ABSTRACT
Selwyn Garu, Chief Executive Officer of the Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs (MNCC) of Vanuatu, often uses this metaphor of a bow and quiver of arrows to describe the mediation workshops, called storians, that we have facilitated in several of the provinces in Vanuatu. The storians are one of the central elements of a broader partnership between the MNCC, the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (ACPACS) at the University of Queensland and the Australian Government Overseas Aid Programme (AusAID). Our collaborative approach to the storians draws primarily on the rich resource of Kastom mediation in Vanuatu, a wide range of peacemaking processes taking place both in urban and rural settings throughout the provinces. The storians are designed to elicit fuller descriptions, understandings and articulations of Kastom mediation, to introduce frameworks of Western mediation, to explore particular skills and processes within Western mediation, to analyze the ways that introduced institutions have impacted on Kastom mediation and to explore the integration of Western mediation skills and processes which might enhance the mediative capacity of Ni-Vanuatu1
chiefs and community leaders. This chapter examines the ways in which Ni-Vanuatu Kastom mediation
differs from dominant Western mediation models and the challenges this poses to strengthening mediative capacity in Vanuatu. We contrast the Kastom system with Western mediation, illuminating the differences that problematize the wholesale implementation of Western mediation in Vanuatu. We also discuss the collaboratively facilitated workshops we have implemented in response to the marked differences between Kastom and Western mediation. In the final section, we discuss the ways in which the beliefs and values underlying Kastom and Western mediation impact upon the mediation workshops we are developing and implementing in Vanuatu.
