#52: Facts Alone Won't Settle It: Deep Sea(ted) Feelings and Conflict Transformation, with Jesse Matas

Jesse Matas is a peace and conflict studies researcher and folk musician based in Canada. In this conversation, Eric and Jesse explore what the discipline of conflict transformation can offer the deep sea mining debate — from how dialogue gets structured, to the role of misunderstanding, identity, values, and even folk culture in shaping how environmental conflicts unfold and how they might be resolved.

Topics covered include the distinction between positions and interests in conflict negotiation, why focusing on values tends to produce more generative outcomes than debating fixed positions, how misunderstandings function in environmental disputes and what clearing them up can actually accomplish, the challenges of funding and accessing environmental conflict mediation, the role of art, music, and narrative in conflict transformation processes, and how folk culture encodes community identity in ways that formal negotiation often misses.

Jesse draws on his experience as a mediator and researcher to reflect on cases including the Norwegian deep sea mining regulatory process, the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and a case study involving toxic boat paint in California. The conversation also touches on joint fact-finding, restorative justice, and the limits of interest-based negotiation when power is unequal.

Follow Jesse

LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-matas

Chapters

* 0:00 — Cold open: “critical mineral security is a feeling”

* 0:20 — Intro: peace scholar, songwriter, and the podcast’s theme song

* 2:14 — What environmental peacebuilding is

* 9:41 — Resolution vs. transformation: why conflict isn’t inherently bad

* 14:28 — Positions vs. interests: moratorium, mineral security, and where the debate gets stuck

* 22:42 — Misunderstanding, mediation and how a third party actually works

* 31:07 — The California boat-paint case, and why getting people in a room rarely gets funded

* 36:08 — Why industry has an interest in mediation

* 40:38 — Same facts, different narratives: the “narrative warfare” problem

* 47:47 — Art as a tool for understanding: songwriting workshops and eight-word conflicts

* 58:57 — Folk tales, a Galician fishing village, and “how are we going to protect your story?”

* 1:04:31 — Children singing outside the Good Friday talks: the embodied side of conflict

* 1:06:56 — Fuzziness, emotion, and why security is a feeling

Resources Mentioned

* John Paul Lederach — Peace and Conflict Studies scholar

* Tommy Sands — “There Were Roses” / Good Friday Agreement performance

* Oslo Accords

* California boat paint / tributyltin (TBT) ban

* Environmental conflict resolution / joint fact-finding

* WWF Norway vs. Norwegian government — deep sea mining court case