Wayuu Palabreros in Colombia

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WAYUU PALABREROS IN COLOMBIA:

Indigenous and Process-Oriented Conflict Facilitation Worldviews Explored

A Final Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the

Master’s Degree in Conflict Facilitation and Organizational Change

Adriana Eugenia Vásquez Del Río

Process Work Institute

October 2014

Adriana Eugenia Vásquez Del Río

2014

Abstract

I present findings from an ethnographic study that aimed to compare Palabreros

Wayuu’s conflict facilitation, and Processwork’s conflict facilitation paradigms. Included are the main research questions, method used, the results found through interviews and participant observation, and the main contributions of this study to PW. This is an ethnographic study of the way in which the Wayuu tribe in Colombia deals with conflict.

They created the role of palabrero to help people from the community solve their disputes and get to a peace agreement. I traveled through La Guajira—Northern area of the Colombian territory—for 1 week. There I had the chance to meet facilitators and community leaders, among others. Their justice system and worldview are amazingly interesting and their metaskills are very similar to those of PW’s elder facilitators. One of the most remarkable elements of this community is their use of dreams and metaskills for the facilitation process and how they see conflict as an integral part of human nature.

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Acknowledgements

First, I acknowledge the Gods and Goddesses, angels and light beings who gave me the inspiration, original ideas, and the life to enjoy this project. Second, thanks to my parents for helping my soul come into this world.

My most special acknowledgement is for my husband and my sons, my family who permanently stimulates me to go further, to go ahead, and to believe in this dream.

To my husband, his unconditional love, appreciation, and acceptance of all my paths and life purposes, the time he spent supporting our home, his ideas, and his enjoyment of my project as his own. To my sons, their enthusiasm, their own learning spirits, and their energy brought me all their power when the times seemed tough.

My colleagues, partners, friends, and my mentors in PW: Art and Sonia who opened the door to MACFOC and many others doors in my life.

To Arny and Amy for their exploration of tribes of the world which inspired me to explore the tribes on my own land.

To the Faculty and administrative departments of PWI: Dawn and Katje my deans, Ayako, Leslie, Stephen, Emetchi, Rhea, Gary, Jan, Ingrid, Joe, Kate, Max, Helen,

Annie B., Annie, D., Jim, and Chris, for infinite learning and support.

To my study committee members, the best one for me: Ayako, Dawn, Stephen, how your leadership and commitment inspired me.

To my advisor and final project advisor, Ayako Fujisaki, for her trust in me, her support, her metaskills, and her amazing second attention.

To my teachers of Final Project seminars, Katje and Kate, for their advice and direction, and especially for letting me dream with this project.

To my Country and the Wayuu tribe for their teachings and eldership.

To people of the Wayuu community, more specifically:

To Margarita Epiayuu and her family: to be my guide in my visit, for being my best host.

To the Palabreros and Wayuu leaders I interviewed: George, Anthony, Belisco,

Santa (pseudonyms) and Weildler Guerra.

To the academic leader, indigenous leader, anthropologist, professor, and my grandmaster in this path, Weildler Guerra for his teachings, his generosity in giving me his ancestral knowledge, and his beautiful book, The Dispute and the Word, which represents my dream in this research. He made my experience the best anthropology class that I had always dreamed about.

To my guides, speakers, and community members: Mery, Charlie, Michael,

Alfonse, Lucy, Jhon, Libardo, Pacha, Samy, Andres, Benjamin, Julio Victor, and all of the people in the community who hosted and helped me in this adventure.

To the palabreros who I did not meet but their spirits were always present in my mind as Angel Amaya.

To the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) and the Andes

University for their great libraries and excellent service, which made this work friendlier.

I also acknowledge people who helped me with language issues during my master’s program (with my assignments, documents, classes): my sister, Annie; my daughter in law, Criss; Luis Fernando Valderrama, my best friend in this path; Diana

Cortés, Moises Espinoza, Violeta Ilwik. To my peer group: Judit Miret and Jenni Schon, for their unconditional listening; the Berlitz teachers (Harold, Kevin, Victor, Johan,

Carlos, Elsa, Juan, Ivan, George, Sergio, Julian), and other independent teachers, Laura

Llañes, Ivonne Saenz, John Doering and Lilian Burgoa, who especially helped me in my final exams preparation.

To Maria José Montaña Correa and Cristina Irreño, their contributions, passion for their professions as anthropologist and lawyer, their lifetimes of experience, and their own journeys show why I deeply appreciate them and their work. I also appreciate them and their contributions to this project. They were research assistants who helped me with the structure of this document and improved its readability, as the document is written in my second language. They also made many contributions to the analysis of results, and my conversations with them gave me important ideas about how to organize my own thinking, organize the big structure of the paper, and then dialogue about the discussion and future of the research topic. To José Jaramillo for his dedicate work in the transcription of the interviews. Finally, to Susan Newton for final editing of this paper and for her Aikido classes as part of my journey in PW training that has been so useful on this path.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... iii

Acknowledgements ...... iv

List of Figures ...... x

One: Introduction ...... 1

Indigenous Context in Colombia ...... 2

Historical and Geographical Context of Wayuu ...... 3

Wayuu Culture and Palabreros ...... 4

Conflicts’ Solution Process ...... 8

Description of the Project ...... 11

Two: Literature Review ...... 13

Definition of Conflict and Various Approaches to Conflict ...... 13

Processwork Approach ...... 17

PW’s View of Conflict ...... 20

Deep Democracy ...... 21

Importance of Rank and Power in PW Facilitation ...... 23

Dynamics of Processwork Facilitation ...... 23

Accusation Theory ...... 24

Conflict Approach as Facilitative ...... 25

Inner Work and Outer Work ...... 26

Facilitator’s Metaskills and Feeling Qualities ...... 28

Facilitators as Elders in PW ...... 29

Second Training and Sentient Awareness ...... 30

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Wayuu’s Approach to Conflict ...... 32

Elements of Conflict Facilitation ...... 33

Women’s Role ...... 34

Types of Palabreros ...... 34

Conclusion ...... 35

Three: Method / Research Approach ...... 37

Qualitative Research ...... 37

Methods and Instruments ...... 38

Motivations ...... 41

Researcher’s Stance ...... 42

Participants ...... 44

Ethical Considerations ...... 48

Instruments ...... 48

Data Collection ...... 49

Data Analysis ...... 50

Quality of Results’ Analysis ...... 51

Four: The Trip, Findings, Results’ Analysis, and Discussion ...... 53

The Trip and My Personal Journey ...... 53

Interviews ...... 57

Wayuu Worldview ...... 57

Wayuu Worldview of Conflict ...... 58

The Individual and the Community Sense ...... 59

Use of Reparations in Conflict Work ...... 60

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Myth of the Palabrero ...... 62

Training as Palabrero ...... 64

How People Describe It and the Rank of Palabrero in Society ...... 65

Role of Payment ...... 65

Classification of Palabreros ...... 68

The Investigation ...... 71

Preparation ...... 71

Facilitation ...... 72

Types of Arrangements ...... 73

Similarities and Differences Between Wayuu and PW ...... 80

Contributions of the Research to Processwork ...... 85

Five: Conclusion ...... 92

References ...... 94

Appendices ...... 97

Appendix A: Clans of the Tribe ...... 98

Appendix B: Consent Form—Spanish ...... 100

Consent Form—English ...... 101

Appendix C: Interview Questions ...... 102

Appendix D: Pictures of Necklaces ...... 103

Appendix E: Pictures of Palabreros and Leaders Taken During the Trip ...... 104

Appendix F: Pictures of the Journey ...... 107

List of Figures

Figure Page

1 Location of the Wayuu in the Colombian territory...... 3

One: Introduction

The main purpose of this project was to draw attention to the conflict facilitation style, paradigm, and method of a Colombian indigenous tribe called Wayuu. This included making a comparison between the ways in which Wayuu facilitate conflict and the method proposed in Processwork for conflict facilitation. I believe that learning about different ways to deal with conflicts will help humanity to solve conflicts within and across different cultures.

I, as researcher, hoped to be able to integrate the PW approach with my regional knowledge and traditions in my professional practice as a conflict facilitator to inspire people in different groups, communities, and organizations. This is in order to see conflicts as promoting human growth and societal development, and understanding conflict as part of human relations and living beings. At the same time, I hoped to encourage people to learn from natives and older societies to motivate them to conserve and transmit their intangible heritage as a source of wisdom and natural understanding of human issues.

There are many indigenous communities in Colombia that are not always acknowledged by nonmembers of the community, where nonmembers of the tribe or external bodies do not commonly apprehend their knowledge. However, there are also groups of people who made important contributions to solve conflicts, and to prevent them from escalating. This has had a strong impact within the country, which is the reason why the Colombian government allows and supports the Wayuu people to use their justice system, instead of trying to impose the traditional national one. I believe

Wayuu have something important to contribute around how they see conflict and the role

2 of facilitator as a legitimate and essential role in the community. Therefore, it was important for me to know more about one of these cultures and their wisdom in conflict solving, because it provides information and enriches other conflict solving approaches in the world.

I chose ethnography as my research method for this study because it allowed me to be in place observing, asking, and sharing with people in order to answer my research question. It allowed me also to observe by myself, check the data found previously in the literature review, and ask new questions for future research. Ethnography connected with my emotional essence and style: I like to live experiences and I appreciate the emotions they bring to me. As Spark (2006) said, it is good to learn in “real world settings” (p. 16).

Ethnography helped me to approach Wayuu’s facilitation methods and their context from my own experience of them and to see them from their own point of view because there are many beliefs and misunderstandings of their worldview among non-Wayuu people.

Visiting them let me know their ideas from my own point of view and that allowed me to understand them in the wider context of their opinions and statements rather than by third party views. Additionally, lived experience in the field helped me to connect features of the palabrero roles (facilitators in the tribe) with the true features of their culture.

Indigenous Context in Colombia

Since 1991, with the latest reform of the National Constitution in Colombia and creation of the so-called right to equality, the natives’ rights have been more acknowledged and respected. As a consequence, public institutions are required to accept and respect their traditions, practices, and culture. At the same time they are also covered by indigenous protection related to the rights to ethnic and cultural diversity.

One culture that has benefited from this normativity in Colombia is the Wayuu tribe, located in the North of the country at the border with Venezuela (Figure 1). They have a justice system in which certain individuals are recognized as facilitators or mediators of the conflicts that appear.

Historical and Geographical Context of Wayuu

Next, I briefly describe the Wayuu culture and context. Following is a map from the Agustin Codazzi Institute (2014) illustrating the geography of the region.

Figure 1. Location of the Wayuu in the Colombian territory.

500 km Approximate location of the Wayuu group

Colombia has an important quantity of indigenous groups organized in at least 17 of their 32 departments as political organizations in the country (Eastman, 1981). As

Eastman (1981) presents, the indigenous population can achieve 135,000 families of which 10% of them are stated in Guajira region (Figure 1, Map of La Guajira). In this zone is placed the Wayuu tribe, which is the biggest indigenous community in the country. As Eastman and other authors mention, their social organization is shaped and defined by clans (Guerra, 2001; Perafán, 1995; Vásquez & Correa, 1993) and the population is about 150,000 residents. This tribe is comprised mainly of 15 clans that are distributed around the Guajira Department. Each one of those has its name, symbol, and totem (Pimienta, 1993; see Appendix A: Clans).

Wayuu Culture and Palabreros

In the Wayuu tribe, there exists a role for the facilitation of conflicts, disputes, and disagreements between them named palabrero. This means a person who works with words. One translation to English can be “orator” or a neologism can be “worder.”

However, for the purpose of this study, I decided to retain the Spanish word and they are termed palabreros in the text.

One of the reasons I chose the Wayuu tribe and especially to study the palabrero role in this community is their acknowledgment as holding an Intangible Cultural

Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO) and by the Colombian Minister of Culture. Intangible Cultural

Heritage is defined by Quintero (2007) as the goods and properties inherited from the ancestors that comprise the wisdom, knowledge, and practices as related to music, dance, instruments, tools, traditional medicine, gastronomy, universe, traditional plays, dressing,

5 celebrations, and oratory of the group. This heritage contributes to create a sense of identity within members of the community and those who engage with group memory.

All of the traditions related with the palabrero role as part of a living oral tradition are protected by people in public office or by nongovernmental officials who define laws or processes in public institutions in order to accomplish implementation of their rights as is demanded by the National Constitution. Periodically people from the

Ministry of Culture, representatives of other governmental authorities, palabreros, and community supporters meet to discuss, define, or review politics and procedures that contribute to safeguard and protect their practices and secure their conservation in the future. Botiva (1992) stated that cultural material patrimony is normally seen in museums—some archeological—however, nonmaterial cultural patrimony is part of everyone and is part of why this is of interest and relevance in my research.

It is important to mention that the place in which Wayuus are located in La

Guajira gives their traditions a special meaning. Its geography and environmental conditions characterized by a broad dessert beside the Caribbean Ocean have been part of

Wayuu’s mythology. Even for Colombian people,

La Guajira is nation inside the nation. In this territory at north point of Colombia, there is a unit of origin, of history. It is not a separatist idea. A nation is not necessarily a country or state. The country or state is a juridical figure that can contain very nations. (Morales & Villa, 1993, p. 183)

La Guajira is part of Colombia and has specific culture, traditions, laws, and habits. They are strongly influenced by Wayuu’s vision and traditions, due to the fact that the Wayuu population represents more or less 38% of the population of La Guajira (2014;

National System of Cultural Information, Colombia).

Regarding their culture, Uribe (1993) presented a broad explanation about human geography of the northwest region of Colombia. Since the 16th century La Guajira has been the space for the Wayuu to hide from colonization in Colombia. As a consequence of this self-protection system, Wayuus are the biggest indigenous population conserved in the country. They still speak their own language (Wayuunaki) and the population is distributed in a long land territory (10,000 square km)—in comparison with other indigenous communities who are concentrated in small territories.

This is important because the land, space, and geography are all part of the worldview and world understanding of the Wayuu. Their socioeconomic system is based on herding and farming. They have two other production systems—fishing and weaving—and neither is as important as herding.

In their mythology, the idea that the god Maleiwa distributed cattle, sheep, and weapons in order for them to survive supports many of their behaviors and schemes to solve conflicts. Many authors (Correa, 1994; Guerra, 2001; Silva, 1994; Uribe, 1993) describe how the Wayuus are a matrilineal society and their control structure is based on relatives’ relationships as well as territoriality and specialty. For them the sense of wellbeing is a direct consequence of integrating the natural geographic spaces with the social structures. That could be translated as the ability to share spaces and social structures in order to maintain long-term relationships. The ability of a person “to manage and maintain the peace between their family” (Uribe, 1993, p. 248) is a high rank symbol for men. This is because maintaining peace is highly regarded by them. For a woman, high rank is obtained by acknowledgment of her value when they are paid for becoming mothers or get married. They are also recognized for their weaving, their knowledge of

7 their families, ancestors, and traditions, and lastly for their leadership roles in the communities.

Many researchers (Bidou-Perrin, 1988; Correa, 1994; Guerra, 2001) consider that there are three special leadership roles that have great impact and prestige in the Wayuu society: the Alaula, the Piachi (shaman), and the palabrero. The Alaula maintains authority inside the family; they can be a man or woman and their authority is based on age and reputation as leaders; many Alaulas maintain the structure inside the clans. The

Piachi as explained by Bidou and Perrin (1988) connects “this world” with “the other world,” cures and treats the sick or those in pain. “This world” is part of rational, consensual, and shared ideas about facts between different people, and the “other world” is the world not of observed things but feelings. They defined “the other world” as “This world’s hidden and powerful stage, in which all bad luck is originated and where a lot of decisions and human powers—as the shamanic power—are supposed to depend” (Bidou

& Perrin, 1988, p. 63). As I later explain in the literature review, it is similar to what

Mindell (1992, 1995, 2007) named the dreaming land of fantasies, dreams, inner dialogue, body symptoms, and more. Bidou and Perrin say that piaches connect this world and the other one through her stomach and belly to find cures and ways to help and treat the sick.

While piaches are healers for the community, the palabreros take the role of conflicts’ facilitator. They are responsible for solving conflicts and maintaining peace between and inside the families. Each family or group gives the responsibility to solve conflicts, disagreements, or disputes to one of the members of their communities.

Conflicts’ Solution Process

For the community as a system, the role of palabreros is a role that contributes to maintain balance and stability inside the clans. It is also important because of the past controversies about their justice system in relation with the national justice system.

One person who documented the work of palabreros is Weildler Guerra Curvelo.

