Cover page page: Middle eastern belongings edited by Diane E. King (wrong cover page).

Transforming conflicts and building peace through mediation / Elisabeth Porter and Dale Bagshaw -- Challenging Western constructs of mediation / Dale Bagshaw -- Peacebuilding : women peaceworkers / Elisabeth Porter and Danielle Every -- Speaking across difference : native title mediation and peacebuilding in Australia / Toni Bauman -- Mediation of public policy disputes in the Fiji Islands / Graham Hassall -- 'A few more arrows' : strengthening mediative capacity in Vanuatu / Polly Walker and Chief Selwyn Garu -- Creative peacebuilding : experience from Bougainville / Alan Campbell -- Mediation of marital disputes in Muslim families in Malaysia / Dale Bagshaw -- Transforming conflict and building peace in Cambodia / Damien Coghlan -- Transforming conflict in international projects in Vietnam / Wendy Poussard -- Listening with the ear, eye and heart : conflict transformation in China / Diane Bretherton and Han Zhaoying -- Mediating contemporary, severe multicultural and religious conflicts in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand / Bruce E. Barnes and Fatahillah Abdul Syukur.

This book examines mediation in connection with peacebuilding in the Asia-Pacific region, providing practical examples which either highlight the weaknesses within certain mediation approaches or demonstrate best-practice. The authors explore the extent to which current ideas and practices of mediation in the Asia-Pacific region are dominated by Western understandings and critically challenge the appropriateness of such thinking. Featuring a range of case studies on Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Vietnam, China, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, this book has three main aims: To challenge dominant Western practices and ways of thinking on mediation that currently are being imposed in the Asia-Pacific region; To develop culturally-fluent and socially just mediation alternatives that build upon local, traditional or religious approaches; To situate mediation within ideas and practices on peacebuilding. Making a unique contribution to peace and conflict studies literature by explicitly linking mediation and peacebuilding practices, this book is a vital text for students and scholars in these fields.