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What Is All the Fighting About? Privatism and Neighbor Disputes

NCJ Number
122495
Journal
Social Justice Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1989) Pages: 165-187
Author(s)
D R Baskin
Date Published
1989
Length
23 pages
Annotation
Data from mediation cases in neighborhood justice centers in Wilmington, Delaware and Delaware County (Pa.) formed the basis of this analysis of the role of the disputants' social conditions and their grounding in historical and material circumstances.
Abstract
The clients of both centers were largely female and nearly half the cases involved property disputes. Other conflicts involved claims of mental injury and conflicts in lifestyles. However, the specific features of the cases varied greatly in the two communities. Nevertheless, in both settings the disputes resulted largely from the communities' underlying privatistic culture, which was oriented to possessive individualism, an ideology of achievement, and material values. This privatism was experienced differently in the city and suburban communities, but the disputes resulted from threats to it. Moreover, the tensions of the privatized life experience and the disputes resulting from the tensions had adverse effects on the individual, the family, and the community in both settings. Tables, case examples, notes, and 29 references.