He did it in many journals and essays but especially in his book The Dispute and the

Word: The Law in Wayuu Society (Guerra, 2001). Guerra (2001) notes that the disputes in

Wayuu society have mostly three causes: (a) competition for the control of a territory; (b) obtaining social status—because the victim gets back what was lost and the offender recovers the reputation that was lost for breaking the rules; and (c) breaking of social norms related to stealing of animals, homicides, and other damages caused to other people. Literature and research also mention that facilitation issues related with marriage and couples especially protecting the woman are also attended by palabreros. Within the rank structure, women can develop the three roles. However, men mostly do the palabrero’s role. I must underline that this is a matrilineal society in which women have high rank for different reasons. They consider that during pregnancy, women contribute with their blood and their belly, while men only contribute with their blood.

The author then notes the phases in the mobilization of community members during a dispute. They research about the facts, and the author explains that Wayuus are authentic detectives. They first of all, look for proof, ask witnesses about what happened, and collect evidence. They do not act and speak until they are sure of what happened.

Next, the family develops consensus about the alternatives to follow. The options are to not do anything, take revenge, or ask for compensation. This is neither an easy nor fast

9 process, and the family takes time to talk about it and make a proper decision collectively. Third is the selection of a palabrero. This includes thinking about who can be the best person to go to negotiate depending on their status, their reputation, and their previous experiences with other conflicts. The parties can be present during the dialogues but the palabreros are the ones who maintain the dialogue.

Finally, the author considers that the magic aspects of the disputes can be found in these steps—they take into account their dreams, rituals for preparation, and habits of protection. In the same way, the women’s role is important because women’s interventions are meaningful as compensation in the palabrero’s facilitation process, when this was the choice. It does not matter if the process is about a man or a woman.

Women intervene in the definition of the choice to proceed and the compensation agreement. The women involved decide if the process is an option, when is the time for doing it, and advise the palabrero.

Palabreros handle conflicts by focusing on the use of rhetoric in order to maintain peace and harmony among individuals, families, and clans. Rhetoric is understood by

Wayuus as the art of specialized literary uses of prose or verse language, intended to influence people who may not be reasonable; it is the persuasive use of the language.

The mediation system is based on three main points: (a) all damage to yourself or another person must be repaired by a material compensation; (b) victims do not ask directly for reparation but through a mediator—the palabrero; and (c) payments are given to the family of the victim to avoid the victim receiving personal benefit from the situation; the damage is considered family damage. This is the person who facilitates

10 conflicts’ resolution and provides justice, including restitution to any affected party.

Thus, all conflicts are solved by material and financial compensation.

When a family has been affected by damage received by one of its members, they look for a palabrero, in order to collect compensation from the family of the offender.

Once the request is accepted, an appointment is made with the offender and their family to convey the interest of the offended family in collecting compensation for the damage repair. If the family of the offender accepts, the family goes to a specific place so the palabrero can make use of rhetoric, convincing the family to make the payment and negotiate a value. Once they have reached an agreement, transmitted the agreement to the victim’s family, and reminded all involved of the dates and amounts of payments, then the culture receives a payment for their achievement of the agreement. In some cases, the family of the offending member or that has caused the damage, can look to the culture to make it end before the family of the victim and offer compensation to repair the damage;

This can be for example in the case of marriage in which the groom’s family offers a number of livestock and collars (necklaces) to the family of the bride in order to repair the pain of the departure of a daughter leaving her obligations and duties in their family group marriage.

The main reason why I was interested in the Wayuu culture is that they have this facilitator role named palabrero, or Pütchipüüi who has one of the highest ranks in the community. In 2010, UNESCO declared palabreros as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of

Humanity for the contributions and advantages of this conflict resolution system. It is important to know about these intangible practices and traditions because in this quickly changing world and with the complexity of modern technology exists the risk of losing

11 ancient wisdom. In addition, in the field of conflict facilitation around the world, these backgrounds can bring ideas that can be useful for other cultures.

It may seem that palabreros only focus on financial payback; however, they really focus on maintaining the traditions of the group and the cohesion of the clans. Most important for them is to maintain their societal cohesion through time. The material payment with animals and symbolic objects is the representation of their generational traditions—which are always present in the negotiations through rituals and the meaning of the dreams. Tools for the negotiation come from words, poems, and speeches.

The UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is one of the declarations to protect the nontangible patrimony known as oral patrimony. It promotes cultural diversity, maintenance of culture in regions, and permanent creativity between nations.

For the reasons mentioned above, it is considered that Wayuu culture and palabrero’s role should be appreciated. Their knowledge could contain foresight that may be translated to other types of countries, communities, and organizations.

Description of the Project

In order to get to know this culture I employed an ethnographic method and did fieldwork in a Wayuu community for a week. I also conducted interviews with four palabreros and one community leader. In this visit I observed and interviewed regarding the following categories of information.

1. Which is the Wayuus’ worldview that strongly influences their justice system

and also the conflicts’ facilitation processes?

2. What is the role of palabreros within the Wayuu’s community?

3. How do palabreros facilitate conflicts?

4. How do Wayuus easily work belonging to their justice system and the

Colombian justice system?

5. What could we as conflict facilitators learn from them in PW and in the world?

At the end of the project I compare the Process-Oriented approach with the

Wayuu method in solving conflicts, to determine the similarities and differences between them. This nurtures the field of research in Processwork, and feeds the Wayuu’s system with Processwork resources that could let palabreros do a better job by applying techniques of PW.

Two: Literature Review

The context of this comparative research is based in the field and framework of conflict facilitation. I first present and explain general aspects in the larger context of conflict approaches and the main lines of conflict theories related to this particular study.

Then, I discuss the model used to facilitate conflicts in Processwork, in order to include the big picture and the different concepts that this paradigm of Process-Oriented

Psychology contains. In concluding the chapter, I present the philosophy and method of

Wayuu culture as used for handling conflicts in their society.

Definition of Conflict and Various Approaches to Conflict

In order to present a relevant conflict framework, I considered it essential to differentiate the concepts of conflict and dispute. In the field’s literature, both concepts are sometimes considered as synonyms but they really have important differences.

Spangler and Burguess (2012) discuss the differences between conflict and dispute. They mention Burton (1990) who distinguishes those terms by variables of time and contention. According to Burton, disputes are short-term situations that are possible to be solved. On the contrary conflicts are long-term and require a resolution process because they lack negotiable points. In disputes it is possible to find common interests or satisfy common needs. In conflicts abysmal differences are present, big enough to let the problems escalate and transform in what the authors name as intractable conflicts.

Subsequently they also made reference to Constintino and Merchant (1996) who defined conflict as a disagreement between two parts that can develop into a dispute.

Douglas Yarn (1999) also mentioned shaping conflict as a state and dispute as a process within it: “A conflict can exist without a dispute, but a dispute cannot exist without a

14 conflict” (as cited in Spangler & Burguess, 2012, p. 1). For this study, I used Burton’s definition in which dispute is part of a wider concept of conflict.

There are many tactics to solve conflicts that depend on the depth of the interventions and the continuance of the results. Spangler (2003) presented four different models of conflict response: dispute settlement, conflict resolution, conflict management, and conflict transformation. Dispute settlement consists in working out a mutually and satisfactory agreement between the parties involved. The dispute can be settled easily by going to next steps or having small agreements, in other words, it has short-term solutions. This has the advantage of momentary resolutions that prevent the escalation of the disagreement. However, this tactic has the disadvantage that addressing the parts does not necessarily get to the root of the problem.

Meanwhile, conflict resolution means going beyond negotiating interests to meet all sides’ basic needs, while simultaneously finding a way to respect their underlying values and identities. In this case, the process to solve the conflict goes deeper and it is more probable that the agreements are preserved through time.

Conflict management denotes the process of getting control of the situation “that makes it more constructive or less destructive when a resolution seems to be impossible or a long-term process” (Spangler, 2003, p. 1). It can be attained through defining rules, procedures, or politics that help to find solutions. The limitation of this approach is that it only consists of partial and momentary solutions, but does not bring long-term solutions; neither does it directly address the actual causes of the conflict.

Alternatively Lederage (1995)—as cited in Spangler (2003)—considers that

“effective conflict transformation can utilize the highlight on differences in a constructive

15 way, and can improve mutual understanding” (Lederage, 1995, p. 2). This takes place when the parties within a conflict can consider the other’s values, needs, or interests. This profound attitude that involves the others is one that lets emerge the purpose of all conflict approaches, which is to live in peace or improve the life quality in interactions, groups, and communities.

Subsequently, conflict transformation is the most effective course for solving conflict inside communities. This is why I offer more details on the approach. A conflict transformation approach states that the interventions made within a disagreement must involve us in deep changes. These let conflict resolve itself through solutions based not only in individual but also local and global changes. Regarding this, Lederage (2003) presents the different items that need to be taken into account when someone has a transformational focus in conflict resolution. They are as follows.

• Envision and respond: Includes a positive approach to conflict and the attitude

of being engaging in a conflict or in a solution. It also contains the need and

wish to participate directly in their solutions.

• Ebb and flow: Consists of understanding how particular episodes are part of a

broader system of relationships.

• Life-giving opportunities: Conflict is seen as an opportunity to achieve inner

growth, leadership, and the increase of competencies, in order to face life.

• Constructive change processes: Conflict can bring opportunities to be more

creative and to not think linearly.

• Reduce violence and increase justice: This is a consequence of having access

to justice systems and procedures as well as having “voices in the decisions

that affect their lives” (Lederage, 2003, p. 2).

• Direct interaction and social structures: Participate in the solutions’ creative

process through dialogue and interaction with many sociostructural levels.

• Human relationships: To notice the less visible aspects in relationships,

understand that they are part of a broader context of connections.

In conclusion, personally I prefer the approach of conflict transformation because it allows for going deeply into changes in human evolution. Although of all them are useful in the process, and all are required to go ahead, conflict transformation is the most committed to true solutions. Indeed, both the PW paradigm and Wayuu’s paradigm that this study focused upon are closer to conflict transformation.

The concept of restorative justice is also connected with this personal appreciation of conflicts and the diversity of methodologies of resolution. Concurrently, it is important to reference its linkage with conflict transformation, especially because it is connected with the topic of this study.

Maiese (2003) and Martin (n.d.) in an unpublished article present the structure of restorative justice. It is described as a way in which both victims and offenders are happier when they participate in the process of solving problems that take place in their lives, rather than being helped by others. This concept is related to empowerment and reparation of the victims and the offenders, the process of repair being a big part of the restoration process. It includes reparation, community work, and restitution. In Maiese’s work, the author described three methods of restitution: (a) Victim offender mediation—

17 both parts see each other and see the damage done to both sides; (b) family or community group conferencing—that is when the process includes a support system that helps not only during the process of resolution but also for the future; and (c) peacemaking—that is reachable when a group of people and instances that are part of the community are involved. This gives not only a solution for the actual conflict, but also prevents future repetition because it addresses underlying causes of the conflicts.

Summarizing, for this study conflict was demarcated as the sum of disagreements in values, attitudes, or interests between two or more parties in a relationship. Sometimes these differences can take a short time to solve, but sometimes they need longer time as well as changes in the most important structures of the aspects involved in the disparities.

Conflict can involve many levels of interactions and the conflict resolution approach must take into account all of these levels in order to get deep and enduring results.

Processwork Approach

Processwork offers a paradigm and methods that are useful to deal with conflict.

Arnold Mindell and colleagues are the founders of the new school of psychology named

Process-Oriented Psychology or Processwork, which has been applied to various areas such as therapy, health, conflict resolution, consciousness studies, bodywork, dream studies, group process, addiction work, relationship work, coma work, and work with altered and extreme states. Mindells’ (2014) recent definition of Processwork is as follows:

Processwork is the art, science, and the psychology of following the nature of individuals, communities, and eco-systems. What is this nature exactly? It is the “great medicine” for most suffering—that is, the way and meaning of change as it appears in everyday reality and in dreaming, in our bodies, relationships, communities, and environment. (p. 1)

Diamond and Jones (2004) introduced Processwork as a discipline of awareness that has been nurtured from many fields (e.g., Jungian theory, different psychological approaches, as well as healing practices, modern physics, and shamanism). They defined the basic concept of process as “the flow of experience in oneself and in the environment and following this flow in a differentiated way” (Diamond & Jones, 2004, p. 17). This represents two different aspects within Process-Oriented psychology: first, to follow the process, and second, to differentiate the process. It is important to work with process because it includes all experiences, all about the nature of individuals, groups, and communities including conflict experiences. It is important to follow the process because in it, there is a lot of information from the different levels of awareness about how the flow of energy is or what the roots of the process in each specific situation are. Arnold

Mindell and Amy Mindell (2002) in Riding the Horse Backwards stated that there are many events in nature that cannot be explained yet they still happen, and how it is possible to work with them instead of trying to understand what they are? That is, “the process is the change in what we observe, the flow of signals and the message they carry”

(Arnold Mindell & Amy Mindell, 2002, p. 9). Thus, process is a concept that is integrative by itself. It refers not only to mind, spirit, body, or energy. It is also the flow of many dynamics that cannot be observed or touched yet can be experienced by individuals, and therefore true in spite of the fact that science cannot demonstrate them. It is part of our phenomenological and subjective experience and for that it deserves our consideration.

The process paradigm offers new structures for our understanding of human beings that allow for other epistemological structures to be in ongoing contact with

19 human issues, and also insinuates new ones. The way to consider the process involves connecting with inner and outer experiences through a kind of awareness and signal observation inside us and in others.

Diamond and Jones (2004) define and summarize the main concepts that describe the elements of Processwork which allow following and differentiating the process.

Those are primary process, secondary process, edge, consensus reality, nonconsensus reality, and marginalization, and are defined below.

Primary process refers to those experiences that are better known and closer to a person´s sense of identity. Secondary process refers to those experiences that are further from a person’s sense of identity. Primary and secondary processes are separated by an “edge.” The edge represents the limit of the known identity as well as a point of contact with unknown experiences or identities. An edge is often felt as discomfort, nervousness, or excitement because it is an encounter with something new or unfamiliar. (Diamond & Jones, 2004, p. 20)

These authors explain the terms Consensus Reality (CR), Non-Consensus Reality

(NCR), and Marginalization, which are used to describe the interaction between perception and experience. CR makes reference or applies to the experience that is considered objective, real, or accepted for the majority inside a group or a community.

NCR corresponds to the subjective experiences that belong to a person’s inner self-world.

Meanwhile, Marginalization takes place when those subjective experiences are minimized, denied, or not taken into account. Both CR and NCR allow for observing the flow of the process across different levels, as they are noticeable.

There are two levels of reality in NCR: Dreamland and Essence levels.

Dreamland is a general level of subjective experiences including dreams, subjective, and other nonquantifiable experiences. Essence or sentient level is a realm of experience that

20 is beyond polarities and cannot be clearly defined in words, images, sounds, or sensations.

As Diamond and Jones (2004) mentioned, Arnold Mindell brought an approach to work with processes based on sentient methods—this being the result of his work with mind-body. They define sentient methods as the methods that “help people use their awareness to step outside their everyday identity and identify with the wider whole”

(Diamond & Jones, 2004, p. 15).

PW’s View of Conflict

I now introduce how PW views conflict and its general approach to conflicts. In nonconsensus reality an important part of Processwork is directed toward unfolding mixed signals and how they contribute to the dreaming up process that happens when the relationships have a flow of information. This is based on involuntary information and comes from marginalized or secondary processes. Therefore the conflict occurs between primary and secondary processes, because our identity is in conflict with more NCR experience, and we are a mixture of signals reflecting conflict inside of us and our relationships and us. This often brings conflicts within human interactions, and according to Diamond and Jones (2004), it also allows the expression of the unknown sides of consciousness, as detailed later.

When facilitating or attempting to understand conflicts, it is important to distinguish the different levels of reality in which the experiences are occurring, as

Diamond and Jones (2004) explained. In the consensus reality level, conflicts require new learning, new skills, and support from others, asking for help, or other traditional or more familiar ways to deal with daily challenges.

However, in a deeper level of awareness, the authors stated that deals could be done with inner figures, inner dynamics, dreams, fantasies, and symptoms that belong to the dream level. There is an even deeper stage called the sentient level in which problems, challenges, tasks, and confrontations can even not exist or be perceived in a personal and intimate inner experience. Within this experience, challenges are seen as generally easy or easier to face, as the focus here is upon the energies that attract or disturb, and recognizing what part of ourselves is engaged.

How then to facilitate from a Processwork perspective? Arnold Mindell and Amy

Mindell (2002) in Riding the Horse Backwards concluded that there are many techniques in order to do Processwork. The most important one is “Concentration and awareness”

(p. 210) which means to focus on observing the details, be present, and notice emotional and physical signs of other people as well as ourselves. Early in his work, Mindell (1995) realized the importance of power dynamics and awareness development. This is why he decided to work with groups and presented new methods to work with them that he termed open forums and worldwork.

