict management is showed with examples of certain types of communication which are crucial for mining; like: interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and organizational communication (internal and external), risk communication, crisis communication and the communication for development. Each of these types of communication has very specific applications for mining. For example, the crisis communication focuses more on people perceptions than on the realities of the situation, while the communication for conflict management tries to understand and act over the deep causes of conflicts and about the realities themselves.
“The Communication and Conflict Management” analyzes a specific case of communication in the mining sector: the predominant speech of the conflict called “environmental”. There is a difference between environmental and social conflict. In conclusion, it is said that several stakeholders use the speech of environmental conflict but in reality they are referring to demands of social type. The environmental conflict can have a technical solution; the social conflict requires changes of minds, attitudes, behaviors and cultures.
The strategies included in the final part of the publication indicate what should be done; they are more than an exhaustive catalogue of action guidelines. This area emphasizes the need to inform to all who are involved in mining about techniques that favor an efficient and effective communication. The fact we can “speak” does not mean that we know how to communicate our ideas, values and goals.
