Repair process
The agreed route a conflict takes. The test is not which method a community uses but whether someone who is not in charge can start it.
A conflict process that has never been used is a document, not a practice. Ask when it was last triggered, by whom, and what changed as a result — and ask whether somebody who is not on the board could start it. If the answer to that last question takes a while, that is the answer.
A repair process is the route a community has agreed a conflict will take. Not a method — mediation, restorative circles, nonviolent communication are all methods — but the surrounding structure that decides how a dispute enters the system and how it leaves.
The method matters far less than four structural questions.
The four questions
Who may start it? The most important one. If only the board, the founders or a majority can trigger the process, it is unavailable to precisely the person most likely to need it: someone new, alone, and in conflict with somebody established.
What happens first? Almost every workable system starts with the two people talking, usually with support. The purpose is not politeness; it is to stop the group being recruited into the dispute before either party has stated it plainly.
Who holds it, and are they neutral? In a community of thirty, the obvious mediator is often the person everybody trusts — who is also somebody’s close friend and probably has a view. Small communities routinely need someone from outside.
What can it conclude? A process that can only recommend is a conversation. Repair needs the possibility of an outcome: an agreement, a rule change, a consequence, an apology on the record.
How to test one from outside
Ask when it was last used, by whom, and what changed as a result. A process that has never been triggered in a ten-year-old community of forty is not evidence of harmony; it is evidence the process is unusable.
Sources & further reading
- 1 Conflict, power and repair — the four questions in context
- 2 Seeds for Change — free practical guides on working through group conflict
Written by EcoHubs members, with AI assistance for drafting and editing, and reviewed by a person before publication. Facts are checked against the sources listed; anything we could not verify is marked. How this is written
Related terms
Responding to a first breach differently from a fifth. One of Ostrom's design principles, and the answer to a rule with no stated consequence.
Influence nobody granted and nobody can withdraw. It forms whether or not a community writes a structure down, and denying it only makes it unaccountable.
Running a meeting's process without taking a side on its content. The role that decides whether a decision method works at all.