ABSTRACT
The centre/margin trope describes an intersubjective field dominated and constrained by a relatively stable and self-sustaining set of dynamics organized around contested positions of power, legitimacy and authority. This is the ruthlessness of object relating, in which each side single-mindedly forges a path through to destruction of its demonized counterpart. However, as the margins contest the legitimacy and stability of the centre, and new centres and peripheries proliferate, identities fracture, and subjectivities connect and reconnect in ways that at times offer ways of looking beyond centre and margin, into the webs between, to the obscurity and richness of the often undescribed middle. These are neither centre nor margin, and yet potentially critical to the construction of the third. The chapter describes several highly charged encounters in which the missing middle gave voice to this complex version of the third, created space for encounters that destabilized well-rehearsed enemy/ally positions, and provided, albeit briefly, new paths through embattled and trauma-laden experience. It uses these encounters to foreground ways in which relational theory might be used to think through the challenges presented by situations of polarized conflict. These include the significance of moments of meeting between opposing interlocutors and the potential to create active witnessing through the fluidity of the missing middle. The chapter concludes by suggesting that creating spaces for thinking in traumatic situations of conflict sometimes depends on embracing contradiction and complexity, ambiguously and untidily held in the middle ground.
