Why We Have the Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict in Oxford

The Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC) was formally established at Harris Manchester College by a decision of the Governing Body of the College in 2013 to facilitate research, teaching and training, seminars and conferences, and direct engagement in situations of political violence and long-standing community conflict in various parts of the world. The CRIC is a very young institution, but already it is having an impact out of proportion to its size and modest resources. This is because the issues we are addressing have a heightened public profile and also because of the quality and leading-edge of some of our research

Conflict, Complexity, and Cooperation

This article explores the thesis that we are at a time of historical inflection and suggests what next steps might look like. The change in the seat of authority from the sixteenth century on with the replacement of political and religious hierarchies by participatory democracy and Enlightenment philosophies based on rationalism has seen a remarkable period of progress in science, technology, education, medicine, governance, trade, economics, and the rule of law. The twenty-first century, however, has ushered in a series of reversals for liberal democracy, the fraying of the international rules-based order that emerged after the two world wars and a collapse of public confidence in the institutions and methods based on the rationalist approach. The article suggests that the old forms are dissolving and that the time has come for the emergence of a new paradigm and proposes that three developments may point toward the next evolutionary way station: the emergence of complexity science, an appreciation that our emotions are a positive evolutionary advantage rather than a flaw to be overcome, and a focus on relationships rather than simply on individuals

Metaphors for One Another: Racism in the United States and Sectarianism in Northern Ireland

This article explores the possibility that an analysis of racism in the United States and sectarianism in Northern Ireland inspired by literary, psychotherapeutic, religious and philosophical conceptions of metaphor might yield new insight into the two situations by attending carefully to similarities and differences between them. Following brief summaries of the current state of racism in the U.S. and sectarianism in Northern Ireland, the article offers two perspectives from the field of psychotherapy that seem particularly germane to both situations. Then we turn to the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt for a reflection on the unpredictability and irreversibility of human action, and what can be done within the limits of those conditions. Finally, we find in contemporary broad-based community organizing in the tradition of Saul Alinsky our closing metaphor: interracial and interfaith citizens organizations as crucibles that enable citizens and people of faith to imagine a way forward in societies struggling with racist and sectarian histories

Influence of salinity and cadmium on the volume of Pacific herring eggs

Changes in total volume and volume of the yolk and perivitelline space of Pacific herring eggs were examined throughout incubation at 5°C in relation to salinity of the incubation medium (5, 20, 35‰ S), and after exposure to cadmium (0.05–10 ppm Cd) at 20‰ S. After fertilization and filling of the perivitelline space there was a decline in total egg volume in all salinities until 60–80 hr after fertilization. There followed a period of relative stability of total volume (100–240 hr), then a slow decline until hatching (240–618 hr). There was an inverse relation, between egg volume and salinity at all stages of egg development. Eggs transferred from 20‰ to 5 or 35‰ S, 87.4 hr after fertilization (90% blastodermal overgrowth of the yolk), showed only minor changes in total egg volume within the period of relative stability (100–240 hr). Prior to 80 hr, changes in egg volume appeared primarily to be simpleadjustments to prevailing osmotic and ionic conditions, modified, however, by presumed irreversible changes induced in the egg in relation to salinity experience at, and shortly after, fertilization. Subsequently, between 80–100 hr, egg volume appears to becomeregulated, commencing in the interval between late blastodermal overgrowth and blastopore closure. Yolk volume declined after fertilization, reached a minimum 40–60 hr after fertilization, increased to 100 hr, then decreased in the period of relative stability of total volume — presumably in relation to rapid growth of the embryo. In the latter period, yolk volume appeared resistant to change when eggs are transferred from 20 ‰ to 5 or 35 ‰ S, 87.4 hr, after fertilization. Volume of the perivitelline space reached a maximum after fertilization, then decreased until about 100 hr; between 100 and 240 hr it increased rapidly and was influenced only in a minor way by salinity changes in the incubation medium 87.4 hr after fertilization. Eggs exposed to cadmium in the interval between 1/2 and 30 hr after fertilization showed major reductions in total egg volume; total volume in the period of relative stability (100–240 hr) was much reduced and normal volume was not recovered after removal of such eggs to uncontaminated water at 30 hr