© 2000 by Oxford University Press
Cross-cultural mediation: a critical view of the dynamics of culture in family disputes
University of Westminster, London, UK
As a means of facilitating the smooth management of disputes arising from family breakdown, the benefits of mediation are often extolled. Yet, the question of how the individuals' particular cultural identity comprises a prism through which disputes and their resolution are viewed, is one that has been neglected. In particular, it is often precisely within the parameters of the marital relationship that individuals are motivated to practise their normative ethics. This article seeks to analyse these dynamics and the manner they influence the process of mediation by closely examining the model expounded by Gulliver, and argues that an appraisal of cultural dynamics is a fundamental prerequisite to understand the process of family mediation. The objective is to evaluate Gulliver's model with a view to laying the foundations for a synthetic model of the processual dynamics of negotiation in the light of an analysis of cultural factors.