Written by Naomi Osuoza (IDIA Alum, Class of 2024, MA Diplomacy and International Governance; Independence and Inclusion Coach, Trainee Lecturer)

On the 5^th of May 2026, I spent a day at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace with fellow alumni and current students of The Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs (IDIA), Loughborough University London for an intensive workshop on de-polarisation led by Rebecca Brierley. What unfolded was less a lecture and more a reminder of the relevance of individual introspection using established frameworks from conflict theory to understand what’s happening in our fractured moment. 

The workshop was organised by Dr Tatevik Mnatsakanyan, Senior Lecturer IDIA, especially for students taking the Peace and Conflict Transformation module, with the event being extended to other students, as well as IDIA alumni. The event was part of IDIA’s Inside the Profession Series aiming to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

The workshop was held in the grounding and inspirational space of the Centre’s iconic Bedouin tent. The tent, built in response to 9/11, is a space without hierarchy, cultivating presence, care and imagination across divides towards community based, grassroots-driven repair and transformation. Drawing on St Ethelburga’s 30 years of peace-making experience, the workshop offered practical tools and reflective frameworks for holding conversations that cross divides.

Holding Space for Complexity: De-polarisation as Lived Experience

The workshop began with discussing the effects of conflict and its ability to rupture relationships. At the core of individuals, there are four core relationships: the relationships with The Divine, with Self, with the Earth, and with others.

We then moved into the Polarity Infinity—the principle that polarities aren’t binaries to be resolved, but tensions to be held in dynamic motion: life and death, self and other, inhale and exhale. They exist in continuous flow. When we collapse that flow into “us vs them,” we flatten the world into something too simple to be true. The workshop beckoned us to ask: what are we losing when we insist on sides?

From there, we explored how complexity theory reframes conflict entirely. The goal isn’t to eliminate disagreement but to hold it with more sophistication. Rebecca introduced the idea of a “good disagreement”—one where we actively resist the pull to take sides, assume, generalise, personalise, devalue, and demonise.  Instead, we choose curiosity, listening, connection, and the willingness to develop understanding. It is a different quality of engagement altogether.

What struck me most was the structure offered for moving toward resolution. Five steps; and crucially, three happen before you ever engage with another person. 

The message was clear: the work starts inward. You cannot meet complexity across a table if you haven’t met it within yourself.

We then turned to the PIN model—Position, Interest, Needs. Most of us argue at the position level. But beneath every position are interests, and beneath those are fundamental human needs. Here is where it gets textured: Rebecca layered in Tomkins’ Affect Theory, the insight that affects like fear, anger, shame, and disgust arrive before cognition. They shape what we perceive, what we defend, and how quickly our attention narrows. In polarised moments, we’re often not responding to the other person: we are responding to our own affect. Fear drives threat perception and zero-sum thinking. Shame masks vulnerability behind moral certainty. Disgust dehumanises and closes the door entirely.

The workshop handout—based on Max-Neef’s framework—tied everything together: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity, and freedom. Every conflict, at its root, is a collision of these needs. The question shifts from “what are you arguing about?” to “what are you advocating for, and what feels at stake?” When you reframe conflict that way, the entire conversation changes.

My Continuing Journey with IDIA and Inspirations for the Future

I am a recent IDIA alum: I completed my MA in Diplomacy and International Governance in 2024, building on my earlier study in International Law and Diplomacy. Modules like Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Global South and International Development, International Negotiations, and International Security formed the backbone of my studies at IDIA. Throughout these courses, the themes of complexity, relationality, and systemic thinking were woven through every topic; however it was particularly the work on conflict transformation, power dynamics, and the politics of diplomatic relations that felt most alive to me.

The De-polarisation workshop at St Ethelburga’s felt like a natural extension of that learning. It moved the frameworks from intellectual constructs to lived practice; and that’s the gap I’m most interested in closing: the distance between what we know and how we show up in the world.

My current work as an Independence and Inclusion Coach at Chelmsford College sits at the heart of this. In this role, I support students in developing autonomy, agency, and belonging; which fundamentally infuses de-polarisation in practice. I am also training to lecture in Future Education and obtaining a Postgraduate Certificate in Further Education: this has deepened my understanding of how theory translates into education. When working with students, the question isn’t solely “what rule applies?” but “what does this person need, and what’s actually at stake for them?” It provides context and meaning. This meaning in turn shapes understanding and individual perspectives.

It is the same principle we explored at St Ethelburga’s: listening beneath the position to the needs underneath, holding space for complexity, and resisting the urge to collapse messy human situations into neat categories.

My goal is to pursue a PhD in the coming years, positioning myself toward a career in education as a lecturer in diplomacy, peace-building, and international relations.

I’m increasingly convinced that the best lecturers aren’t those who simply transmit theory but the ones who live the questions, who remain practitioners as much as scholars, who model what it means to hold complexity with both intellectual rigour and humanity. Days like this one at St Ethelburga’s are how we do that.

Continuous experiences such as these are indispensable in being well-rounded educators. They are the connective tissue between what we teach and who we become.

This is why I am grateful to Loughborough University’s Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs and especially to Dr Tatevik Mnatsakanyan for organising this and opening opportunities such as these to alumni;  and indeed to St Ethelburga’s Centre for holding this space; and to Rebecca Brierley for facilitating this workshop while offering the frameworks that made this reflection possible.