5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The session will contribute to a better understanding of the role, impact, shortcomings and opportunities of digital technologies in the implementation of conflict transformation in the context of peacebuilding processes. Thus, the session will analyse how new technologies, including AI, impact on peacebuilding dynamics, processes and actors in terms of increasing (or not) access, participation and providing or undermining various forms of reparations for victims of armed conflict.
The session will look at how policy makers and activists working in different peacebuilding contexts are using technology platforms and devices, and how this can impact on conflict transformation and the actors - victims, perpetrators, policy makers - involved in it at the local level. Analysing the use of new technologies, including social networks and AI, to implement conflict transformation initiatives means analysing the ways in which they might contribute to reparation and reconciliation processes or otherwise fuel new conflicts.