In the following sections, I present key aspects that PW takes into account in its approach to conflict facilitation. They are: the concept of deep democracy, rank and power dynamics, the dynamics in facilitation, basis of the accusation theory, the approach as facilitative, the importance of inner and outer roles in facilitation, metaskills, facilitator as Elder, and second training and sentient awareness as part of the process of facilitation.

Deep Democracy

In order to deal with conflicts, Mindell (1992) considered Deep Democracy (DD) to be essential. He defined it as a renewed democracy in which all-inner voices and one’s

22 heightened ability to listen in groups allows space for any part of the community to come up. The concept developed on three related levels: first, being sensitive and aware of our internal and external voices; second, considering earth as part of the world we live in— therefore as a living being, too; and finally, understanding that everyone who surrounds us is needed because they represent our past, present, and future as time spirits. As we come to understand these concepts, deep democracy reveals that many of the human processes are inexplicable and acceptable. For example, there are many inner experiences that cannot be described behaviorally but are totally true and real in one’s phenomenological awareness. This may happen with many emotional stages that have very subtle physical or bodily referents. Another important aspect of DD is valuing different levels of reality (Consensus Reality and Non-Consensus Reality).

Further, Diamond and Jones (2004) stated that deep democracy promotes interactions with everyone and everything in the field—the system in which things happen or people interact, the shared space that can be a specific place or the earth as the place that is occupied—even with these parts of the system that have been forgotten, ignored, silenced, or seen as bothering. Deep democracy is the basis of Processwork in conflict resolution and it was expressed metaphorically by Mindell (1995) in Sitting in the Fire as democracy being the boat and deep democracy being the ship: “the boat requires human energy and the ship is moving by the wind” (p. 27).

Deep democracy is the essence of PW. As part of Mindell’s work with groups and communities, he developed what is considered a new science. The concepts of deep democracy, roles and ghost roles, process structure, and conflict dynamics are essential in describing and working with the processes involved.

Importance of Rank and Power in PW Facilitation

The PW paradigm considers that many conflicts are based on rank differences, unawareness of rank dynamics, or disturbances about rank and power, as well as being prompted by different sources of empowerment coming from different kinds of privileges. This is the reason why Mindell (1995) distinguished different sources of conflict by the spiritual, psychological, social, and contextual sum of privileges that constitute one’s rank. Conflict resolution is highly connected with the awareness of one’s own rank and rank dynamics, and part of the process in conflict resolution is to unfold those dynamics.

Dynamics of Processwork Facilitation

In this section, I introduce several concepts of Processwork that are important in order to facilitate conflicts. They are ghost roles, hotspots, momentary resolution, and the stages of resolution. Later, they are compared with several concepts of the Wayuu’s conflict facilitation.

The concept of ghost roles was defined by Reiss (2004) as follows: “they are parts of a group process that are referred to but not directly represented. They often come up as third parties” (p. 81).

The concept of hotspot is fundamental in conflict resolution. Hotspots are the strong emotional moments that can be seen by verbal or nonverbal signals during communication processes. Mindell (1995) describes hotspots as moments of intense energy that can bring behaviors with them, such as extreme emotional expression or violent conduct. Reiss (2004) suggests how to work with hotspots as a way to reduce and prevent group violence. Momentary resolution for Reiss (2004) is the moment when two

24 or more polarized sides reach a partial agreement, especially in the sentient level. It represents the recognition of their common humanity.

In PW there are some steps in following the process until the parts can achieve some resolution. These are comprised of: sorting through issues that the parts or the group have; framing and naming the information that is going during the process; gaining consensus about the topic or issue in which the energy of the group is flowing at that specific time; identifying roles and ghost roles and promoting interaction between them; identifying hotspots, attacks, polarities, and edges or difficulties in communication; facilitating work with rank dynamics and mainstream or marginalized experiences; and finally, framing a temporary resolution that the group or the parts find.

This temporary resolution is a point of pause wherein a shift in the dynamic or the atmosphere of the group has occurred. Sometimes an issue is not fully resolved, and yet, it can change in a way such that the process completes at least partially and momentarily.

In this moment of temporary resolution, the facilitator can do different things in order to facilitate resolution: notice moments of resolution and support them, summarizing and framing what is happening; identify the resolution in CR, dreamland, and sentient levels; frame tasks, actions, or work that the group will do in the future; integrate the different levels of relations that were worked during the process (intrapersonal, relationship, social or transpersonal).

Accusation Theory

In the PW paradigm, accusation is an important concept linked with conflict practice. When a conflict is active, usually the parts have accusations towards each other, however not always direct in expression, and more often expressed in double signals. As

25 a conflict facilitator it is important to notice those double signals and be aware of the signals in the field as part of the process of accusations present in the two parts.

It is considered an axiom that if the side who receives the accusation is emotionally caught / disturbed, it is because there is some aspect of truth in it. An accusation is a statement that whether explicit or implicit mentions to the other about her

/ his supposed wrongdoing. If both parts are disappointed, both recognize some aspect of truth in each other’s accusation. In PW facilitation, part of the work of the elder is to get the parts to make direct and clear accusations, help the other side receive it, and pick it up.

Conflict Approach as Facilitative

Next is described the approach of being a PW conflict facilitator. Mindell (1992) presented the practice of conflict resolution as being facilitative in that it requires a facilitator to take one’s own position, the other side’s position, and a neutral position. The model embraces many important aspects of working on conflict, or assumptions behind working on conflict that are represented in stages. They are as follows:

• Awareness that implies that in a group there must be some people able to be

objective in order to work.

• Personal development that allows deep democracy to be present in the

facilitator’s role, so that the facilitator can take all sides in order to let every

voice be expressed.

• Time, because conflict resolution is a process, rather than a predictable state

with a predetermined amount of time.

• Self-help, in that the group develops its own abilities to solve conflicts. They

learn of themselves and from their own experiences. In practice, people

become aware of several levels involved in the conflict situation, not only the

level manifested in the momentary dispute.

Inner Work and Outer Work

In this document is incorporated the work of Mindell and Goodbread about facilitating one’s own conflict. This is especially important because in all conflict approaches, it is keenly relevant to be aware of one’s own conflicts even within the process of facilitating.

In his book Befriending Conflict, Joe Goodbread (2010) explained a way “to help people cope with fear, confusion, and other disturbing states of mind that were a daily feature of their work and lives” (p. vii). The term “befriend” charmed him because it seemed to produce a sense of empowerment thanks to the possibility of feeling inclined instead of evading or negating conflict—as a part of human nature. Goodbread stated that the process of solving conflicts relates to the stages of work our inner-self must make, that can be examined in three different aspects: exploring the opponent as part of ourselves, remembering and drawing meaning from personal experiences that were triggered by actual conflicts, and looking for inner power and strength.

Mindell (1992) summarizes the benefits of being willing to deal with conflicts as having the possibilities that conflict helps people, groups, and communities to keep growing. Mindell’s vision of conflict is that it is normal, grants self-discovery, is multileveled, and can create community.

In order to deal with conflicts as a facilitator (outer work), inner work is necessary and highly relevant. Facilitators can be pulled by their own bias and unsolved personal conflicts that do not let them be neutral during the process.

Hence, the first stage in conflict resolution is to go from avoiding it to understanding it. Second is to notice conflict through body and communication signals, inner dialogue, behaviors, and dreams about a situation, a person, or a group of people.

Third, it is important to know the intensity and the severity of the conflict, the possible consequences, and the time that passed—all around what Mindell (1992) calls

“malignancy” (p. 99). Fourth comes the decision to engage in the conflict process and review the decision to work alone or with a partner. In the process, it is important to utilize awareness, be observant of your own position and biases, and take your own side first. Second, go to a neutral stance, and third, then take the other side, cycling the process and leaving the field if necessary. Finally, continue working both as a group and individually.

Following the above stages, build confidence in humanity individually and in groups in order to get close to conflicts instead of avoiding them, which only contributes to escalate them until high levels of violence or broken relations occur. In Leader as a

Martial Artist (Mindell, 1992), a leader is defined as an elder with skills and metaskills who works intensively with herself and as a consequence builds communities in society.

In conclusion, working with one’s own conflicts through inner work may allow for humankind’s working with conflicts in groups and thus also working in and on community issues. All of these stages can flow together to grow and develop humanity to a place in which all one’s own and others’ voices have space as part of our nature as

28 human. This is for me as a researcher, the core of the conflict facilitator’s role: the ability to help people to know themselves so deeply that they can create a high level of consciousness of our responsibility to see the other as part of ourselves.

Facilitator’s Metaskills and Feeling Qualities

Processwork also considers the facilitator’s feeling attitude to be essential when facilitating conflict. Amy Mindell (1995) coined the word metaskills which are not only one’s attitudes, feelings, and values related to the vision of the world, they are also composed of awareness and that influences them in all circumstances. Amy Mindell distinguishes several important metaskills as listed below.

1. Compassion: To be able to embrace all aspects of us, as well as embrace the

most unknown aspects of others.

2. Recycling: Taking into account that everything that happens in an

environment is part of a bigger dreaming process. Each signal, feeling, or

channel can be useful to understand the experience. Nothing can be ignored.

3. Playfulness and Detachment: Related with the ability to be innocent, open-

minded and flow with the idea of enjoying the unexpected. They also include

being able to take a metaposition and observe from the outside.

4. Fishing and Precision: Being empty headed and at same time focusing on

details are important conditions in order to obtain details and follow the

process step by step, being able at the same time to feel free and relaxed. They

require focused attention and an open mind, expecting everything and

anything at the same time. It is a way to be empty headed, flowing with

uncertainty.

5. Shamanism: Brings therapists, facilitators, and leaders aptitudes to understand

their own feelings, perceptions, and intuition, even though not always can they

be explained in a rational, linear, logical way.

6. Creativity: Joins all parts of the process and integrates the techniques and

every personal experience as part of a whole. Creativity is the art of noticing

and using one’s energy to create new ideas, options, and interventions.

7. Fluidity and Stillness: What a great paradox, to be able to remain centered and

meanwhile flow with experience of going on or being stuck; to be able to

maintain one’s centered self while flowing, either with forward movement or

being stuck. Being open to be a metacommunicator who observes herself or

himself when fluent or blocked.

Facilitators as Elders in PW

In the PW conflict approach, those metaskills are characteristics that belong to the elders. In Mindell’s (1995) view, the elders are able to continue to work with conflicts for a long time and as needed. This type of person is able to tolerate the conflicts, especially worldworkers or people who deal with strong conflicts around the world.

Mindell (1995) mentioned that big psychological, cultural, and social rank differences engender many kinds of conflicts because of the polarization they bring into the environment. The work of the elders is to facilitate the processes in order to get people to be able to create communities competent to listen to the many inner voices and the diverse voices in the group.

The elders are sensitive to the voices in the groups. Some of them are present; others are manifested as spirits, or as Reiss (2004) explained above, as ghost roles. In the

30 work of conflict facilitation, the elders listen and represent many voices and stimulate people to take different roles, even the most polarized.

The PW elders accept the expression of anger, agony, helplessness, and hopelessness in order to bring out voices that are often hard to hear. This is done as an attempt to prevent violence as part of human nature and to promote the acceptance of many beliefs. For Mindell (1995), instead of recognizing polarities as “true or false, good or bad . . . the facilitator observes the process step, by step” (p. 235). For him, it is valuable to appreciate conflicts as processes and part of nature.

Second Training and Sentient Awareness

The second training is part of the personal development of a facilitator that cultivates eldership as well as the ability to gain new information from a non-ordinary state. It means to be aware and to perceive further than logical thinking, because awareness of the essence level or sentient level is crucial. Mindell (2007) states

the second training is about our original relationship to the universe, whereas the first training involves cognitive learning, facts, and methods [and] in the second training you learn to perceive and connect with the powers of life that move you while alone, in relationships, out in the world: while sitting quietly, flying through the air, or landing on the ground. (p. 168)

Using sentient awareness, one can notice something that has not yet been defined in language or consensus reality. One can access this level of reality by paying attention to subtle body sensations or the dreambody, as well as symptoms and sensing the atmosphere expressed in the field. Mindell (2007) mentions that “sentient awareness precedes anything we know about mind or matter” (p. 114) and further, “the opposite of a causality mentality is sentient awareness—mindfulness of even the slightest things, which allows you to adjust to them” (p. 114).

With second training it is possible to take metapositions and notice subtle tendencies. Mindell (2007) remarks that with second training you are more than the observer or the observed, you become a sentient third or third observer from a wide metaposition. In conflict processes if you are not aware of subtle tendencies, there is a risk to take only one side and lose the meaning of the relationship or the sense of the whole field in which the process is happening.

Finally, the second training allows us to capture information that subtle signals are giving us or lets us know earlier than rational awareness alone can provide, and so we can use information from the universe that is difficult to verbalize. Mindell (1993) describes sentient awareness as an “essence experience when everything is connected, and nothing happens without warning” in the same way as “in Australia we had to wait for the right time” (p. 63) referring to the hunter who is responsible for capturing the signals of the universe in order to provide food.

In PW theory, the idea of signals and double signals given through words in different channels of communication it is very important. To access sentient awareness it is important to develop a second attention that acknowledges the signals and especially, the double signals can be noticed. Mindell (1993) defined double signals as

unintended messages, your living unconscious, the dreamingbody as it is experienced in relationships. Some of these signals are seen and heard, for instance, in the unconscious manner in which you walk and in the tone you use in speaking. But you can also communicate with others in a manner outside the laws of physics. That is why people can sense your double signals and dreaming process at a distance and why shamans can heal clients who live far away. (p. 26)

In PW elder facilitators have skill and the ability to notice one’s own and other’s signals in order to access deeper levels of consciousness (the dreamland and sentient levels).

Wayuu’s Approach to Conflict

In a recent exhibition about the palabrero’s role in Bogotá (Gold Museum &

National Bank, 2014), Angel Amaya, a Wayuu palabrero, presented a speech about the

Wayuus’ conception of conflict. He speaks of conflict as below:

Problems arise and enemies are made everywhere, what group today has no enemies? Even animals do. Doesn’t an ant have them as well, even though he is tiny? And the snake although many are afraid of him, isn’t there an animal that also attacks him? And while birds may be docile, aren’t there other beings that hunt them? We humans are not the exception, although we don’t eat our adversaries with our teeth. Listen to me, I’ve come to your house from Rioacha, a distant land, and I’ve stayed in it even though I am not a relative of yours, to invite you to peace.

For this group, conflict is part of all living beings, and further, the human species.

The National Bank representatives state that for palabreros conflict is a fact of life and a temporal event, and thus, they use words and dialogues to regain harmony between individuals, especially inside their groups.

This is one of the minority groups who are able to solve their conflicts on their own, through the creation of a role that does the job: palabreros. This is related directly to the idea that the community has picked up their power as a tribe, being able to deal with conflicts by themselves instead of looking for external support (e.g., government, police, or the national justice system).

The way Wayuus strive to solve conflict can be categorized within two specific conflict responses as mentioned in the conflict context at the beginning of this document: dispute settlement and conflict resolution (Spangler, 2003). Moreover, the Wayuu approach is also a transformative conflict paradigm (Lederage, 2003), because they are focusing not only on solving a dispute. Rather, they are focusing on maintaining long- term relationships and structures inside their society.

In Wayuu culture, when palabreros worked on conflict or achieved an agreement between the two parties, they usually used their common roots—territory and bloodline, elements that are sacred for them—to solve the conflict. One of the heads of the conference at the National Museum, also a member of the Uliana clan, said that the exhibition proposed to spread among Colombians the way in which Wayuus, who do not utilize tribunals or police, use persuasive discourse and efficient rhetoric to solve disputes.

Elements of Conflict Facilitation

Here I offer important features of the Wayuu conflict perspective. Guerra (2001) spoke of two aspects connected with palabreros’ practices. First is the magical aspect of the disputes, and second is the women’s role in conflict resolution.

In the magic of disputes are elements both material and intangible, which are present in most conflict processes. The material is composed by the stick, cane, or waraarat that is considered an important element for the body, the mind, and the soul. It is a vegetable handmade tool that supports palabreros in drawing figures and drawing in the sand. Mythology says that “Utta (a bird) used to use a cane made of pali’isepai

(bejuco) to get concentration and get together with the Earth, where he used to draw his thoughts’ representation” (Sarakaana Pushaina, as cited by Guerra, 2001, p. 144). At the same time the object helps them in registering words and symbols to help memory during dialogues. The stick’s hardness shows the power and strength of the palabrero who also uses it to identify or indicate people, as it is considered not appropriate to touch anyone during a dialogue or to point with their fingers.

