ABSTRACT
Our communication ecosystem is increasingly becoming violent: polarisation, hate speech, radicalisation, intercultural tensions, and xenophobia. The challenge before the global human community hence is to promote a communication ecosystem that is nonviolent in nature and contributes to a spirit of dialogue, tolerance, empathy, compassion, and mutual respect. Based on the Gandhian framework of nonviolent communication, this chapter argues that the goal of a new communication ecosystem should be to encourage soul-to-soul communication and emotional bridge building. This approach based on equality, justice, and a nonexploitative paradigm can be explained in the context of Escobar’s dimensions of the pluriverse—communicative, cognitive, environmental, socio-cultural and spiritual, political economy, and socio-political justice. By capturing perspectives of young people involved with The Peace Gong, an international children and youth platform, on how they use strategies of nonviolent communication for promoting dialogues and mutual understanding, this chapter offers strategies for the evolution of a harmonious global communication ecosystem based on human interdependence with nature, other human, and all other living beings.
