TITLE:
The Integrated Space of Conflict Management
AUTHORS:
Clément Gbêhi
KEYWORDS:
Meeting Farmers’ Demands, Integrated Space, Conflict Management, Knowledge-Based Services, Benin
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Applied Sociology,
Vol.11 No.12,
December
24,
2021
ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to examine how conflict management serves to
further demand-oriented services. Two observations articulate the reflexions:
the reduction of the participation of the State in national economies, and the
public support for subsidizing the agricultural sector, and the promotion of
demand-oriented approach. As demand-oriented approach involved multiple actors
with differences in cultural norms and problem perceptions, conflict management
is an integrated space. This article then argues that conflict management involves joint exploration
and situation analysis, formulating and achieving action-plans, transferring
the collective learning process, and creating context of re-negotiation. The
methods on data collection and analysis included semi-structured interviews
with key stakeholders and participant observations. The interviews were
supplemented with one hundred and eighty individual surveys conducted in a
dozen villages. The results prove that demand articulation is comparable to
integrated space catalysing conflict management as stakeholders involved have
differences in expectations and interests. These inevitably mean that farmers’
demands are diverse. As consequence, some negotiations were made between the
competing expectations and demands. The article slights the term “joint
construction of demands” to account for the agreements and disagreements that
shape, in part, what is feasible in a given context.