Michelle LeBaron

Professor Michelle LeBaron is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary scholar on conflict transformation, arts, and resilience. Her current research is on two main areas: conflict across religious and worldview differences, and the role of arts in collective memory and commemoration processes and reconciliation. As a recipient of a Wallenberg Fellowship at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (2015-2018), Michelle collaborated with internationally-renowned visual artist Dr. Kim Berman of the University of Johannesburg and other artists and scholars to explore the role of arts and artists in South African transitional justice.  Professor LeBaron’s books include Changing Our Worlds: Art as Transformative Practice (2018); The Choreography of Resolution: Conflict, Movement and Neuroscience (2013), Conflict Across Cultures (2006); and Bridging Cultural Conflict (2003). Michelle’s work spans disciplines and communities. Her Dancing at the Crossroads research/practice initiative was a partnership with internationally-renowned dancer Margie Gillis to explore dance and movement as resources for addressing conflict across social divides. Enacting Resilience, a project of Public Safety Canada, engaged members of the Vancouver and Surrey Punjabi communities to examine arts as ways to foster community wellbeing and inoculate against extremism. Professor LeBaron gives keynotes and consultations around the world on intercultural conflict resolution, the role of arts in fostering resilient leadership, and creative ways of engaging religious and political conflicts.

Professor LeBaron was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1982 and practiced for ten years as a family law, commercial and organizational mediator. She did seminal work on intercultural conflict engagement as an Associate Professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and the Women's Studies program at George Mason University from 1993-2003. Previously, she directed the Multiculturalism and Dispute Resolution Project at the University of Victoria. Michelle directed the UBC Program on Dispute Resolution from 2003-2012 and was a 2016-17 fellow at the Trinity College Long Room Hub for Arts and Humanities Research in Dublin, Ireland.

Research and Publications

To learn more about my research, please visit my PURE Research profile. You can also access my publications on the following sites: 

• Allard Research Commons / bepress Legal Repository Search
• UBC Library Faculty Publications Database
• SSRN (Social Science Research Network)
• HeinOnline

• Intercultural Dispute Resolution
• Theoretical Foundations of Dispute Resolution
• Negotiation and Dispute Resolution
• Resilience and the Future of Law
• Current Legal Problems (LLM seminar)
• Methodologies in Law and Policy (LLM, PhD)

Alexander, Nadja and Michelle LeBaron. Transforming Organizational Performance: How Artful Collaboration Fosters Alchemical Change. Organizational Aesthetics. 2020 9(2), 62-82. https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/oa/vol9/iss2/5

Efron, Yael, Michelle LeBaron, Maged Senbel and Mohammed S. Wattad. Like a Prayer? Applying Conflicts with Religious Dimensions Theory to the ‘Mouzin Law’ Conflict. Washington University Journal of Law and Policy. 2020. In press. 

Berman, Kim and Michelle LeBaron. 2020. “Aesthetic Negotiation and Artefactual Agency: Key Processes for Symbolic Repair in Transitional Justice”. In Cachalia, Raisa and Bilchitz, David eds. Symbolic Reparations in Transitional Justice: South Africa and Colombian Cases. Accepted for publication. Publisher TBD.

LeBaron, Michelle. 2020. “Women Awake. Gender and Commemoration in Contemporary Ireland”. In Scanlon, H. and Boesten, J., eds. Gender and Memorial Arts: From Commemoration to Mobilisation: Wisconsin University Press Critical Human Rights Series. 

Berman, Kim and Michelle LeBaron. How Have the Arts Been Effective in "Prevention Activism" in South Africa? Proceedings of the Historical Dialogues, Justice and Memory Network conference, Columbia University, New York, December 2019. 

Berman, Kim and Michelle LeBaron. Crossing Worlds: South-North Collaborations as Creative encounters with Arts, Humanities and Sciences. Critical Arts: North-South Cultural and Media Studies. Crisis? What Crisis? The Humanities Reloaded. 2019.https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2019.1658797

LeBaron, Michelle and Paulette Regan. 2018. “Reweaving the Past” in Philippe Tortell, Margot

Young and Mark Turin, eds. Memory. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

LeBaron, Michelle and Nadja Alexander. Resistance, Resonance and Restoration: How Generative Stories Shape Organizational Futures. International Journal of Professional Management, 12(3) 2017, pp. 22-31. 

LeBaron, Michelle and Nadja Alexander. 2017. “Alchemy and Aesthetics in Negotiation” in Chris Honeyman & Andrea Kupfer Schneider, eds. The Negotiators Desk Reference. St. Paul, MN: DRI Press 

Alexander, Nadja and Michelle LeBaron. 2017. “Four Elements of Aesthetics in Negotiation.” in Chris Honeyman & Andrea Kupfer Schneider, eds. The Negotiators Desk Reference. St. Paul, MN: DRI Press.

LeBaron, Michelle. The Deepest Sense: Revitalizing Links Between Law and Touch. Non Liquet. Westminster Law and Theory Lab Law and the Senses Series, United Kingdom. October 2016.

LeBaron, Michelle. Is the Blush off the Rose? Legal Metaphors in a Changing World. Journal of Law and Society Special Issue: Interrogating Languages of Law, Justice and Legitimacy 43(1), March 2016, pp. 144-165. Also published as a book:

LeBaron, Michelle and Nadja Alexander. 2016. “Negotiating Beautifully: The Alchemy of Aesthetics in Collaborative Processes” in Chris Honeyman & Andrea Kupfer Schneider, eds. The Negotiators Desk Reference. St. Paul, MN: DRI Press

Alexander, Nadja and Michelle LeBaron. 2016. “Four Elements of Aesthetics in Negotiation. in Chris Honeyman & Andrea Kupfer Schneider, eds. The Negotiators Desk Reference. St. Paul, MN: DRI Press.

Alexander, Nadja and Michelle LeBaron. 2016. “The Alchemy of Mediation: Aesthetic Wisdom for a Fragmented Age” in Ian Macduff, ed. Essays in Mediation. Dealing with Disputes in the 21st Century. The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.

Beausoleil, Emily and Michelle LeBaron. What Moves Us: Implications of Neuroscience and Dance for Conflict Transformation. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, (Winter 2013), 133-158.

MacLeod, Carrie, Ashli Akins and Michelle LeBaron. 2016. Enacting Resilience Toolkit.

Alexander, Nadja and Michelle LeBaron. 2009. Death of the Roleplay. Honeyman, C., J. Coben, and G. De Palo (eds). Rethinking Negotiation Teaching: Innovations for Context and Culture. St Paul, MN: DRI Press.

Conflict Across Cultures. A Unique Experience of Bridging Differences.  Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. 2006

"Learning New Dances: Finding Effective Ways of Addressing Intercultural Disputes", in Catherine Bell and David Kahane (Eds.) Intercultural Dispute Resolution in Aboriginal Contexts: Canadian and International Perspectives . Vancouver, British Columbia: University of British Columbia Press, 2004.

"Windows on Diversity: Lawyers, Culture, and Mediation Practice", co-authored with Zena Zumeta, Conflict Resolution Quarterly 20(4), Summer 2003: 463-472.

Bridging Cultural Conflicts: A New Approach for a Changing World . San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2003.

Bridging Troubled Waters: Conflict Resolution from the Heart . San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2002.

"Why the Foreign Matters in Foreign Affairs: Cultural Understanding in Policy Processes", co-authored with Jarle Crocker, Harvard International Review , Fall 2000: 54-59.

Publications listed on the Law Library Faculty Research Publications Database.