Getting Curious About Conflict: A Guided Conversation

Interpersonal conflict and disagreement are part of being in relationship with others, but many of us fear conflict. Motivated by many factors, including cultural norms, concern for social consequences, and personal safety, many of us avoid it. What might we learn and how might we grow by making more room for conflict? What skills do we need to responsibly engage in conflict? How can shifting our relationship to conflict offer us new perspectives about ourselves and the groups we belong to? This community conversation is an opportunity to reflect on our relationships to interpersonal conflict outside of where we might most often encounter it, like the heated context of an argument at the dinner table or online. Facilitator Emily Squires will lead a judgement- and jargon-free discussion of what we mean when we say conflict, considering how interpersonal conflict shapes our lives and tools to use when experiencing it.


Facilitator Emily Squires is an artist, facilitator, and consultant who has spent over two decades working with various organizations. Emily works with groups across sectors, from small nonprofit organizations to government bureaucracies, to think and feel through the complexities of identity, conflict, and long-term culture transformation. Emily’s work is collaborative and currently focused on growing and sustaining organizational cultures of care, holding dignity and relationships at the center. Squires is also trained as a printmaker, using art-making as a collaborative and political tool to investigate histories and possibilities of voice, participation, and belonging.

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Co-hosted with: Associated Students of Portland State University

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