The Changing Context of Conflict Resolution

“When a man and woman argue, the first thing she says is that she is going,” states a Nuer husband in his late twenties. But where does she go? While the structure and rheto­ric of argumentation may remain similar between the Sudan and the United States, the implications of “leaving” are very different.

The absence of a wider kinship network means not only that women may have diffi­culties in obtaining refuge from a difficult home situation, but also that the traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution are not available. While Hutchinson (1996: 229) notes the effects of British-initiated policies in decreasing the influence of the kinship network on Nuer marriage (in the words of one Nuer “the fate of marriage was increasingly put into the hands of two people who couldn't agree about anything”), the parents, siblings, uncles, and aunts continue to have considerable influence over a relationship in which they have a tangible stake. In contrast, in Wacohtia the “two people who couldn't agree on anything” are placed in the position of resolving disputes themselves without the aid of kin in calming individuals and mediating their disputes, without the pressure that kin may exert in order to preserve the marriage for the sake of the wider interests involved.

In short, then, while facing new and unfamiliar sources of tension in the marital rela­tionship, Nuer couples have ostensibly been extricated from those mechanisms that tradi­tionally constitute the medium for conflict resolution, the wider kinship network.

Hutchinson (1996: 228-229) notes what appears to be a somewhat similar phenome­non among Western Nuer where “I could not help but be struck by the steady stream of battered and abused women who sought sanctuary there (the chief's home) until their husbands could be summoned and their domestic difficulties aired in court. In that region many women seemed to regard the courts as a sort of marriage counseling service in which they would expect to receive a just hearing.” This was, however, wholly absent among the Eastern Nuer, who are present in Wacohtia and among whom Hutchinson also worked. Social service agencies have actively promoted among women the idea that if they are hit or feel threatened, they should call the police and/or seek safety at a women's shelter.

While the rhetoric of “I am going” may remain constant, the meaning changes in each setting. In Sudan the wife would go to relatives, who would seek to resolve the is­sue within a kinship network, the members of which have to a high degree shared values and goals. In the United States, in contrast, she might go to a women's shelter—an insti­tution associated with the state with its foremost goals the protection of women, rather than the preservation of marriage. Within this context, “dialing 911” has taken on a life of its own within the Nuer community, with the readiness of women to seek the police becoming an additional source of gender-based tension. While Nuer men generally ac­knowledge that there are times when it is appropriate for women to seek police interven­tion, they maintain that calls are made when it is not appropriate, when women further their cause within disputes. They feel that the threat of dialing 911 has become part of the rhetoric of conflict, ostensibly a weapon to be used against men regardless of the threat of physical violence. A Nuer husband in his early thirties suggests, for instance, “If you just look at a woman like you are serious she dials 911.”