Mark George Bound, PhD

"Conflict is a significant driver of the human society.  However, we should remember that the effects of conflicts have an equal potential to be positive as they do to be negative. Scholars must be willing to explore social conflict with a clear design toward critical thinking, examining a conflict for what the facts dictate it is, rather than allowing any internal cultural or intellectual bias a researcher may have, to distract from a result of total understanding.  Studying conflict is the key to understanding the human condition, because no element of society is immune to the effects of conflict. Not the individual, the established social organization or corporation, nor the great social construct the nation-state, exists in a status where conflict cannot effect it.  This universal vulnerability to conflict and the overwhelming influence conflict exhibits on our society demands that we examine this phenomenon using every research design the social sciences have to offer, while leaving ourselves open to new design methodologies and not yet considered analytical tools. The key to success for the social scientist when studying conflict is the ability to question any long-held theory by asking, why?, presenting new theoretical principles and asking, why not?, while keeping open the possibilities a critical thinking mind offers."

M. G. Bound (2016)  Fundamentals of Conflict Anthropology: Empirical Science Inquiry for a World in Conflict