Moroi Epiayuu o Manuel Peñaranda as interviewed by Guerra (2001) said,

we use the waraarat (stick) to draw in the floor because the land talks to us with a very special language. She orientates us in what we must say, each line brings the message that Earth give us. If our words are not well chosen, we do other lines in the sand. Meanwhile we reflect about our experiences, gestures and movements, we meditate about the figure Earth wants in order to say the word we must to transmit. (p. 145)

Women’s Role

Regarding women’s role, women in general are not present during the dialogues, but they do advise palabreros, victims, and offenders before the meeting, and they listen and apply their advice. Sometimes women facilitate arrangements for payments related to minor failures and interethnic conflicts, but they always are invoking a vision of harmony and their ancestors as the main reason to get peace. They act as the mothers of the whole community, care for their future, and help to prevent a conflict’s escalation.

Moreover, women have a role as Shaman (Moroi Epiayuu, as cited by Guerra,

2001). The women Shaman can take two positions in order to help palabreros to prepare for the conflicts’ dialogue. The first one called ouutsü which has good dreams and gives good predictions of the process, and the second one called aseyuu, which has bad dreams and advises the palabrero not go to the place because it is dangerous or it is not yet the moment. Moroi Epiayuu said,

dreams have soul, have spirit; they are revelations and advise about things. Sometimes they advise about things that are not so clear but the Wayuu person who knows interprets dreams, knows when a dream said the contrary that must be done . . . . (as cited in Guerra, 2001, p. 295)

Types of Palabreros

Comparing their roles in conflict resolution, Guerra (2001) considers that palabreros act as intermediaries not as mediators, conciliators, judges, or referees.

Palabreros do not make decisions or suggest solutions, and they do focus on inspiring

35 both sides with their words. Nevertheless, sometimes their words are so strong as to become mediators when their rank, prestige, and reputation give them the authority to go further than a messenger of the wishes between parts of the complex.

These differences create a classification of palabreros which are described by

Guerra: the Pütchipü´ü, who is the authentic palabrero specialist in solving disputes; the pütche´ejana, who is the messenger in some cases; the pütchipala who is the palabrero named by the parts to represent the community during the meetings for dialogue; and the mäunapui, who only claims or collects the payment. Also there are differences between palabreros working early in the morning, called pütche´ejena, and palabreros that arrive in the evening called Püsichi (Sarakaana Pushaina, as interviewed by Guerra, 2001). In addition, they have the maünai or marriage palabrero.

Finally, Guerra (2001) says that palabreros Wayuu do not perceive the differences between individuals, families, or groups as unwanted aspects. They contemplate them as events that are part of the community’s life, and those events bring the chance to build and improve social relations inside the groups.

Conclusion

It is interesting to know how in different ways many cultures have developed diverse approaches to deal with conflicts. Some of them search for partial or short-term solutions, while others look for long-term solutions that go into the roots of the differences. The conflict transformation approach offers interesting possibilities to intervene in different parts of the system involved. The PW paradigm presents an option to work deeply in intrapersonal, interpersonal, groups, and world conflicts through different levels of consciousness and from a deep democracy perspective. The Wayuu

36 style shows how a minority society has a particular approach of attitudes, values, roles, and justice system to deal with conflicts within their community practices.

All of these paradigms enrich the field of conflict resolution in the world. As seen there is much research, as well as many theories and practices in the field of conflict study, and once again, particular focus on native people and their traditions contributes to amplify current knowledge from a regional point of view.

For further studies, it would be interesting to focus upon different indigenous methods in order to compare between them and with PW, especially because most literature found is based in mainstream models or academic and scientific approaches and with less regard for a minority population and / or phenomenological experiences based in empirical practices. The idea that a particular community such as Wayuu tribe has a defined role for supporting families, clans, and inter-ethnic conflicts awakes my interest to search for other communities in the world who have a formal role to solve conflicts.

Which ones have it as a professional practice, as occurs with PW elders, and which communities do not have specific roles for help in facing human conflicts?

This study highlights that some societies see conflict as part of humanity, part of life, while others may reject the conflict. Future research could explore the impacts of having these points of view in the development of the field.

Finally, learning about one native tribe in Colombia encourages continuing the investigation and exploration of other indigenous Colombian communities and their great contributions to the country and to the world from their natural wisdom. They are around

1,400,000 people and nearly 4% of the national population, a rich pool to consult with, if they agree.

Three: Method / Research Approach

Qualitative Research

This was an ethnographic research that begun with the following question: How do the Wayuu palabreros view conflict and deal with it? Are there any similarities and differences between their approach and Processwork’s approach to conflict?

The type of research that let me approximately answer this question was a qualitative study. Spark (2006) defined qualitative research as below:

Qualitative data come from open-ended questions and interviews, detailed descriptive observations, and documents of all kinds. Qualitative designs are naturalistic in that they minimize researcher control, capturing what people say in their own words, observing the world as it unfolds in natural settings, and gathering documents produced in the course of life in real world settings. Qualitative analysis seeks patterns, themes, and meanings that generate in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of interest. (p. 15)

In general, presenting information collected from interviews, case analysis, observation, focus groups, and fieldwork, as applied or occurring in natural settings under low control by the researcher characterizes qualitative research.

Nagy and Leavy (2011) maintained that qualitative research gathers information through open questions such as why and how, the purpose being to obtain data from the answers to these questions. The focus is on attributing meaning to the experiences or conditions; the settings that are explained as context belong to social circumstances or situations. Nagy and Leavy stated that qualitative research is based in three dimensions: ontology, epistemology, and methodology. Ontology of the nature of social reality includes the framework of the research that led her or him to explore the topic, formulate the questions, and select the ways to collect the information. Epistemology concerns the

38 question of who can be a knower? Methodology of the account may present a reality that can be positivist, interpretative, or critical.

For this study, the interpretative one was selected. The authors stated that the

“interpretative position assumes the social world is constantly being constructed through group interactions, and thus, social reality can be understood via the perspectives of social actors enmeshed in meaning-making activities” (Nagy & Leavy, 2010, p. 5). That means that this was an inductive study and it included different techniques to gather evidence such as listening, observing, or reviewing records. Some of the techniques or methods listed by these authors are interviews, field research (ethnography), focus group, text or visual analysis, case study, and narrative history, amongst other methods.

Stake (2010) states that qualitative research is the way to understand how things work through “perception and understanding” (p. 11). Characteristics of qualitative research are that it is: (a) interpretative (collects different points of view); (b) experiential

(empirical and oriented to living experiences in the field of study); (c) situational (cannot make generalizations, as the conclusions represent a specific context or setting); (d) personal (honoring uniqueness and diversity); (e) well-triangulated (in the experience are involved the subjects, the researcher, and the readers who can draw their own conclusions as well); and (f) experiential (requires choice of strategies that are determined by the researcher’s own experiences).

Methods and Instruments

Among the different methods of qualitative research I chose ethnography.

Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviors, and perceptions that occur within groups, teams, organizations, and communities. Its roots can be traced back to anthropological studies of small, rural (and often remote) societies that were undertaken in the early 1900s, when researchers such as Bronislaw

Malinowski and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown participated in these societies over long periods and documented their social arrangements and belief systems. This approach was later adopted by members of the Chicago School of Sociology (for example, Everett Hughes, Robert Park, Louis Wirth) and applied to a variety of urban settings in their studies of social life. (BMJ, 2008, p. 1)

For BMJ (2008), “The central aim of ethnography is to provide rich, holistic insights into people’s views and actions, as well as the nature (that is, sights, sounds) of the location they inhabit, through the collection of detailed observations and interviews”

(p. 1). Hammersley (as cited in BMJ, 2008) stated, “The task [of ethnographers] is to document the culture, the perspectives and practices, of the people in these settings. The aim is to ‘get inside’ the way each group of people sees the world” (p. 1). Ethnographers look for patterns, and try to label or explain relationships, understand a group of people and the dynamics between them, and make sense of a particular situation as part of a whole group or society. Ethnographers also can connect with a wider topic as in the case of this study: conflict.

Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) described the usual features of most ethnographic studies. The researcher does not create the conditions, rather they are observed in everyday environments. Data are assembled through participant observation and informal conversation, although they may also contain data from other and / or previous documents. The results are obtained through unstructured procedures that are built during the process as patterns are recognized in the ethnographic experience. The sample population usually is small, and centered in a few instances that facilitate deep analysis. Finally, interpretation of the data brings explanations, descriptions, theories, and future research questions.

Serena (1980) explains that ethnography is one of the qualitative research methods used in Cultural Anthropology. Ethnographic research has two main phases: fieldwork and results’ analysis. Fieldwork consists of observation and participation within the daily life of the group; the researcher is exploring the topic. Observation contributes to seeing differences between people’s thinking, feeling, doing, and behaving.

The results include the observation and the information obtained from the interviews in situ. Results analysis is representative of an articulated and trustworthy analysis of the life of the group or the specific topic studied.

The method explained above allows for observation of the group as a system of interrelated patterns. Therefore the ability of the researcher determines the results of the ethnographic research. The researcher must be able to identify connections, details, relationships, and meanings that the group that is being studied is not able to easily see.

The researcher must be able to see the full picture and the details, the forest and the tree.

Participant observation depends on the trust, cooperation, alliance, and relationship that the researcher is able to build with the members of the community

(metaskills are essential). At the same time, these factors also determine the results.

This study belongs to the field of cultural anthropology, the study of values, patterns, and rituals shared that defines the identity of a population or community. In the process of my research, I also discovered that it could be considered part of the field of political anthropology, thanks to its strong connections with justice systems as part of the power and control dynamics in a particular society.

Motivations

Ethnography as part of anthropology also connects me with a drive to get to know human and social experiences. I am passionate about human issues and the social contexts in which they take place. In my youth I had a dilemma between studying psychology and anthropology, but finally I decided to go for the first one. However, my soul has always been connected with a wider spectrum of social sciences.

Some years ago I went to visit the Arhuacos, another tribe in Colombia. That experience made me feel alive and continues to be present in my mind and my heart. For me, no learning experience can go further or deeper than experiential ones.

The opportunity to live and share with a native group is a privilege for me, and is one that gives me the opportunity to develop metaskills as a conflict facilitator. For example, the metaskills of being connected, observant, flowing with the process, being open minded, focused on my purpose, and detached from them. It is a training laboratory by itself, bringing occasions to be close to diversity, and to be aware of my position amidst a marginalized population—as indigenous people have been in the past in

Colombia and in the world. Likewise, ethnographic experience brings both new and ongoing opportunities to enrich the background of the field. Lastly, ethnography contributes to gathering understanding of communities in the world, and recognizes their diversity and inclusion because it allows the researcher to be open and connect with different experiences in the field studied. In some way, the study also contemplated a class of ethnography named critical ethnography by Bailey (1996) as cited by Nagy and

Leavy (2011), who distinguished it as the practice that intends “to change the way that those in power marginalized those with less power” (p. 25). The fact that my study

42 recognized and utilized a method relatively unknown to the mainstream society of the country and the world opens the way for this study to belong to this specific branch of anthropology.

Researcher’s Stance

The first step 2 months before fieldwork was to contact people of the community to explain the purpose of my visit and ask for their help in finding palabreros who would be willing to talk with me. The person I did contact, agreed to go with me and visit them, invited me to go to her family house, and from their house, planned the rest of the trip.

After study and review of the characteristics of a qualitative, ethnographic study, I researched about Wayuu culture in order to have some prior information and be prepared.

This information helped the redaction of the questions for the semistructured interviews with Wayuu members and palabreros. The primary sources were found in two places specialized in the topic, which are the Library of Andes University in its anthropology section, and the ICANH (Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History).

Searching literary sources about this community was the beginning of the process; reading about and looking at pictures awakened a lot of voices in me; I felt enthusiasm and also scared about how unknown the experience could be for me. I wanted to know more and more, however, I thought that it could be dangerous (in my inner dialogue I had voices about how I will deal with food, bed, water conditions that are restricted in the region and so on). I also was excited about whether I could come to know and talk with some palabreros. In the end, I thought that my journal would be the big learning for me and maybe for others who want the experience of being an ethnographer for a week. I felt

43 passionate; I was as a teenager going the first day to the University campus, so excited and open to the full experience.

One of the voices that were present in this stage was: what if people consider that

I am using them for my study? I really, honestly, want to know and transmit their deep philosophy about conflicts and peace in my job as conflict facilitator, but . . . what would happen if they were not willing to collaborate with me? I realized that this is one of the main challenges of the ethnographer: to win trust and credibility in order to get the people to be willing to participate. From my experience, I realized that I built trust in many ways. First was in being kind and respectful of their traditions and habits. Second, being aware I was a foreign person, I was a stranger to them and must be slow, careful, and notice positive signals of my presence, my questions, and body language. Third, I tried to be simple and clear in using the most necessary words in my speech and questions because I noticed they are so paused and observant, and they did not offer long or complex speech. Fourth, I shared the purpose of the study and asked permission to record and take notes. Fifth, I said to them how I admired their culture and how interested I was to learn because I considered that Colombian people and conflict facilitators in the world have many things to learn from them.

The University of Manchester (2014) mentions in one article that in ethnographic studies the researcher requires “skills of patience, endurance, perspicacity, and diplomacy—and most importantly perhaps for the western academic—the willingness to unlearn” (p. 1). This idea fit totally with my purpose and dream of this project and it was also my full experience during its evolution: patience to flow with the process, following the signals of the universe, and detach within planned steps. Endurance was evident by

44 my persistence and perseverance of going thorough La Guajira dessert searching for palabreros and hunting for the ideas that captured my attention about Wayuu community.

Perspicacity showed as choosing information, and selecting the more relevant as well as gathering ideas of the two paradigms in facilitating conflicts. Diplomacy was evident in my visiting them and being a respectful observer-participant, respecting their traditions, and writing a document that can both catch attention and leave out interesting information that was not part of the objectives of this study. As a paradox, I had to be willing to unlearn and to learn new things; to unlearn, and leave the purpose and focus on it at same time.

Participants

Participants for the research were of two types in the Nagy and Leavy (2011) categories: formal and informal gatekeepers. The key informants were the five interviewees (four palabreros and one community leader for whom I use pseudonyms in the text). In addition, I had contact with different people in the Wayuu community and more specifically, I had direct contact with the following individuals. To them I explained that the purpose of my visit was to learn about their worldview and especially about their conflict approach and the palabrero role—this because I believe I have a lot to learn from them in my role as a conflict facilitator:

• One local woman, Marthie, whom I met some time ago on a beach of La

Guajira where women send their handicrafts. She is a weaver and I contacted

her sometimes to ask for handcrafted typical bags. She was my guide and

helped me to contact the first palabrero. She and her family—one daughter,

two sons—welcomed me in their home for 2 of the 6 nights I spent in the area.

I shared some time with them and their relatives, and got to know their work.

• Three drivers and with two of them I had the opportunity to have a long talk

during the many hours of the trip. The first one was a friend of Marthie, who

transported me during the first routes. With him I got some first ideas of the

behavior of La Guajira people and social aspects of their identity. The second

driver introduced me to the four passengers who traveled with me to one of

the places. As I shared with them the purpose of my trip, they were willing

and open to tell me about Wayuus during the 3 hours of the journey. The third

one, Michael, shared deeper details about the culture. It was very interesting

because he is not a Wayuu but he is married with a Wayuu woman. I was then

able to listen to a person close to them yet not an insider completely. I got to

hear how it was to share life fully with the Wayuu people. Conversation with

this man was one of the longest because we had a 12 hour journey over 2

days.

• One motorcycle driver, John, who introduced me to his ranchería and his

relatives (ranchería is a place composed of many families who live together in

a territory; it has small houses and common spaces for shared activities). He

was very open and took me to the biggest ranchería I visited. They were

nearly 230 people of which 80 were children, living on a huge land area. He

offered his motorcycle to transport me, which was very helpful because

Wayuus live far away from each other and the temperature is very high—

about 40 Cº. John was introduced to me by Pacha, the host of one of the

places where I lived. I paid John to pick me up in his motorcycle and to

introduce me to his community. Additionally, the day after my visit, I brought

some juices and cookies for the 80 children living there. It was one of the

most beautiful moments: seeing the happiness of the children and sharing all

together around a snack.

• Three hosts, who allowed me to stay in their places for 1 or 2 nights. The first

one, Samy, was the owner of the host house, and Pacha and Victor, the

managers. In the first two places I paid them to rent the hammocks and to be

able to use the bathrooms. In the last one I rented a room because Pacha told

me we were the only ones living there and as it was a fishermen’s beach, I

could get scared at midnight when fishers go to work in the sea. In this place

we had no light or water during the night. That experience allowed me to get

completely detached of everything and brought in the full experience of the

region.

