Digital Peacebuilding? The Socio-Technicality of Transforming Armed Conflict

(Open Access) Book by Andreas T Hirblinger: “This book explores how we can make sense of the increasing use of digital technology in peacebuilding. It studies digital peacebuilding at different stages of conflict, including conflict prevention, conflict mitigation, peace mediation, and sustainable transitions from armed conflict. Moving beyond a focus on individual tools, the book encourages a ‘post-digital’ posture that enables a reflexive position vis-à-vis the appeal of digital innovation. It suggests exploring how technologies are always socially embedded, and how the socio-technicality of digital peacebuilding conditions prospects of conflict transformation. To this end, the book develops the concept of apomediated peacebuilding, which suggests that authoritative knowledge about conflict and peace that underpins digital peacebuilding is generated in decentred peer-to-peer networks that involve both humans and machines. It also encourages a critical-reflexive engagement with how claims about technology and society shape digital peacebuilding. In addition, the book is interested in how these dynamics and outcomes differ globally depending on variations in the degree of digitalization of the conflict context and levels of political repression. The book presents comparative empirical research on digital peacebuilding initiatives in South Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Northern Ireland, as well as illustrative examples from several other cases. It delves into a variety of applications, including social media monitoring to counter harmful speech, the use of mobile phones and mobile apps to enable localized early warning and early response, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in digital dialogues to support peace processes, and everyday online interactions that can foster societal reconciliation and political change…(More)”.