ABSTRACT
This chapter has described and analysed the characteristics of neighbour disputes under the headings of the history, context, parties, issues, and dynamics of conflict. My aim has been to show that conflicts between neighbours, which often seem to be solely rooted in individual personalities and circumstances, have an important structural context that plays an equal part in creating the conflict. When mediators enter into a conflict and begin to unravel its tangled strands, a framework like this will enable them to think clearly about those strands that can be dealt with head on, those that can be affected indirectly as the mediation process changes the relationship between the neighbours, and those that will remain unchanged during and after the process. The latter will include the deeper structural causes of conflict described at the beginning of the chapter, particularly those rooted in largescale economic and political structures. Mediation cannot change these structures, but it can affect the way in which people react to them. Instead of viewing each other as the problem, neighbours can change their perceptions as a result of mediation, and recognise that they stand together, equally affected by these structures.