• Four palabreros that I interviewed. The first one, George, I found with

Marthie’s help. She knew him and called to inform him about my visit. The

second one I met because I told the driver I wanted to meet some palabreros

and he arranged the visit for the next day. Albert and his wife I found through

Michael and Samy. He did not speak Spanish very well; therefore, his wife

helped us. She spoke most of the time, and two of their sons were also present

during the interview. The third one, Santa, was in the Museum of Wayuu

culture when I visited it. He was at the door talking with some people and

selling his music compact discs. The motorcycle driver in the last of the places

introduced the fourth one, Belisco, to me. He was with his son and some

grandsons and granddaughters during the interview.

• One community leader that I interviewed. Preparing for the trip, I had bought

a recognized professional picture book of Wayuus edited by Villegas Editors.

In this book was also information about Weildler Guerra Curvelo and his

texts. I contacted him by Facebook to ask for support with the literature

review process and I asked him about the possibility to get an interview

during my visit to La Guajira. The author advised me to look for the book The

Dispute and the Word: The Law in Wayuu Society (Guerra, 2001). At the

same time he accepted to receive me in his office in Rioacha, the capital city

of La Guajira. We had a 2-hour conversation about Wayuu perspectives of

conflicts. It was very interesting to hear his own perspective as a member of a

clan, academic, and ethnographer, high advisor for indigenous issues in the

country, and National Bank manager in La Guajira.

• The other participant was not a Wayuu. She was with me in one of the car

drives and in one hostel. At some point during my trip she wanted to join me

for 1.5 days. She was a European woman, and she had a conflict with Michael

the driver, that brought me the possibility to observe a real conflict and notice

the behavior of the persons around. She was not a community member but this

experience led me to observe how they deal with conflict with a

noncommunity member, especially I could be witness to how they are

committed to solving conflicts and how—at least in this case—they try to

make arrangements rather than evade or be aggressive. They seem really

collaborative in conflict situations.

• One tourist dealer who contacted me with one of the places for staying. He

was only a phone contact and helped me to situate in a place near another

ranchería.

• One tourist agent who gave me an article he wrote some years ago about

palabreros.

Ethical Considerations

As for ethical considerations, all of the interviewed people and all participants were informed about the purpose of my visit and all of the five interviewees were asked to sign the consent forms (Appendix B). In addition, all interviews were recorded with their permission. The names mentioned here are pseudonyms to protect their identities, except for Weildler Guerra, who agreed to state his identity. I was as Nagy and Leavy

(2011) designated similarly as an all-embracing participant; meaning that I shared my full identity, phone number, title of the study, the name of the institution in which I am following my studies, goals of the visit, and purpose of the study.

Instruments

In this study, the process of the research incorporated semistructured interviews and observations from fieldwork that were used to collect data around the main questions of the investigation. Questions were as follows.

1. Which is the Wayuus’ worldview that strongly influences their justice system

and also the conflicts’ facilitation processes?

2. What is the role of palabreros in the Wayuus’ community?

3. How do the palabreros facilitate conflicts?

4. How do Wayuus easily work belonging to their justice system and the

Colombian justice system?

5. What could we as conflict facilitators learn from them in PW and in the world?

Based on these questions, I developed the interview protocol, which can be found in Appendix C. Each interview maintained the personal style of the person and the information acquired was conserved in the most exact style. All interviews were electronically recorded and were transcribed verbatim only by an assistant.

Data Collection

The research had the following sources of information: One journal of observations and self-reflections, five live-recorded interviews with transcriptions, field observations, and additional information (e.g., a short-videotaped interview). Prior to the date of the trip I read about the community, saw pictures, and acquired deeper knowledge about their culture. As a consequence, the process awoke a lot of emotions, feelings, questions, and inner dialogues that were part of the journey presented in findings as personal journal and field observation notes. This personal process is also part of ethnography and is called self-ethnography (Nagy & Leavy, 2011).

Interviews were recorded, and transcripts were made. After the visit, the next stage was to read other interviews of other ethnographers. I read Weildler Guerra’s

(1996, 2001, 2014) book interviews to complement and compare the information I obtained.

One of the last stages was going to the Gold Museum—in Bogotá—which presented an exhibition about palabreros and an anthropological sample of their culture.

That exhibit included a video recorded interview of a palabrero. This was a short interview (about 5 minutes), and it contained essential information that validated some points of my findings.

Data Analysis

I defined the main categories based on the five research questions as previously stated. Afterwards, I analyzed the information in each one of the categories, adding information from specialized literature (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). Finally, I made a conclusion for the main question and discussion of the results as well as contributions to the field.

In the process of analysis, I paid attention to what Hammersley and Atkinson

(2007) label emphasis on performances that include routine activities, repertories of strategies, rituals, or unusual executions such as unexpected outcomes, crisis, or exceptions in the behaviors’ repertories. In the same way, the rules detected brought ideas around the decision-making process within the contexts studied. In the data analysis, it was important for the quality of the information to focus closely on the words, because they represent how they function in the topic studied. Thus, the researcher was attentive to justifications, explanations, motives, excuses, and functions in talking.

Moreover, the records were closely observed for the detail they brought. For example, in the Nagy and Leavy (2001) categories, there are three different ways to take notes: (a) some quick and spontaneous notes, (b) complete descriptions of the facts (the most common), and (c) data analysis that includes comparison and synthesis or more structured notes. That was also the process of selecting the information by categories, which I used.

Information in the recordings was taken into account when it was clear and comprehensible because of occurring in open spaces; sometimes they were in noisy spaces disturbed by wind sounds or people around. The personal journal was included in the narrative about personal feelings or beliefs, as well as the involvement in the situation as Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) suggest. They also advised the researcher to read the transcriptions many times to focus on details and general perception at same time.

Quality of Results’ Analysis

According to the literature on gathering data in qualitative research, Stake (2010) noted that observations could be wider than the questions. Therefore, the data included only the facts and evidence related to the main questions. During my visit to this community, I witnessed experiences in daily life more than participation in palabreros activities or doing facilitation. Observers cannot join these congregations, even Wayuu people. Only people who were involved in the conflict and had been accepted by the parts could attend. Therefore, this is not participant observation. Stake (2010) proposed, “the first responsibility of the observer is to know what is happening, to see it, to hear it, and try to make sense of it” (p. 94). In the case of interviews, the main question was more a conclusion after reviewing all data rather than a conclusion of the data observed or collected. Neither the interviews nor the results were standardized. Therefore, I cannot generalize the results.

In caring for the credibility of the data gathered, the findings explained how and where the data were obtained, as well the difficulties or barriers in getting the information. For Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), additionally a description of what data was collected and when must be offered, in order to give the reader a context from

52 which they can draw their own inferences and conclusions. Further, the information was offered in their actual words because it supports further analysis for new interpretations and next research. The authors identify emic and etic categories in the categories that already exist in the knowledge base of the field. The first one, emic refers to ideas that are present day in the culture itself; and the second one, etic denotes social science ideas that are part of a wider field. Both categories are included in this study: the emic as the context of Wayuu present day ideas found in the fieldwork, and the etic as the ideas that are part of the conflict studies field.

Four: The Trip, Findings, Results’ Analysis, and Discussion

In this chapter I present many aspects of the ethnographic experience. First the description of the trip, then the findings and results presented through categories, defined by the five initial questions, and then an analysis followed by contributions to the field, and conclusion. These results come from the interview transcriptions and my observations in the field. It is important to note that the speakers shared in Spanish, their second language, since they speak Wayuunaki. The quotes, comments, and dialogues were translated to English, however, some of them were paraphrased as they were in their own expressions and it was not always easy to maintain the true sense because their

Spanish level was not so good. Sometimes it was difficult to translate exactly, and this document presents my efforts to conserve their original meaning.

The Trip and My Personal Journey

The trip took place in April 2014. I went to the low Guajira, stayed with a family

1 night and then departed to middle and upper Guajira. It was a 1-week trip looking for palabreros who were willing to dialogue and share about their lives and roles. I conducted four interviews that were recorded and transcribed. Additionally I talked with different people from the community. The detailed process is described below.

I took a 1-hour flight to the capital city of La Guajira department, Rioacha. One of the most surprising things was witnessing the economic situation of the region. This region is extremely poor, and the population lacks basic services to satisfy their needs.

My first thought was, “Does the government come here?” I cannot believe how one of the richest regions of the country in resources can also be so poor.

The first afternoon was about sharing with Wayuu people on the beach and connecting with them. In the evening, one of the leaders of the beach sellers group invited me to her home and confirmed my visit to the first palabrero in Uribia—the

Wayuu capital—for the next day. I talked by phone with him and shared the purpose of the visit and the objective of the study. We agreed to meet the next day in the morning.

The next day early in the morning the Wayuu woman and I went to Uribia on a road trip with three more people. They shared a lot of details about Wayuu culture and the palabrero role during the 2-hour trip. Especially the woman, Marthie, confirmed to me that it would very interesting to meet George, whom I was going to visit. That gave me confidence that I was going in the right direction because I was not sure if he really was a palabrero. In that moment, I realized that he was well known in that territory. These were informal conversations because those passengers did not want the conversation to be recorded, but they allowed me to take notes and one of them agreed to sign the consent form.

That first night I began to understand how they see each other. During my stay there I saw that every house is connected with the rest through the back. I asked why the houses were all connected, and they answered, “we are only one family.”

Once in Uribia I asked for the Ranchería of the palabrero and musician George.

He is a kind man who started our conversation playing some music. I was able to talk with him and his family, and at the end he let me do the interview as an informal conversation. I took pictures and some videos of him playing music as well. At the end of the visit that was around 2 hours long, he asked me to buy some of his instruments and give him some money contribution for sharing with the community. I bought three of

55 them as a contribution. That awoke in me different emotions: on one side I felt happy to have his instruments and be able to share them with my friends; but, on the other side I felt uncomfortable to have to pay. However, I did because I really appreciated and acknowledged his time with me (I was curious if I would have to pay for each interview?). “The instruments are made here. Why? To teach the new generations.” He explained each instrument and specially played one, which is used for shepherding horses and donkeys. When far away they play high-pitched sounds and when getting closer to the water they play bass sounds. The Sawawa (musical instrument) has five holes, they believe that they play the Piachi crying and she calls the spirit.

That same day at noon, I decided to continue traveling to high Guajira in the typical transportation means of the region—a 4x4 trails. However, the woman who had received me the first night decided to go too. From then and during the next 2 days we were a team—Wayuu woman (Marthie), who was guiding me, and I. In the afternoon, after more or less 3 hours, we arrived at Cabo de la Vela—one of the most beautiful places in Colombia—to find an uncle of the woman that she did not know. However, after they introduced themselves, Marthie immediately offered her to stay in her visitors’ place and offered us to contact a relative who works as palabrero. He was not possible to find that day but they proposed that maybe when we came back from Punta Gallinas we could meet him. We spent the night there and in the early morning we went to Punta

Gallinas.

This was a 6-hour trip through the dessert and traveling along the farthest places in the northern point of Latin America. There we shared some time with many people from different clans but it was not possible to find a palabrero. However, the experience

56 spoke for itself because I had the opportunity to meet people, listen about their culture, their jobs, daily activities, and worldview. One night before going back to Cabo de la

Vela we found the palabrero who was the relative of the driver that brought the team to and from the high Guajira (Anthony and Lucy, his wife). His woman Lucy, who spoke better Spanish than he did, helped him. He was a family palabrero who agreed to be interviewed with his wife, signed the consent form, and was recorded. This was a 1.5 hours interview. At the end I bought some sodas and snacks to share with the family members, the driver, and Marthie, who was also helping me as a translator.

That day we came back to Uribia and went to the Wayuu museum in which we found one of the most popular palabreros of the region, Santa. He is blind; therefore his granddaughter, who was with him then, signed the consent form. He also agreed to be recorded. This interview lasted about 45 minutes. We went then to Rioacha and the day after I went to meet with Weildler Guerra, the manager of the Republic Bank who wrote the book The Disputes and the Word (2001).

The interview was in his office—he works in a government institution—in which the National Bank had the exhibition of the Wayuu culture. He, as an academic agreed to be interviewed, signed the consent form, and was recorded, giving information in a generous and didactic way. It was a 2-hour interview. He also agreed to have some pictures taken. He is not a palabrero but is an authority on the topic as Wayuu man, anthropologist, anthropology teacher, member of government, representative of indigenous communities, leader within the Wayuu culture, and researcher.

That day I decided to continue alone to the Camarones beach. It is a place known by the pink flamingos that visit the region at that time of the year. This was close to

Rioacha so it took only half an hour to go there. There it was possible to find many rancherías—places constituted of many families in a close big space—and one person told me that it was probably easy to find some palabreros. As hoped, after arriving there one member of the community who worked in the place where I was staying invited me to visit their ranchería—constituted by 230 people—and meet their leader who works as palabrero when families and clans need it. He was Belisco, who is a different kind of palabrero representing the community in front of other clans solving land issues. This was a 1-hour interview and 4 hours of sharing with the community, seeing their dances, music, living places, leisure activities, and so forth.

Interviews

In the interviews during fieldwork were found data that contribute to the study field and answer questions of the research. Some of that data confirmed information found during the literature review as well as from sources in my field research. For the results’ analysis, I present the information collected as responses to the questions. The information was categorized and summarized as an answer to the five questions presented in the research method chapter (see page 48 and Appendix C).

Wayuu Worldview

I began with my first question: Which is the Wayuus’ worldview that influences strongly their justice’s system and also the conflict facilitation processes? People in the community explained to me that Wayuu means “us, people” and has been used to refer to

La Guajira’s indigenous people who own livestock. One of the interviewees, Weildler

Guerra mentioned that in the Wayuu philosophy there are three values upon which are based most of their behaviors: Life, freedom, and peace. Weildler Guerra said, “The

58 notion of life is understood among Wayuus as the supreme belonging that is not over with age. They consider that there is no one poorer than a dead rich person.” He mentioned Angel Amaya, a famous palabrero who said, “You can do everything with life; with death there is nothing you can do.”

Wayuu Worldview of Conflict

Peace for them is to let live and live freely, therefore it is very important to always solve conflicts in order to maintain it. This is especially because for them life is the most precious treasure and they take care of it with very special solemnity. For them the concept of freedom has a geographical and spatial meaning because as Weildler Guerra, one of the interviewees, said,

The land is wide and huge for pacifist people but it is narrow for conflictive people for whom the paths are few and short. The world of a pacifist man is very different from the world of a warrior: the “pacifist man” has many paths and lives in freedom, meanwhile the “conflictive man” lives in a small world and without opportunity.

These ideas show how they connect nature and psychology in their society.

Weildler Guerra refers to peace emphasizing the role of animals in it:

In fact, they are bred for peace; animals are not just bred for material wealth. The Wayuus who are shepherds (most of them, not all) breed animals for peace. Animals are made to save our lives. Wayuu people say: animals reproduce, you pay today but in two summers, in the next two winters, well, we are going to recover them and you get peace.

For them, as Weildler Guerra explained conflict is “not pathologic, conflict is part of life.” He said,

It not only belongs to humans but also to all living beings; we need first to start from the idea of conflict among Wayuus as something not pathologic. Wayuus think that conflict is a cyclic event inherent to community life, which gives us the valuable opportunity of fixing social relationships.

The approach to conflict is based on the nature of human beings and as part of human relations.

You cannot avoid conflict because of being a calm person; you don’t have conflicts more often because you are difficult. If you are fierce conflict is still going to come to you, if you are little or big it is going to come to you as well. The ant, even if little has conflicts, birds are calm and they always have who can attack them, the snake is fierce and has its adversaries, so humans are not the exception, they say. (Weildler Guerra)

Nevertheless, Anthony also remarks, “conflict is no good; one always tries to solve it. That is why I tell you, even if they are rude, you have always to keep calm and deal with his words, as it must be done.”

The Individual and the Community Sense

In relation to conflict and its meaning, Anthony described the philosophy of conflict in this way.

It is important because it sometimes comes from the ancestors. They must be ok always for example with their neighbors from another community. This because within the Wayuus, if we get to an agreement, we ask everyone around to collaborate, also neighbors from other communities. It is necessary to always have friends so you can solve your problems. It is like a loan that you are reducing. So, when they have to go through the same they come to us asking for help. . . . It is as if I say, “I have a problem, I have to pay 10 million pesos, can you help me with 10 thousand or 5 thousand pesos?” So this is a loan, and if you have no friends you can’t ask anyone. And what conflict means to us? For us conflict is no good, we have to try to have friendship always.

The people that I met on the roads considered that every individual is always perceived as part of a big family group. Therefore the whole family is involved in personal conflicts and also in their solution process and payment for damage. They share responsibility as a community and the responsibility does not only rely on the person who acts. For example, Marthie said while making reference to me, “. . . she is coming with me, she is under my responsibility.” They saw my visit as a collective responsibility.

