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Publication
A Final Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts in Conflict Facilitation and Organizational Change, Process Work Institute, Athens, Greece, 2007
Local notes
http://www.processwork.org/files/Finalprojects/Papathanasiou_N_2007.pdf
Introduction
The notion that conflict and war moves the world is a widely accepted one. It has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy, when Heraclitus stated that “war is
the father of everything”. As much as it is disconcerting, it is true that inmodern history, this being defined as the last 500 years approximately, major social and political transformations happened in what mostly was a non peaceful way. This paper has the purpose of studying three major conflicts, all
of which are more or less completed or temporarily resolved by now, through the lens of process work. The reason for this is to try to apply process work in
our understanding of history and mankind, since it is our past that our future depends upon. Process work offers the tools that can help us map those
conflicts and the processes involved, and it can also give us an opportunity to find the reappearing patterns in human history. This paper is an initial attempt
to fill a gap in the Process Work literature. It is intended for the Process Work learning community, interested in group processes and history, as well as the
possible application of Process Work theory in broad historical contexts and international politics. For this intended audience, I presumed a level of
familiarity with Process Work terminology, therefore avoiding further elaboration on the Process Work terms used. Hopefully, it will also provide a
sense of continuity in history and some of the roots for the current international political scene; the later also was a personal reason for pursuing
this particular topic as a final project.
Introduction
The notion that conflict and war moves the world is a widely accepted one. It has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy, when Heraclitus stated that “war is
the father of everything”. As much as it is disconcerting, it is true that inmodern history, this being defined as the last 500 years approximately, major social and political transformations happened in what mostly was a non peaceful way. This paper has the purpose of studying three major conflicts, all
of which are more or less completed or temporarily resolved by now, through the lens of process work. The reason for this is to try to apply process work in
our understanding of history and mankind, since it is our past that our future depends upon. Process work offers the tools that can help us map those
conflicts and the processes involved, and it can also give us an opportunity to find the reappearing patterns in human history. This paper is an initial attempt
to fill a gap in the Process Work literature. It is intended for the Process Work learning community, interested in group processes and history, as well as the
possible application of Process Work theory in broad historical contexts and international politics. For this intended audience, I presumed a level of
familiarity with Process Work terminology, therefore avoiding further elaboration on the Process Work terms used. Hopefully, it will also provide a
sense of continuity in history and some of the roots for the current international political scene; the later also was a personal reason for pursuing
this particular topic as a final project.