Build Peace 2025
About Build Peace
Build Peace is the annual conference of Build Up. This global collective designs and implements tools and processes that use digital technology, arts, and other innovations to address conflicts and promote peace.
The conference brings together activists, technology professionals, academics, and people from social organizations worldwide.
Build Peace 2025 will be held on November 21st, 22nd, and 23rd at the La CIBA center in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a space for resources for women, innovation, and feminist economics.
This edition will focus on innovation and the use of creative and technological tools to transform conflicts and promote coexistence. It is co-organized by ICIP as the local institution, with the support of the Santa Coloma de Gramenet City Council.
Conference Topics
Build Peace 2025 starts with a central theme of debate and different subthemes linked to the context and location where the conference takes place. The Build Peace 2025 conference will revolve around the theme:
“Build Peace 2025 – Towards a Pluriverse of Peace”
In today’s world, marked by oppression, division, inequality, and a loss of trust, it is essential to rethink what it means to talk about peace. How can we recover and give meaning to peace in this context? How can we take advantage of new possibilities to connect, learn from the experiences of diverse communities, and cultivate interdependence?
Through art, technology, and other innovations, Build Peace 2025 offers a space to question, redefine, and imagine together what a culture of peace means. To do this, the conference will focus on three subthemes that address key dilemmas in the field of peace and conflict:
Between Polarization and Deliberation
This subtheme will focus on the power of dialogue and narratives. What participatory and deliberative tools, methods and spaces can tackle rising affective and toxic polarization? How can polarized digital spaces become deliberative? We aim to explore where and how that shift happens, the role of alternative narratives and what approaches (technological or otherwise) can be used to include all voices in social and peace processes and movements.
Between Deterrence and Nonviolence
This subtheme dives into peace and security policies. How can we reshape and reclaim the use of technology in surveillance states, regions and borders in the name of “safety”? What are existing and future alternatives to militarized security? We aim to reflect on how we understand peace and security, from pacifism and nonviolence to deterrence and the perceived need for militarized security.
Between Erasure and Memory
This subtheme invites us to think about how we collectively learn from the past, live in the present and imagine the future. How do we heal from trauma that poses a challenge to coexistence? In what ways can/ do we collectively learn and heal from societal crises? What role do reconciliation processes, truth commissions and amnesties play in bringing lasting and sustainable peace? We aim to highlight the importance of creatively exploring innovative tools and ways to archive and preserve memory and intergenerational dialogue to cultivate peaceful present and future societies.
In addition, Build Peace 2025 will give special prominence to perspectives, approaches, and actors often underrepresented in peace conversations, including migrant communities, diasporas, indigenous peoples, and spiritualities.
Call for Proposals
Build Peace 2025 invites proposals to contribute to the conference in various formats:
- Short Talks: 10-minute presentations to share innovative projects.
- Workshops: Practical sessions lasting 1, 2, or 3 hours to delve into creative methodologies and tools.
- Art Installations and Performances: Works and performances related to the conference theme.
The conference will also include round tables, cultural events, a live broadcast via community radio and a care and well-being team to ensure a safe and inclusive space.
👉 For more information and proposal submissions, click here
Background
Since 2014, the Build Peace conference has gathered 300 people for three days. It has been held in cities such as Boston, Nicosia, Zurich, Bogotá, Belfast, San Diego & Tijuana, Nairobi, and Antipolo. Participants from over 60 countries and territories work in national and international organizations, the United Nations, academic institutions, civil society, governments, and the private sector.
ICIP has participated in the last three editions of Build Peace, held in Germany (2022), Kenya (2023), and the Philippines (2024).
The 2025 conference aims to bring together people, organizations, and institutions from Catalonia that promote peacebuilding in the digital space. It will share experiences and advance the use of technology, the arts, and other innovations to transform conflicts positively.