Santa added, “Well, you know that this is a collective issue. They all contribute, and they are solid because they don’t want a problem for their family and their descendants.”

Additionally, Weildler Guerra noted, “Community life allows better surveillance.”

Apart from this, Weildler Guerra expressed

The individual is not isolated, the individual is never perceived in that way but immersed in a group of relatives, all legally equivalent. So my acts don’t just have an impact over my life, my goods . . . but they have an impact over all my relatives. Because I am seen as a corporate group, which is my Apushi (family group coming from mother’s line) and at the end conflict comes to us, we not always create it, sometimes it comes to us.

Use of Reparations in Conflict Work

The way to establish peace after conflicts is paying for the damages and assuming the consequences over one or many of the family members. If there is no payment, it will not be peaceful, that is the meaning of reparation for Wayuus as was said in all interviews. This is a process that restores relationships and allows them to sustain long- term relationships. At the same time as conflict is part of life, anyone can get benefits from conflicts or from the payments they bring. When someone is not interested in asking for payment, it is because he or she wants to have enmity and create discord. The payment received is not to be spent; it must be saved for future payments and so through many generations. Everyone in the family contributes with the payment because this is the way they can pay too in the future. Weildler Guerra gives an example, “The richest ones will give a bull, some cows, and the women will give some necklaces. The poorest from our family members will probably give a hen.”

The emphasis on material repair is not for material importance. The agreement of the reparation itself is important. For them the payment in the process is a way to represent symbolically the importance of maintaining relationships. It represents the true

61 intention to accept the damage, to accept the accusation or part of it, and to show willingness to do something for the victims. The payment is for repair of the conflict situation and to recover from the pain, not for the value or for the material damages said

Weildler Guerra. He gave this example.

In the case of paying for a woman for marriage, it does not mean that the man is buying the woman as an object. He pays to compensate the pain of her family for losing her. [This] is why we always look for the way to not have problems with anyone.

The goal in this solution process is that people can still meet on the streets, look normally at each other, and can continue living together in friendship. The process facilitated by the Pütchipüü is called pü´ü (job) and pütchi (word, dispute, and process).

In this culture it is not assumed that people act with a bad intention. They always think peace is possible because they really believe people are good and do no act with the purpose to damage anyone or anything. Further, the compensation is for voluntary or involuntary causes. Weildler Guerra stated,

It does not matter if the person is or not guilty, the person is responsible as a consequence of his or her actions. In general [it] is possible to observe that people are not used to lie because they are used to recognize their responsibilities and guilt in the process.

He brought this example: if a man kills someone under the effects of alcohol and shot wrongly, he had no intention to kill him. However, he did it, and therefore he has to be responsible for his behavior.

Additionally, in their worldview, word and speech are very important. The word is the way to build society and to preserve culture. In the processes of solving disputes only Wayuu people assist because the Alijunas (not Wayuu people) do not understand what is happening. Additionally, they can only assist those directly involved in the

62 conflict situation because other people will assist only to gossip and that does not contribute with the progression of the dialogue.

Myth of the Palabrero

Another characteristic in the Wayuu paradigm is that their conflict vision it is based on their mythology, which believes that the palabrero has to have the following features, also described by Weildler Guerra in the meeting. Weildler Guerra stated the myth of palabrero role in this text:

Wayuus tell that in the beginning was born the “seductive palabrero,” the first one organizing the law and men, who gave the principles for social life, the big Maleiwa (their God) he became a palabrero but one day he got tired; after this he called the woodpecker and he was in charge of showing the families’ war terror. He said that was necessary always to give and ask a compensation or they would have to face death, violence, and the loss of all their wealth.

That mythological sense means that the palabrero must be serious and firm but not too strong so as to become aggressive as the wooden bird—they are compared with birds because their rhetorical speech seems like birdsongs. “With prudence as the bat”: not saying too much, not saying too few words. Mostly, “not being as the monkey,” some humor is important but too much can be offensive as he explains below.

People were answering from fear, and the fear took them to treat badly the palabrero. So the bat came. He appeared at the middle of the night or in the early morning, with a hat covering his face. It was not possible to see his face or understand what he was saying. And people were sleepy and ended up more confused than before. As conflicts were getting bigger they called the monkey. But the monkey used to get drunk and have sexual adventures instead of getting to the appointments. So he was a palabrero without any credibility or respect, so they kicked him out.

What does this mean? It means that a palabrero has to be firm but not excessively, he has to be clear and simple while talking, and have a little bit of humor but not become a clown.

My second research question was: What is the role of palabreros inside the

Wayuu community? This is mostly a male role, although nowadays there are a few women doing it as well. This is a long-standing tradition through which palabreros must perpetuate their ancestors and their heritage. In order to do it they persuade people to get into agreements to achieve peace, and through dialogue solve disputes. Part of their role is to decrease tensions between parts. They are considered specialists who help in solving conflicts and maintaining social harmony. Anthony said it in this way, “The palabrero’s work is, when having to solve a problem, always get to an agreement, make sure everything ends up ok, and always try to calm people down, even if they are aggressive with him.” Similarly, Santa said,

We Wayuus have a formative system to apply, which we learned from our grandparents from a millenary tradition. We still conserve this tradition orally. Justice is very important to us because a Wayuu, in this case the palabrero is a pacifist. There are others that have a natural talent and that talent is not written neither in a book or in the paper, it births with the person, because, he likes to do it [and] we call this system “the word circle” when we have to take responsibility for the family, because problems within the Wayuus are collective. If a nephew does something wrong . . . this affects the whole family.

This was the opinion of many of the people with whom I shared the purpose of my visit—going from one place to another, in markets, stores, places where I lived, as well as some people who collaborated during the trip.

Usually they have other activities and jobs to do and the palabrero role is just one part of their lives. For example: Santa plays music and makes poems; George makes instruments and handicrafts for celebrations; Anthony rents places and hammocks on the beaches; and Belisco sent bags and manages ranchería issues with the government, local authorities, and other rancherías and clans. It is not a permanent role, nor a role with legal authority despite they wins authority from doing it.

Weildler Guerra said that they are intermediaries and sometimes they can become mediators.

Palabreros do not act in group they act individually. Palabreros are not an authority, this something else to take into account: palabreros are not referees, they are not moderators, they are not judges, they are not legal defenders, and palabreros are intermediaries that can rise as mediators. When the case is difficult, rhetoric dialogue or the art of talking influencing others becomes fundamental; it is the palabrero’s most important weapon. It is about persuasive discourses to change human behavior. And this is what shows us that language is much more than just a communication vehicle, and it is a praxis instrument formed by social relationships.

Their main job is to ¨bring the word¨ going to the polarities in the conflict, sharing the eldership and wisdom of their past relatives.

Training as Palabrero

Some of them learn from observing their parents, uncles, or relatives. However, they consider it as a vocation or talent that is developed by one who feels attracted since childhood to do so. Weildler Guerra confirms this.

Some children start listening to older palabreros since early ages. They listen and learn that process and as consequence, they understand that it is their future. He learns how appreciate the word and starts solving little family discussions. Then he goes further to disputes.

They train from their childhood to become palabreros, especially during their adolescence. They observe others and begin to take part in easy conflicts until wining their own reputation. Anthony’s wife portrays,

They learn from their ancestors, they observe it. For example my husband is palabrero, true. Like one of my children, one of his nephews that always goes around with him . . . . Where are you going uncle? I will go with you—there is where they start their observation and then all of that is in their heads. They think “this was what my uncle used to do, why can I not?”

How People Describe It and the Rank of Palabrero in Society

Belisco explains, “the relationships between institutions are important, we try to socialize, and the palabrero is the mediator of every conflict with other organizations and between clans.” Belisco, Santa, George, and Albert coincided in the appreciation that in all families there is someone who helps others to facilitate and learns from watching others doing the same. They follow a natural interest to do it: it is a personal call to facilitate. However, sometimes the family proposes someone when they do not have anyone to do it voluntarily. They choose then a family member that looks interested in the role. Santa said,

I learned from my own knowledge, every human being comes with a talent. Why do we come to Earth? We all have a mission. I like this, being a palabrero . . . so that after conflict comes peace, that is the root of cordiality, harmony, good understanding to tolerate in order to get respect each other . . . . ¨

Below is some dialogue with Anthony around how he is as a family palabrero.

I have 10 children, 2 boys and 3 little ones; they give me a headache because I always have to solve their problems. One day his aunt from his mother’s side told him: “As you do not want to study or do anything, work with the law . . . look at the corner! All you see there are things my nephews broke [shows a corner with a lot of damaged things], so the owners brought them here so we can repair them.”

Some years ago they convened a palabreros chamber in order to share experiences and to promote the continuity of the role in future generations. They have an annual meeting in which around 20 or 30 Pütchipüü attend. It is then important to take into account that there are few palabreros in the extensive land of La Guajira.

Role of Payment

They help in solving conflicts related to marriages, murder, stealing of animals, and competition for territory, prestige, and power, as well as different kinds of aggressive behaviors. Every person encountered during my trip talked about the payments they have

66 made or have received by marriages in their families. In the same way, they gave examples of relatives who had to pay for stolen animals or fights with family members.

In the Wayuu tradition all reparations are monetary or material and calculated according to the economic rank of the clan and of the family.

Sometimes the palabrero assesses a self-payment, when the other side is not willing or available to pay but one person decides to pay for the rest. That was the case of

Marthie who decided to get married with her husband, but he had nothing to offer to

Marthie’s family. Therefore, Marthie paid for herself, bringing all her collars to her mother, father, and uncles. She said,

I had two necklaces and as I choose an Alijuna as my husband, he didn’t buy me and I didn’t get married. They (Marthie´s family) took away my earrings, my necklaces, and this is called self-payment. I had to pay them, they took everything, and she brought the goat, the cattle. My mother took the cattle, the same she had given to me.

The core goal of the palabrero is to get the payment for the victims. They consider the payment as the process to get balance again. Therefore their role is to speak and talk in order to make both sides reflect and find a common point of view to get an arrangement. All this, in order to conserve the peace that lets them survive as a community just as George and Santa explained. For example, when I asked George why it was the most important thing for him in the process, he answered “payment is the goal, it is the most important.” Santa said, “if there is no payment, there is no agreement, and there is no peace.” Additionally, he mentioned this example.

So I talk with people and if they say they will pay so then I get ask you palabrero, as they want to pay tell us how much to charge because you know how much a death person costs. So then I put a price because I know how much a dead body costs. If it is a poor person, we cannot demand so much. All depends on his category: if he wants peace he pays for it . . . so . . . you say, “sir, palabrero how

much can I ask for reparation? Or can you ask as you consider because you are who is going to arrange . . .”

Santa continues,

And how to solve the problems? Through a compensation, could be with animals and clothes to be able to pay for a damage or harm so he can keep his respect . . . this is why exists a payment for every offense, threat, robbery, could be a raping, a murder. We bring the payment to be able to keep the respect from both parts: the victim and the victimizer. Then the friendly agreement comes, they shake hands and as you say: beginning from zero. This is why the payment exists; to always keep the respect.

Their main tool is their oration, the ability to express through words, poems, and good arguments. They use their speech to motivate or affect the audience emotionally.

They create a conversation for the involved parts through rhetorical resources. I personally was witness to their eloquence, especially when they spoke in their own language. I saw them as very good storytellers and very poetic, although in Spanish their speaking resources were shown as more limited.

They are not authority figures but they intermediate in the disputes with words.

They are not judges, arbitrators, or conciliators although in some specific cases they can be mediators. Their speeches are based on persuasive arguments that show language as a tool for structuring social relationships. They can say something such as Belisco did,

“Problems are not so good, friendship and trust are the most important . . . therefore I am here to help you to talk and make a deal.”

They do not act in groups. They act as individuals even when they go accompanied to the meetings—commonly by friends and relatives more than by other palabreros. When working, the palabrero keeps calm in spite of hot spots, insults, or whatever the discussion brings. Hence, palabreros are people who are recognized inside the communities for keeping balanced and emotionally controlled states. This is what I

68 perceived in every conversation I had. Everyone who I talked with made reference to palabreros and showed signals of respect and admiration for them. When I asked if someone knew a palabrero everyone made reference to a special person and mentioned them as people with high status. They consider that good palabreros bring elucidation to conflict, but bad palabreros do not move to reach peace. George talked about the palabrero’s status.

To be a palabrero you must have a certain status, inspire respect, come from a good family, be rich. If you are poor, people are not going to pay too much attention to you. I started solving conflicts when I was 20 years old.

Palabreros get paid for their work depending on the damage, the family’s economic rank of the offender, and their prestige as palabrero. The payments I heard during my visit were: animals, necklaces, weapons, and money as it is presented in

Guerra’s (2001) book (Appendix D). In the interview Weildler Guerra described the collar in this way: “There are different types of Wayuu necklaces: coral, archaeological leaf’s main rib which are called Tuma, and gold, and all these combined.”

It is not so common but sometimes people from other families search for external palabreros to help with daily clashes from daily life. They get called for quick arrangements and settlements on the roads.

Classification of Palabreros

Through the conversations I saw that there are many kinds of palabreros divided in similar categories as Guerra (2001) mentions in his book. The ones who facilitate marriage issues gather the payment for the family of the woman. That is the case of

George, Santa, Antony, and Belisco who shared their payment experiences for their women and had arranged payment for other marriages. Some facilitate blood issues or

69 deaths and are specialists in oratory, such as George and Santa who facilitate in both cases. Others just collect the payments—they do not need to be very eloquent—such as

Anthony. Lesser palabreros solve minor problems in neighborhoods, such as Antony and

Belisco. Nowadays, some women especially elucidate conflicts with Alijunas (non-

Wayuu people) or inter-ethnic conflicts as Marthie did in the conflict between the driver and the tourist we found on the road.

During this research I was able to see that everyone inside the community and close to it—Wayuu or non-Wayuu people—acknowledged, respected, understood the importance of the palabrero role in the population of La Guajira, and even expressed reverence. They feel proud to have them as part of their community. In all of the people I spoke with, I never heard a bad or negative comment about them or their job.

My next research question was: How do palabreros facilitate conflicts? Across my travels, the interviews, and fieldwork observations, I collected the information around the process of facilitation which is presented below. It is important to highlight that it was not easy to find many palabreros as Weildler Guerra affirmed, “There are not a lot of palabreros in the Wayuu world, because a palabrero covers a very big area.”

The first step is to accept the invitation from the family to facilitate a dialogue.

These families got to a previous agreement going over three options: do not do anything about the problem, take revenge, or settle it by payment. After choosing the last one they go to the family where the considered offender is. However, George mentioned that sometimes some of them keep their resentment and say, “no, I will not ask for payment” so the problem continues.

Who calls the palabrero? Santa answered, “It depends . . . first is the victims who search the palabrero, it is the most common practice, but sometimes, it is the offender who calls them . . .”

The palabreros present themselves explaining why they are there and state the wish of the victim’s family to make an arrangement to get paid for the damages. Then either families or clans also introduce themselves. Palabreros take an important amount of time to create the atmosphere, build trust, and get the participants to relax before the process begins. At the beginning of the meeting, George said he used to do it this way:

First I say my name, ask who is going to receive the word, where he comes from, and which family that is. Then I say “good afternoon for all of you” and I start saying, “I have come here so you can have peace, you are about to receive the word.”

The family that receives them knows what the purpose of the visit is as they previously talked about their interest to negotiate. In this introductory part, they talk about the clan to which each family belongs because it is very important to know from which clans the involved individuals are coming. The clan defines the sociopolitical structure in Wayuu society. The clan defines what decision about negotiating they will make, the payment they are willing to pay or receive, and even the palabrero they choose for the job. In this case, the palabrero is more an intermediary than a mediator because he has neither complete freedom over the message he is transmitting nor the agreement in the payment. Weildler Guerra affirms that

the little group that goes with the palabrero is normally composed by neutral individuals that aren’t part of the family. They can be neighbors or brothers in law. They try to keep an eye on the palabrero so he doesn’t detach from the message. This is a control mechanism.

This illustrates how the community senses it is important for them and how they work in a collaborative system, in this case as team and coleaders. I am interested in knowing more about how they work as participants’ cofacilitators.

The Investigation

About investigation, I found two different points of view. The palabrero looks for information, testimonies, proof, and evidence because they do not normally facilitate for false accusations. Anthony describes this as, “He says, ‘let me ask if it is true that he was at that place, in that problem.’ So they ask the man and he has to tell his own version.”

Santa says, “The difference is that we do not do investigation of the facts, we arrange immediately without police intervention.” However, I consider they each refer to a different aspect: one is referring to the value of Word and trust in verbal comments, while the other one is mentioning the relationship with the Colombian justice system, which is further explained in the section of types of arrangement.

