Re-imagining Dialogue: Reflections & Insights on Convening, Circulation and Movement to Build Trust and Stitch Together Disparate Groups

John Paul Lederach discusses his reflections of decades of countless past dialogue experiences where what happened before, between and after convenings and face-to-face interaction proved highly significant but often was underestimated and under invested.

John Paul has been exploring how circulation offers a different approach to building understanding and even consensus than convening representatives. Circulation refers to a method of conflict resolution and peacebuilding that focuses on continuous, decentralized movement and connection with parties. It’s a process of strategic travel, or “circulation” through communities, learning to stitch together disparate groups and share insights, much like how insects and spiders build webs and pollinate resources.

This approach emphasizes building trust and relationship at the local level, and stitching, continuously sharing and connecting ideas across different spheres to build a more resilient system. Circulation is rarely perceived as a strategy, mostly it is envisioned as preparation for the real work. John Paul asks, What if the inverse were more accurate: The real genius of dialogue lies in the quality of cultivation and circulation. He draws examples from past experiences and explore current applications.

Lederach’s article in Waging Nonviolence, “Why movements need to learn to fly like bees and thread like spiders,” is available here : https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/07…
Website: https://www.johnpaullederach.com
Chat transcript: https://niki-borofsky-an2g.squarespac…
Link to a dispatch sharing the opening “century” of the about to be released book, The Centuries Wrap Round Us: https://www.johnpaullederach.com/disp…

Speaker Bio:
JOHN PAUL LEDERACH

John Paul Lederach’s vocation is a practitioner in local and national peace processes with extensive experience in Latin America, Africa, Southeast and Central Asia, and Europe. He is widely known for the development of culturally based approaches to conflict transformation and the design and implementation of integrative and strategic approaches to peacebuilding. He is a haikuist, potter, and woodworker who pursues the integration of the arts and peacebuilding.

Lederach is Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and a Senior Fellow with Humanity United. He is author and co-editor of 30 books and manuals, including The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford University Press), Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (USIP Press), The Little Book of Conflict Transformation (Skyhorse Publishing), and The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War: Surprising ideas from everyday people who shifted the cycles of violence (self-published). Learn more about John Paul Lederach and his contributions to the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation by visiting: www.johnpaullederach.com.

John Paul Lederach

John Paul Lederach is Professor of Practice for International Peacebuilding with the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.  He works as a practitioner-scholar, providing facilitation, mediation and training/education, with extensive experience at national and community levels in North and Latin America, Africa,… MORE