Developing Relational Resilience: Engaging Youth Living in the Midst of Intractable Conflict

This thesis explores a process which aims to help teens living in the midst of intractable conflict move towards the development of what has emerged as the main theme of this study – relational resilience.

While there are many existing programs that work with youth in conflict, Artsbridge, the focus of this thesis, is unique in its utilization of Transformative Reflecting Dialogue (TRD), artistic modalities, and collaborative art within a social constructionist framework. Decades of violence and separation between the various groups have created Israeli and Palestinian narratives that are negatively interdependent and mutually exclusive. This dissertation explores how Artsbridge provides the safe space for the deconstruction of those narratives and the construction of new, more inclusive narratives that allow for a multiplicity of understandings and an appreciation of and tolerance for complexity.

Through a constructionist grounded theory analysis, interviews with 31 alumni of Artsbridge from 2008 through 2019, former staff, and parents of alumni, were analyzed in order to understand their experience of Artsbridge and the impact it has had on their lives. This analysis of the interviews led to the primary theme of relational resilience. The Artsbridge model of relational resilience is explored and compared with other models of resilience.

This study offers a new paradigm for working with members of communities entrenched in prolonged, violent conflict, moving away from the concept of resolving conflict and, instead, towards the development of relational resilience.