Preparation

Afterwards, they prepare their clothes based on the following: symbols, glasses, and a traditional handmade hat. Also a cane used for three purposes: dream while drawing figures in the sand, showing authority, and “shoo away” people who interrupt or disturb the process. There is also a gun, which George introduces as, “The gun means respect. It is just in case, because you are not going to have a fight. It is for protection.

And glasses? They are to protect your eyes from the sand and the sun.” All these elements give status to the palabrero while working. Santa talks also about the cane:

“This is an elderly person’s walking stick, from the authorities. It is just used by palabreros and elders.”

As preparation they also take into account their dreams about the conflict, the people involved, and listen to the signals from their dreams, or the dreams of the women from their families. Those dreams add information as they prepare for their dialogue.

They consider that in the dreams are the spirits that come to help them. Spirits sometimes come to tell them about danger or give advice about something important regarding the job. Santa said,

There are dream revelations. For example I get the word today, so it is possible that while sleeping I can feel the visit of the spirit from a friend: “You are going to get in trouble, it is better for you not to go.” They are preventing danger . . . these are spirits coming from the other side; they can be friends with someone, or an old man or woman, or a young person. When the spirit is young is because the person has amulet. An amulet works against danger . . . . It is all a spiritual protection.

Facilitation

During facilitation they can spend between 1 to 3 hours and the process can take one, two, or up to four visits. In some cases when the palabrero does not see positive feedback from the family, he can reject continuing to work or the family can change palabrero. When the families cannot agree, the palabrero leaves the meeting and comes back changing the sense of the words. They are normally not obstinate or stubborn. To the question of how they get the wisdom of the word, George answered: “It comes when we are speaking.” George mentioned that they are flexible with the compensations dates

“they don’t wish to bankrupt you, or incarcerate someone, because he is not useful at all while in jail.” In the cases of murder or rape, the palabrero and the family talk to the victim to make him realize his fault, but they do not have a punitive system.

Palabreros also have the habit to go in groups of two or three palabreros, or also can be accompanied by others who help them to be sure they are saying the right words.

As Anthony mentioned,

They explain to each other what to do, and they correct each other. For example, if you change the curse, the other one will stop you and says “no, those are not the correct words.” This is why they are always three or more.

One of the objectives is to calm the sides in dispute to be able to introduce a dialogue that leads them to a deal. George spoke of a case in relation to the period of time that the process took: “The process can take three or four visits and there are three payments in about 1 year.”

Palabreros are persistent in talking until the word “gets the heart.” Anthony says,

“Yes, there are always troubles with people who do not understand. But, as I told you, the palabrero has always to endure it until the word touches his heart.” The palabrero talks to the person and then they get to an agreement. They are also focusing on not hurting people or letting them hurt themselves. Sometimes they offer advice in front of the audience and do suggestions, especially for young people. I believe that their metaskills and openness are very important.

Anthony told me that the palabrero explains to you what you have to do, how to react when someone offends you, and how to not hurt anyone or yourself. He tries to get to the bottom of your heart through words. For example, “I am with a group and someone attacks me, what do I do? Calm them down.” He says at the end,

I give the best from myself so I can be a good lawyer, a good palabrero. So in this way everyone comes looking for me . . . a bad palabrero takes you into a fight, the good one solves the problem.

Types of Arrangements

As part of the process they do three kinds of arrangements for payment: material payment—based on animals; symbolic payment—by bringing a weapon; and aesthetic

74 payment—with necklaces and mules. When the deal is made, they also share a glass of liquor with the two families—only one because it is part of the ritual—and shake hands as a symbol of friendship. Santa says, “A toast is made in front of the elders, the parts, the brothers, the families . . . and that is the end. And then it comes the party.” In case of murdering, the killer is not present in the negotiation, only his family. Weildler Guerra distinguishes the use of animals acquired by a payment:

the animals gotten as payment . . . I keep for payments. . . . I am not going to kill that animal . . . when I look at it, it reminds me of my dead uncle, of my brother’s death in combat.

Sometimes women can intervene and this happens in two ways: being rebellious or reflecting about the future. Santa said that, “always the women are thinking of the future, in their brothers, cousins, and ancestors and in this way they promote the conciliation to maintain the balance in the clans, however, sometimes they are rebels.”

For example, they make people reflect on relatives who can be affected if they do not negotiate. That is specifically the case of Belisco who constantly is doing this work with his relatives. Lucy his wife, said,

We require a palabrero who helps us as a family. He has more than 50 cousins, he decided not go to school, and therefore his family brought him the mission to be the palabrero for the family because someone has to help solve conflicts of more than 50 members.

The negotiation only finishes when both parts really approve the deal. If not, the wrangle will reappear in the future. If the compensation is too low the next generations could continue in conflict for a long time. Santa said, “The family then accepts an insignificant payment for the damage. But this does not compensate the damage that has been done . . . so there is always going to be resentment there and it could explode later.”

Everyone interviewed agreed that the process to complete the payment could take up to 1

75 year or more when the family needs to collect more in order to complete the payment.

Weildler Guerra said that at the beginning of the first payments, weapons are presented to show sincerity of interest, next the collars and mules—as a symbol, because in the past mules were considered valuable as transportation and nowadays they have a precious meaning—and finally the animals. They show a lot of confidence in the process demonstrated. For example, in the time they concede to pay, people acknowledge that the payment could take many months and in some cases years. Additionally, George said that in the same way the families agree to pay, the palabrero must be paid. As Anthony said,

Let’s suppose that there are 40 goats. How many the palabrero gets? Sometimes he gets 10 and 30 get divided among the family who gets the payment . . . The palabrero does not go for a salary, they normally send someone “go and get me 100 goats, 50 cows, this number of necklaces.”

Additionally Santa said, “The palabrero gets the best goat . . . There are some families with a high status and they pay with pearls, which then they change for animals.”

Next I inquired: How do the Wayuus manage to work within two different justice systems? Anthony describes justice as “everyone must get what is right, none should keep resentment . . . so tomorrow, when they find each other in the streets, they can say

‘hi’ and they can keep the friendship.” I did not ask them how they get through resentment or how they deal with the emotions. Weildler Guerra talked about responsibility in their justice system: “All damages caused voluntarily or involuntarily have to be compensated to prevent resentment and future disputes within families.” For him, “The pre-Hispanic notion of restorative justice is meant to restore the broken social relationships between two groups . . . it is not directed to the punishment, that is not the intention.” Regarding who does the negotiation, he said, “You don’t charge directly, we avoid face-to-face negotiation. Here comes the intermediary or specialist, called Pütchi.”

They do not believe in the national justice system. For them, that system is based on accomplishing or not the law, but not on the essential values of society. It is based on catching responsible parties but not in solving problems. The financial, material, and especially symbolic compensation resolves problems when the palabrero speaks and tries to reach the heart. Deeper problems and smaller problems alike are solved through the palabrero’s speech and his consequent arrangement.

At the same time, they consider that the National system makes people more distanced from each other instead of bringing them closer. Wayuus think that putting people in jail does not solve anything; it just causes more problems. They also believe that a justice system must be based on the causes of damage for prevention of it happening again, not for the violation of a law’s code. They focus on the restoration of human relations, not on punishment and judges. Anthony describes their vision in this way: “When there is a conflict between members of the community we don’t accept the presence of the law because they don’t fix it . . . It gets solved between the ones involved, just talking properly.” It is good to know that human relations are restored and payments are being done, because that process allows both sides to recover their dignity. In the dialogues they come to know what the cause or the root of the conflict was and they speak out openly about the issue.

They are so very proud of their justice system, as Santa explained, “Our justice system is a big one and it will exist as long as Wayuu people exist in this world.” Marthie said that

the families lift the corpses, government institutions do not lift the corpses, since people from the government or the police do not take care or respect the meaning of the lost life for the family. Those are not only their lives; those are the lives of their ancestors.

Natives from the community expressed that inside Wayuu society the Wayuu justice system is considered better than the national one, as being more fair, reasonable, and competitive. George stated, “sometimes when people are in the police office, the palabrero asks to liberate them and say we arrange that, we will make their payment by their faults.” Making use of the national system is considered wrong and they advise people not to do it because they already have a working system in the community. They agree that they do not like police in their problems and nowadays police understand and respect their approach. The drivers, hostess, and many with whom I talked affirm that the local authorities understand, accept, and respect the Wayuu system, and normally they do not intervene in their problems.

Anthony explains this in the following way.

You know that there are moments of anger in which you wish the worse for whom hurt us. So, one sometimes walks to the authorities . . . but if your family is around they will tell you “that is not the right path, you will do nothing putting him in jail, let’s take this from him.” This is why we almost never go to the authorities when we have a problem.

For the people with whom I talked, inside the Colombian justice structure people do not learn anything about their experiences. They go 3 days to jail and do not learn anything because they do not have the space to reflect about what happened. The Wayuu is a results oriented-system based in restorative justice, instead of accomplish-law system. Anthony talks about the police in the area saying,

Yes, they understand. Almost all the authorities in this area, the police, they do not pay attention and do not get involved. When we have problems I tell the police—if they arrive—that it is not their concern, that they have no right to get into the house. That problem is ours and we fix it out of your law. We are not Alijunas, we are Wayuu.

The Wayuu system is based then in well-intentioned acts, meanwhile the national system operates on the stated basis that people act wrong on purpose. For example, for

Wayuus if someone hurts another person as a consequence of being drunk, he has to repair but not be punished. The reason is that he did not act in order to harm or injure, he was intoxicated and therefore not under self-control. In case of violation they say, “it was a short-sighted man who misunderstood a female looking and was not able to flirt with that beautiful woman.” This is a controversial idea in western society; however, it explains their worldview about the idea of people in general having good intentions.

Wayuu people do not normally deny their responsibilities. A very good thing from the Wayuu law is that it does not turn around evidence because they bring high value to the Word.

The Wayuu’s justice paradigm states that in each conflict everyone has at least a little bit of responsibility. In every conflict there is no person who is 100% right. In every conflict there are at least two parts implied and both have part of the responsibility. The tensions can be interpersonal but also intergroup and in both cases it is necessary to get someone to help.

In the Sukuaipa Wayuu (Wayuu law), Weildler Guerra explains.

Both groups are losers in the dispute. The victim’s family loses not only a beloved member, but also social recognition. They look vulnerable . . . their physical and social integrity diminishes. The responsible family had a member who broke the law, which is a collective conduct, and through the compensation they both recover their status and become both winners.

The most relevant causes of dispute for Wayuus, mentioned by Weildler are

the worse offenses are a grave’s profanation—which is worse than murder—or the profanation of a dead person and aggression against children and women. This last one is due to the fact that they are defenseless beings and one gains nothing damaging them.

Additionally, Weildler Guerra stated that members of the family who constantly get in trouble with one of their members have a talk with him: “We are tired of paying for you, it is enough, the next case you are alone, without the group. They get a warning” to prevent people from taking advantage of the reparation process.

My last question focused on: What could we learn from them in PW and in the world? They showed that negotiating and promoting a balance brings peace into communities because conflicts do not have to be permanent, nor long term. George said,

always try to negotiate and solve conflicts because if the other party is rebellious, sure you can be more rebellious than he or she. But you must respect other people’s rights, do not look for trouble and see the others as you see yourself, look always for peace.

Weildler Guerra remarked, “Wayuus say that you build peace as you make a necklace,” describing metaphorically the process of being careful, dedicated as an artist who makes a necklace. In addition he remarks that

This whole Wayuu legal system is very interesting as it looks to question punitive measures like jail and death penalty. It underlines life, freedom, and peace as supreme values, and also, rescues the word as something almost tangible and language as a social relationships transformer. (Weildler Guerra)

For the speakers in the Gold Museum exposition (2014) the future of Wayuu’s justice system depends on their ability to respond to social and technological changes.

Also it will vary depending on understanding from the rest of the Colombian population about their harmonic and complex world-view system. They consider that “the oratory can extend through time and be part of the recompilation of many voices of human being.”

Santa gave advice to conflict facilitators: “My advice for you is to learn from us.

Do not look for fights but always respect the other person’s rights.”

Knowing the work of the palabreros and listening to the comments of different members of the community, it is possible to observe that these people have a high level of metaskills. This means a wide inventory of skills, attitudes, and values that help people not only in conflict but also in relationships inside the community. This also confirms what Amy Mindell (1995) presents as Metaskills, which states that our spiritual beliefs determine our attitudes and explain how a spiritual point of view creates a path to behave and facilitate conflicts in an effective way. In addition, both the community and the palabreros choose people for this role based on the metaskills that some of them show more than others. They identified their metaskills as being able to work with anyone, have credibility, do a proper use of the words, keep calm, stay connected with dreams, and the big dream of the community, among others. The feeling attitudes or metaskills, presented by Amy Mindell (1995, p. 20) as fluidity, compassion, humor, playfulness, and shamanism, are skills that are also very appreciated by this community.

Similarities and Differences Between Wayuu and PW

My main question was how are the Wayuu palabreros and Process-Oriented

Conflict facilitation styles similar or different? To answer this question, data were categorized by similarities and differences between the two styles of facilitating conflicts’ solution process.

Similarities found are that both paradigms include the vision of conflict as part of human beings and consider it important to deal with them instead of rejecting them.

Conflicts are considered part of collective issues not only personal. In the national system a person responds individually for his/her actions, and their families do not respond as occurs in the Wayuu system. It is as Mindell (2013) describes in The Dance of the

Ancient One when he states that we cannot consider that the problems of the world do not belong to us as a whole community.

The Wayuu´s and PW conflict paradigms each work on different levels— interpersonal, intergroup, and transpersonal. These approaches work at the interpersonal level when they are focusing on solving conflicts between two or more people in the group. Both work at the intergroup level when engaged in solving conflicts between communities or different groups involved, such as PW does in open forums or worldwork and the Wayuu do in solving disputes between clans and families. They both function at the essence level when the Wayuus consider transpersonal drives such as peace, liberty, life, family, and / or friendship as high values or principles with common ground, and in the case of PW when supporting the ground of deep democracy.

PW facilitators and Wayuu palabreros work in their practices with feedback from the participants. The PW facilitators work following signals to flow the process; the palabreros follow signals of agreement and are consistent to follow the process and are willing to leave the role and change the palabrero if they do not noticing true arrangements.

Regarding the rank of their role as facilitators, the palabrero has high rank inside the community and whomever assumes the role accepts its rank. In PW it is the same.

Both facilitators are aware of their spiritual rank and use it consciously for the sake of the community. Both facilitators are aware of the rank dynamics present in the groups, noticing when rank differences can lead to escalate or deescalate the conflict processes.

The two kinds of facilitators in those models use metaskills to facilitate. They do not only use techniques but also attitudes, values, and feelings (metaskills) that made

82 them more skillful in their practices. Palabreros seek to gain an initial agreement about the issue at the beginning of the meeting as a technique in order to begin the meetings, similar to gaining consensus in PW.

Both of them take into account the rank of the parts in the conflict. Wayuus believe that both parts have reason, just as PW facilitators consider that accusations of both sides are true up to a certain point. They work with ghost-roles. In Wayuu’s culture ghosts of the ancestors, family members, and relatives are always present. It is thus important to take them into account in the dialogues. However, palabreros may not see other third parties such as the mainstream justice system as ghosts, while PW considers any roles that are not represented to be ghosts and has methods to work with them.

Palabreros consider dreams as part of the facilitation process. Dreams give information to the facilitators and to the community. Similarly, PW accepts dreams as part of the information belonging to dreamland. The Wayuus share and tell the palabreros the signals they notice in their dreams before they are going to facilitate.

Similarly the palabrero observes his dreams to catch his own signals about the sides in the conflict and the relationship between them. PW facilitator uses dreams and dreamlike experience as a preparation for facilitation. For example, facilitators work on fear before facilitating, amplifying the experience or picking up the different roles and voices that can appear during the process. Similarly, PW facilitators take their own experience as part of dreaming and work on it in order to get clarity as well as fluidity. Mindell

(2002) presented many ideas referring to doing open forums, for example: “consider an issue you would like to see addressed in an open forum. What is the topic at hand? What are some of the possible subsidiary issues that might arise? Who are your teammates?”

(p. 50). Additionally, palabreros draw in the sand while are facilitating to check the words both sides are saying, but especially to capture a sense of the sentient awareness in order to choose the best words in the dialogue. Similarly, Mindell (2002) states that insights and awareness about ghost roles as well as hotspots serve to create good interventions bringing the topics in gentle way.

Both Wayuus and PW facilitators are aware that they could be attacked and they do some things to deal with that as they have techniques and tools to face public attacks.

