Despite much having been written about what mediation is, direct observations of commercial mediations are limited. This doctoral thesis provides an opportunity to observe mediation in action and to provide external commentary about the actions observed. Mediation is approached ethnographically as a social process that is informed by structures, rules and norms that colour the environment within which it operates. As Malinowski observed, one had to live among a society one was studying in order to really learn about the society. Ethnography permits us to see beyond the act. to understand how and why people behave as they do, and to make clear that which is obscure. Through the ethnographic method, a process leading to negotiated order is examined, baring its elements, identifying its influences and studying the movement to order. The result is the reconceptualization of mediation. Mediation is a process inextricably linked to negotiation, providing a contextual layer to bi-lateral negotiation while retaining the processual shape of negotiation. The mediator is invited into the negotiation as third party intervener. He creates the process of mediation, defining the process by his actions, which ultimately merges mediator with process. The mediator becomes part of the negotiation process, at times separate from the parties, aligned with the parties or in opposition to the parties. She takes on their identity in addition to her own. The mediator is mediator; she is party; she is party adviser. She takes on the mantle of these personas during mediation: the mediation becomes her negotiation; the party becomes her client. For the parties, however, the mediator remains the non-aligned third party intervener suggested by the literature. The negotiation remains their negotiation and the mediation remains a process ancillary to their negotiation, views aided in their formulation bv mediators' statements regarding mediator role and mediation process.