Part I: The Concept of Positioning.- Positioning and conflict: an introduction.- Intergroup positioning and power.- Liquidating roles and crystallising positions: Investigating the road between role and positioning theory.- Intrapersonal conflict.- Part II: Interpersonal Positioning.- Positioning and conflict involving a person with dementia: A Case Study.- The research planning meeting.- Standing out and blending in: Differentiation and conflict.- The dispute over the fate of Terri Schiavo: A study of positions and social episodes in the formation of identity.- Part III: Intergroup Positioning.- How disadvantaged group members position themselves: When they might appear to work against an improvement in status for their own group. - Wheels within wheels, or triangels within triangels: Time and context in positioning theory.- Positioning and military leadership.- Discursive production of conflict in Rwanda.- Rwandan radio broadcasts and Hutu/Tutsi positioning.- Nuclear positioning and supererogatory duties: The illustrative case of positioning by Iran, the United States, and the European Union.- Conceptual frame for a psychology of nonviolent democratic transitions: Positioning through analytical layers.- Afterword.

Positioning theory is the study of the nature, formation, influence and ways of change of local systems of rights and duties as shared assumptions about them influence small scale interactions. Evolving from linguistics origins, the theory concerns conventions of speech and action that are labile, contestable, and ephemeral. With this theory, researchers are able to examine the dynamic flow of social interaction as well as give equal weight to the role of discourse and the psychological resolution of conflict.
This volume applies positioning theory in order to achieve a fuller and more in-depth understanding of conflict and its psychological resolution. The editors approach positioning from the micro (interpersonal) level all the way to the macro (intergroup and international) level.