In my field observations, as I mentioned above, they acknowledged that in every case both parts have responsibility. In the PW model it is accepted that at least a small part of the accusation is true, and palabreros and Wayuu society think so, too.

PW facilitators and Wayuu’s palabreros work in similar stages during their facilitation: preparing personally doing inner work and community work, sorting the issues, getting consensus, following feedback, working with attacks, identifying ghost roles, framing temporary or definitive resolutions, and naming tasks that the parts do to maintain the relationship in the future.

Finally, I believe that both approaches create a deep sense of safety in their communities as a consequence of bringing space to marginalized voices. This was especially remarkable in my experience because I can see how from Processwork’s perspective and Wayuu’s perspective both facilitators and palabreros help to create experiences in the individuals that build sustainable communities through these transformative conflict approaches.

Differences were also found. It seems that in Wayuu’s culture some emotions related with conflict get marginalized, especially anger. Their primary identity is “we

84 deal with conflicts,” but unconsciously they say, “we do not like to have conflicts,” which is why they avoid the police, and do whatever to evade continuous fighting. The palabrero has biases toward solving conflicts, getting into agreements, and repairing damages. They are not totally open to listening to different ideas, or neutral to flow with the process. In the interviews, I perceived that they have a preconceived position from within the family. I believe that having a preconceived position does not allow people to get to new discoveries, to explore unknown experiences, and then to find surprising solutions—as PW facilitators are used to doing. Being called to work as palabreros by the family may both create and hide bias, whereas PW facilitators tend to be neutral or at least aware of their biases and / or preferred position in the conflict sides. PW facilitators use their biases and that can help them to get information about the field. Maybe the palabreros do this but I was not able observe a facilitation process because those are private. Additionally, I can suppose palabreros do not take different roles in their facilitation practices, given that they commonly take the side of the victim or the side who has contracted him.

In conflicts with the national justice system, Wayuus take only their voice. They marginalize the vision of the national voice, and they do not accept that sometimes, the national justice system can contribute to maintain order in the region. It may be because today as a minority group they are focusing on standing with themselves. However, it would be interesting if they are able to introduce their ideas to the mainstream and the mainstream may also contribute to their growing as a society. One way in which they have obtained these benefits is that all the Wayuu people in Colombia and Venezuela can

85 have national visa of the other country because despite their location in both countries, they are considered only one tribe.

The Wayuus have gender differences in the role of facilitator because women do not completely assume that role. Nowadays, there are woman palabreros. They do contribute with their dreams, advice, or by making the process inside the community easier, but not in facilitating directly, except in minor conflicts and only a few do it.

Contributions of the Research to Processwork

This study contributes to the field of conflict work by adding information about new cultures that had not been yet studied in PW, more specifically, the Colombian indigenous group of Wayuu. The research gathered knowledge about different conflict solution types including those more traditional as studied in academic and consultant orientation. It also investigated both similarities and differences between the Wayuu approach to conflict and that of PW, adding additional new data.

The experience of studying, visiting, observing, and talking with these people adds value to some PW concepts, especially in considering new data about human processes. Two clear examples of this are the importance of dreams in the Wayuu culture and in the palabrero role within it. Palabreros make use of night dreaming for planning their interventions. The other members of the community also share their dreams to help the palabreros and the community in preparing for the conflict facilitation meeting. The

Wayuu culture uses dreams to guide them in their work and this data offers validity to

PW basis about making use of dreams and the process of dreaming in the moment of conflict facilitation practices.

The study of this culture and the role of palabrero shows other cultures how to facilitate from a metaposition coming from the essence level, in which the approach is totally connected with their vision of humankind and human relations—in this case with the vision to maintain the stability and durability of their society. An example of a palabrero using metaskills and coming from not only CR level was presented by

Weildler Guerra in talking about a woman who was kidnapped. The palabrero involved spoke to the guerrilla,

What has this woman done to deserve this from you? Because she must have done something or have some responsibility for you to do this to her. We want to know what she did wrong so we can pay for it.

This comment illustrates that they begin from the assumption that every person has some responsibility in every situation. In consensus reality, this comment from the palabrero might sound very strong and imply that the woman has responsibility for having being kidnaped. However, in dreamland or sentient level, they are looking for a deeper meaning or intention for her kidnapping that might have to do with her development or secondary part of her identity that she needed to embrace. This also can be looked at as what is the deep intention or need in the kidnapers that let them to do this terrible act? It can be related to concerns of equity, social balance, or similar. In that case, they told me how this strange comment in approaching the guerilla side allowed the guerrilla member to be open and explore and dialogue from curiosity and not a defensive position.

In CR it is difficult to understand how people in a community feel safe with a murderer because they are not going to prison. Nevertheless for them, in the prisons nothing can be solved, and they prefer to use their own justice methods. Reviewing the literature I found that maybe in some extreme cases they asked the police to help but that

87 is not desired because they consider that it will keep the dispute between families and it is more important to maintain the community union. Asking for police involvement is a way to escalate the conflict process.

Moreover, their restorative justice system is not directed to punishment as was mentioned above, but is directed to restore strained relationships. I believe that this point merits much more investigation and study in depth for future research. Their system is much more relational than the mainstream one and this is something that the world can learn from their system.

It is important to underline that they are connected in relations not only between them as clans or families but also with their ancestors, and the meaning of maintaining their society through time depends on their ability to maintain all of their relationships.

Also, they are a community who protects less privileged groups such as children, women, and this include the dead person or their ancestor’s graves as was mentioned earlier.

It is an important underlying point that they do not finish the process until the negotiation has achieved a really true agreement because they think if it does not happen, it will come again in the future. This is similar to a temporary resolution process in PW.

During this process is very important to maintain the relationships and attachments between members of the community. I believe this is an example of democracy and diversity in which a tribe can maintain their vision even if immersed in a bigger culture or community as the Colombian one.

The Wayuu worldview highlights that it is important to understand the metaskills and the vision of conflict of a different culture, that strongly differs from most western and eastern cultures. For the Wayuu community, conflicts are part of life beyond human

88 life. Conflicts are part of all living communities, even for plants and animals. They think that all living beings have conflicts and accepting that idea is part of their great metaskills. It lets them face and deal with conflicts instead of avoiding them.

For me, working with a new community such as the Wayuu was a great opportunity to apply structural analysis in a completely new environment. I did not do it as part of this thesis. Nevertheless, I did it as part of my own training as case analysis during my studies and that allowed me to grow in the skills of applying the knowledge in a different field. It gave me also the possibility to develop my own metaskills as a facilitator by following the process instead of doing interpretations about it. At the same time I trained myself to identify the elder and eldership in everyone—regardless of the culture they belong to—especially in Colombia where we are a very local culture that is different from other more globalized cultures (i.e., European or North American societies who have been in contact with many regional ancient cultures).

This ethnographic experience allowed the brief exploration of a culture in which relationships, movements, and world channels are constantly used to understand the surrounding world and daily life. It is highly interesting because it is possible to observe how these channels are important in facing current human issues. These channels work integrally in making the facilitation process more effective than when only the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic channels are utilized—although they are better known in traditional therapeutic, consulting, and facilitation professional practices for helping people in solving conflicts.

Knowing the social and political structure helps in recognizing the rank dynamics in this culture and the rank of the role of palabrero in Wayuu society. One of the big

89 contributions to my own growth as a facilitator was learning how important it is to recognize my own power and assume fully the role of a conflict facilitator when I act as facilitator in a professional context. There are many signals within people of higher rank in the Wayuu and in non-Wayuu communities around the region—that palabreros are respected and their words are accepted because they have a good reputation and trust inside the community as a consequence of solving conflicts and maintaining the community’s continuity.

At the same time the study of Wayuu culture offers important elements to shamanic studies and earth-based psychology. In the research’s results it is possible to identify new ways to be in contact with dreamland, access deep levels of consciousness, and be aware of inner processes. This is all to get information, communicate, and relate with others in the stages of conflict solution, as they do with the process of listening to their dreams and community dreams as well as the use of canes to draw in the sand as an access to dreamland consciousness. The way in which palabreros write on the floor during facilitation or the way in which the community uses their dreams, are examples of working with dreaming and essence levels. The particular case when they worked with the stick showed a way of getting in contact with second attention. That led me to think that there are other more dreamlike ways in which people connect with different levels of awareness that deserved to be explored and studied in the future.

Wayuu’s style of conflict facilitation offers an example of using reparation as the main way to solve disputes. This opens a new field of study related to reparation as a tool of justice and the importance of repairing the damages of our human mistakes.

The research also shows the readers a new study field within conflict resolution.

One and the same community works within two different justice systems—the Wayuu’s justice system and national (Colombian) justice system. Challenges for the 21st century are related to gathering with true diversity when justice systems represent diversity. This is the case of the Wayuu tribe that builds confidence around their own methods of justice, and the Colombian government, which has accepted them as legitimate.

Finally, but no less important, the present study contributes to the recognition of the similitudes and differences between the PW paradigm and the Wayuu paradigm within the context of conflict facilitation. The similitudes promote further and deeper studies about this specific community and the role of palabrero. At the same time, it incentivizes the addition of new data that enriches the PW paradigm. The differences contribute to stimulate additional exploration and comprehension of the diverse and still incompletely explored field of human nature.

For future research, here are some specific topics that were not explored in this current study:

• How do people in a community feel safe with a murderer because he is not put

in prison?

• How does this facilitation practice used earth-based methods?

• How do they use sentient methods? (More specifically and studied in depth

because this was only the first approach to it). How do they access dreamland

and essence levels?

• Do they use their inner process as part of their facilitation practices?

• Issues about gender and conflict. The female-male roles and visions are

especially interesting to study in this matrilineal culture in which the gender

roles are so different from other mainstream cultures.

• Exploration of rank issues related with economics, age, gender, and clans.

• The meaning of richness, prosperity, and abundance, and their impact in the

conflict structure.

• Cultural studies about communication, long or short-term vision, present and

past, and conservative and cross-cultural impacts.

• The role of language, civilization, and technology in role changes as well as

political influence in their internal dynamics.

• The future of the community, its leadership development, their interest to

maintain and protect their worldview, and how Colombian institutions can

make use of their eldership and wisdom.

This research of an indigenous population in Colombia promotes qualitative research—especially other ethnographic studies—that can show new and important aspects of the marginalized groups’ reality. An important question could be: Are the government, the citizens, and the natives doing something to maintain their wisdom and the eldership of the culture? Ethnography can stimulate data collection in order to document the state of the evolution of indigenous and native communities around the world.

Five: Conclusion

Finally, I can offer reflections about the great experience during this epic journey.

As well as in Colombia, in various places in the world we can find sources of wisdom in native communities and especially in indigenous groups that have managed to maintain their ancient wisdom through the ages.

The Wayuu community, as with other Colombian ethnic groups, provides us with learning and deep ideas regarding their worldview. It is one based on a vision that honors the collective, of conflict as a natural source of learning and individual and group growth, and of its essential values: peace, life, and freedom.

Likewise, the Wayuu community shows its power as a group, which has led them to be the largest indigenous community in Colombia and Venezuela. This society also has survived despite the influences of colonization, religions, and has even retained their own language despite being located in a region with total interaction with western culture.

Finding in the palabreros some of the metaskills that comprise part of the paradigm of Processwork was surprising. Also unexpected was recognizing the value that they gave dreams and contact with dreamland as illustrated when dialogues were facilitated by the use of the palabrero’s cane.

In relation to my personal experience as an ethnographic researcher, I have the satisfaction of having lived 1 week on my own, immersed in my experience of the customs of this community, and being an observer detached and fluent with the process.

This in turn has contributed to the development of my own metaskills.

The field of conflict is wide and further studies about the use of these techniques and skills to solve conflicts in the world would definitely be useful. Likewise, the

93 contributions of PW to many communities could be immense, especially in regions when conflict transformation is the approach preferred.

Possibilities for future studies were mentioned before. However I want to say again the importance of promoting conservation of the traditions, and especially to continue working around the situation of living inside one indigenous justice system within the different and larger national justice system of Colombia.

Definitively the most amazing experience for me was to be an ethnographer for the time of this project. To cocreate with all of the research team—community members, research assistants, and editor who did great work with the management of languages, my project advisor, and study committee—has offered major contributions to my ongoing growing and learning experience as a facilitator.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Clans of the Tribe (in electronic version)

Appendix B: Consent Forms (Spanish and English)

Appendix C: Interview Questions

Appendix D: Pictures of Necklaces (in electronic version)

Appendix E: Pictures of Palabreros (in electronic version)

Appendix F: Pictures of the Journey (in electronic version)

Appendix A: Clans of the Tribe from Pimienta, M. (1993). La Historia de todo lo existente. Rioacha, Colombia: Universidad de la Guajira.

100

Appendix B: Consent Form—Spanish

FORMATO DE CONSENTIMIENTO Y ACEPTACIÓN PARA PARTICIPAR EN EL ESTUDIO.

TITULO DE LA INVESTIGACIÓN: los palabreros como facilitadores de conflicto en la cultura Wayuu en Colombia.

NOMBRE DEL ESTUDIANTE: Adriana Vásquez del Río

Este proyecto hace parte de la Maestría en facilitación de Conflictos y Cambio Organizacional del Process Work Institute (PWI).

Este trabajo es supervisado y asesorado por Ayako Fujisaki, profesora de PWI.

En este estudio se pretende conocer la filosofía de conflicto en esta cultura y el rol del palabrero como facilitador de conflictos.

La participación en este estudio involucra la observación de los miembros de la comunidad en su hábitat y costumbres, la observación de la facilitación de conflictos y entrevistas a los palabreros u otros miembros de la comunidad.

Su participación es totalmente voluntaria y usted es libre de no responder las preguntas, no aceptar ser observado o no ser parte de este estudio. Usted puede retirarse cuando lo desee o participar solo hasta el momento que desee estar como participante. Todas sus decisiones serán aceptadas y usted será respetado por cualquier decisión que tome.

Si usted quiere conocer los resultados, por favor, contacte a Adriana Vásquez al 315- 3009095 o a Ayako Fujisaki al correo [email protected]. Si usted tiene cualquier pregunta o desea información adicional puede contactar a Adriana Vásquez al correo [email protected]

------

Los palabreros como facilitadores de conflicto en la cultura Wayuu en Colombia.

Yo, ______acepto participar en el estudio dirigido por Adriana Vásquez en la manera que ella lo ha mencionado.

Yo entiendo que la información que se recoja puede ser usada con fines de investigación y estudio y acepto que sea usada en esta manera.

______FIRMA FECHA

101

Consent Form—English

Informed Consent Form

Research’s Title: Palabreros in Wayuu culture from Colombia: Similitudes and Differences with Process Oriented Facilitating Conflict Style Student’s Name: Adriana Vásquez del Río

This is a research project, which is being developed within the Conflict Facilitation and Organizational Change Master’s program from the Process Work Institute (PWI). Ayako Fujisaki, PWI’s associate professor, supervises and advises this research process.

The study attempts an approach to the Wayuu’s conflict philosophy and the palabrero’s role as the conflicts facilitator. It involves the observation of the community members in their everyday life and their usual behaviors; the observation and analysis of the conflict facilitation process; and interviews with the palabreros and other community members.

Your participation is completely voluntary and you are always free to not answer the questions, decide not to be observed, or not be part at all of this research. You are free to leave the process whenever you wish and be part of it as you decide. All your decisions regarding your participation in the research will be accepted and respected.

If you would like to know about the results you can contact Adriana Vásquez, telephone number 315-3009095 or Ayako Fujisaki, e-mail address [email protected]. If you have any further questions or you would like additional information about this project you can always contact Adriana Vásquez, e-mail address [email protected].

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Palabreros in Wayuu culture from Colombia: Similitudes and Differences with Process Oriented Facilitating Conflict Style

I, ______accept to be part in the previously described research, conducted by Adriana Vásquez. I understand that the collected information will be used only for research and I accept these conditions.

______SIGNATURE DATE

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Appendix C: Interview Questions

Questions for the semistructured interviews:

1. What does justice mean for you? What does peace mean for you? What do relationships mean and what does a good relationship mean for you?

2. What is the meaning of conflict for you?

3. How do you train yourself for being a “palabrero”?

4. How do you facilitate conflicts? Which methods or steps do you follow? What is most important for you when being a facilitator? What kind of conflicts do you facilitate?

5. What do you suggest to those who facilitate conflicts around the world?

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Appendix D: Pictures of Necklaces from Guerra, W. (2001). La disputa y la Palabra: La ley en la sociedad Wayuu. Bogotá,

Colombia: Ministerio de Cultura

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Appendix E: Pictures of Palabreros and Leaders Taken During the Trip

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Appendix F: Pictures of the Journey

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GRACIAS!

A TODO EL PUEBLO WAYUU POR SU SABIDURIA ANCESTRAL