Dr. Suda Perera argues that while remote data can support peacekeepers and organizations in war-affected areas, it must be balanced with direct on-the-ground engagement, because trust, local context, and voices beyond the digital sphere are essential[i]. This reflection explores whether this balance remains critical in our increasingly digital age, drawing from personal experiences at the South Sudan-Uganda border.

Coffee in a Milk Powder Tin Can

Let me take you to the South Sudan-Uganda border, specifically to a small town called Arua. Ah wait, this is a place I have never been to, but I have heard a lot of stories about it. The farthest I had been was Kaya on the border of South Sudan. It is one of the most interesting border towns, because you can see two countries from where you stand: Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I found myself sitting in a small coffee shop where they boiled water in empty milk powder tins. A child was making my coffee using this improvised equipment when I said, “No sugar, please.” She repeated back, “No sugar, ha…” and I confirmed, “Yes.” Meanwhile, Moses was trying to catch the Ugandan MTN mobile network signal. Suddenly he cried, “OK, connected!” This was significant at that time, there were no network facilities in the Kaya area of Central Equatoria in South Sudan. On our way to Kaya, we had been offline for nearly six to seven hours.

Bridging Digital and Physical Spaces

Our purpose was to gather information about an alleged incident involving the killing of family members in the Lujulo area of South Sudan during crossfire between warring parties. According to the information, most of the affected villagers had fled to the Arua Refugee Camp in Uganda. We couldn’t cross the border, but we sat on the South Sudan side looking at the Ugandan immigration point.

After spending three to four hours at Kaya junction, talking to people and having six or seven cups of dark black coffee, Moses managed to obtain the phone number of one of the family members who had escaped to Uganda. Through what I call “micro-level remotely executable peace interventions,” we were able to reestablish the lost connection between the family and our organization.

The family trusted us and relied on our coordination because the situation in their village was chaotic, marked by land issues, family dynamics, and broader conflict dynamics. Moses later told me that the family was eventually able to return and secure their lands and reunite with their relatives.

The Power of Local Connection in Digital Peace

What Moses accomplished was remarkable: he used WhatsApp to communicate and share photos, gathered data, conducted conflict analysis, and facilitated information flow. But most importantly, Moses was from South Sudan and spoke the local language. Having worked in this area for nearly ten years, he was an experienced peacebuilder. Particularly, our organization had worked with them more than a decade ago. This enabled us to establish the basic foundations of trust-building and relationship-building, which go beyond the digital space.

This experience raises important questions that remain relevant in our digital era, particularly given the “digital turn in peace and conflict studies” driven by the shift from ‘analogue’ to ‘digital’ approaches in international relations:

I found myself in continuous inner dialogue: Is trust-building still essential in digital peace interventions? Do we still need relationship-building foundations to support digital peace executions?

Theory Meets Practice

As peace activists, we continue to emphasize dialogue facilitation through various methodologies: Bohm Dialogue, Open Space Technology, World Café, and others. However, after workshops or meetings, numerous challenges arise in keeping groups connected in physical spaces. This becomes even more challenging with large numbers of participants.

This raises another question: Is there room for bringing participants into a digital space that is strongly driven by trust and human connection?

I still agree with Perera’s claim that digital approaches must be balanced with direct on-the-ground engagement; trust, local context, and voices beyond the digital sphere remain essential. This balanced approach helps reduce several risks:

• Technical malfunctions
• Manipulation of digital data and tools by governments or other powerful entities
• Harm to vulnerable populations
• Compromise of peacebuilding initiatives

An Invitation to Integration

The invitation here is to bring digital space into the ground and ground into digital space. This interconnectivity has the potential to:

• Deepen trust between all stakeholders
• Enrich the digital space with authentic human connection
• Create more resilient and sustainable peacebuilding initiatives

The story from Kaya junction demonstrates that even in our digital age, the most effective peace interventions combine technological tools with deep local knowledge, language skills, and trust-based relationships. We are entering a big data digital world powered by AI, sophisticated and hopeful. The future of peacebuilding may not be choosing between digital and physical engagement, but rather finding innovative ways to weave them together.

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[i] Source: S. Perera, “To Boldly Know: Knowledge, Peacekeeping and Remote Data Gathering in Conflict-Affected States,” Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 2017