(Photo Credit: “Grime and Communication” by thaths Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC-BY 2.0). Accessed 03/18/2015.)
From Occupy to Podemos to #IllRideWithYou, initiatives for change and civic engagement are increasingly happening outside of established institutions. By leveraging technologies that amplify people’s voices, these new initiatives are more inclusive, more dynamic, and more meaningful on the ground. We see the links between civic engagement and peacebuilding, including the positive function technology can play by broadening avenues for discourse. It is our view that this new paradigm for peacebuilding is parallel to this new paradigm for civic engagement. While many challenges remain, technology enables this paradigm shift, even if it does not necessarily cause it.
Read the full article Reinventing How We Live Together on Building Peace.
Helena Puig Larrauri is a peacebuilding practitioner focusing on the use of technology to promote peace and prevent conflict. She is a co-organizer of Build Peace and co-founder of Build Up , and she is on the Board of Advisers of the Standby Task Force, which she co-founded in 2010.
Sanjana Hattotuwa is the Founding Editor of Groundviews, an award-winning citizen journalism initiative based in Sri Lanka and a Special Advisor at the ICT4Peace Foundation since 2006.