ABSTRACT
This chapter explores definitions of culture, taxonomies of cultural characteristics at national and group levels, including race, gender, and ethnicity and considers specific mediator strategies and interventions when parties to a dispute are from different cultures. This chapter critiques the notion that culture is itself monolithic or always stable and suggests that since most of us are part of several cultures, the intermediation of cross-cultural disputes requires careful preparation, cultural competence, and humility, as well as knowledge of many different approaches to mediation which may have to vary with context, case type, and many other factors, not just assumed (stereotypic) patterns of culture. Recent critiques of mediation as an ethnocentric Western (Northern and White) practice are explored, along with other criticisms of the mediation process (privatization of justice) and some suggestions are made for good or more sensitive practices.
