PeaceTalk: Talk and Interaction in Multinational Crisis Management Training

Crisis management training has a crucial role in educating and preparing staff to work in high-pressure and high-stress conflict situations. Among the core learning objectives in these exercises are to practice communication skills in multilingual, multinational situations, and to promote mutual understanding, interoperability and co-operation in multinational peace operations. Talk and interaction are part and parcel of this objective and crisis management.

PeaceTalk studies talk and interaction in crisis management exercises, which simulate real-life conflicts. The language used is English. The project relies on video recordings collected in exercises and uses conversation analysis as the method. The project describes efficient interactional practices and challenges in crisis communication. It focuses on situation awareness, information flow, team work and interaction across institutional communities (e.g. between civilians and military staff). The project collaborates with key organizers of crisis management training. The results will be used to inform crisis management training.

PeaceTalk collaborates with The Finnish Defence Forces International Centre (FINCENT), Finnish Defence University (FDU) and Crisis Management Centre Finland (CMC Finland).