“Care Work” in Facilitative Mediation: Interactional Techniques for Emotional Support in the Context of Conflict Resolution

Angela Cora Garcia

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.22.1.03

Authors

Angela Cora Garcia Bentley University, USA https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1052-5364

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.22.1.03

Keywords:

Mediation, Care Work, Emotion, Conflict Resolution, Conversation Analysis, Interaction

Abstract

This paper investigates how facilitative mediators use “care work” techniques when participants display emotional or relational concerns during the session. Conversation analysis is used to analyze a pre-existing dataset of video-recorded small claims and divorce mediation sessions. Techniques the mediators used to do care work include reflection, topic refocusing, complimenting, role modeling, and coaching. The analysis shows how the trajectory of the talk in the mediation session is impacted by care work. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the mediator’s role and the effectiveness of the interaction for the conflict resolution process in mediation.

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Author Biography

Angela Cora Garcia, Bentley University, USA

Angela Cora Garcia is a professor in the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences at Bentley University. Her main areas of research are conversation analytic studies of mediation sessions, emergency service calls to the police, air traffic communication, and political speeches and interviews. She is the author of a textbook on conversation analysis, An Introduction to Interaction: Understanding Talk in the Workplace and Everyday Life (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2023), and a conversation analytic study of mediation, How Mediation Works: Resolving Conflict through Talk (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

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