Author: Sanjana

An Ashoka, Rotary World Peace and TED Fellow, I have since 2002 used, studied and advocated Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to strengthen peace, human rights & democratic governance. I founded in 2006 and till June 2020 edited the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka's first civic media website. From 2002-2020 I was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. I pioneered both the use of social media for activism and online citizen journalism/civic media in Sri Lanka, including setting up South Asia's first Twitter and Facebook accounts for civic media, in 2007. Having started digital security training for human rights activists in 2010, I continue to advise civil society on digital hygiene, mass and personal surveillance, privacy and secure communications to date. I also curate a comprehensive digital archive of material linked to peace and conflict in Sri Lanka, since 2002. I specialise in, advise and train on social media communications strategy, countering-violence extremism online, web-based activism, online advocacy and grounded, context-based, platform-specific social media research. My work experience over two-decades spans five continents. Through the ICT4Peace Foundation and since 2006, I help strengthen information management during crises and work on countering violent extremism online. For over a decade, this included leading the Foundation's work on these lines with the United Nations and other multi-lateral organisations involved in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs. Since 2008, I have worked in South Asia, South East Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Balkans to capture, disseminate and archive inconvenient truths in austere, violent contexts. I completed doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, looking at the symbiotic relationship between offline unrest and online instigation of hate and harm in Sri Lanka and, in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre in 2019, facilitated by leading research based on New Zealand's first ever Data for Good grant by Twitter.

Invisible incendiaries

“We learn geology the morning after the earthquake” – Ralph Waldo Emerson In the early 80s, and the start of what would be a nearly 30-year brutal war, I was kept awake at night by two things. Planes and ambulances. With fresh military offensives by the Sri Lankan Army incurring heavy casualties, Airforce planes airlifted … Continue reading Invisible incendiaries →

The nature and nurture of disinformation

First published on the ICT4Peace Foundation website. ### For us the land is matrix and destroyer,Resentful, darkly knownBy sunset omens, low words heard in branches.— Poem in the Matukituki Valley, James K. Baxter “In the woods we return to reason and faith.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson Aotearoa New Zealand’s inaugural hui on countering terrorism and violent extremism, He … Continue reading The nature and nurture of disinformation →

Addressing the Infodemic

First published on ICT4Peace Foundation website. Meaningful policymaking to fight the swelling seed, spread and supremacy of misinformation benefits from data and evidence alive to socio-political realities. A new report from Aotearoa New Zealand’s Classification Office does precisely this. ‘The Edge of the Infodemic’ presents a snapshot of the country’s media and information ecologies in … Continue reading Addressing the Infodemic →

Qadri Ismail: In memoriam

Prof. Ismail (Qadri) was one of the earliest champions of Groundviews, and over the years, one of its best critics and contributors. Qadri and I met infrequently, but corresponded over email at a pace determined, often, by socio-political developments in Sri Lanka coloured by electoral moments, Islamophobia, violence or political turmoil. These were moments when … Continue reading Qadri Ismail: In memoriam →

Conversation with Gayan Prageeth

Spoke with Sri Lankan article Gayan Prageeth about his latest exhibition, Eyes Only - featuring a body of work with a narrative focused on the developments of politics and corruption in Sri Lanka post-war. https://soundcloud.com/user-635616592-684253190/open-studio-podcast Please note the podcast is in Sinhala. Download the English transcript here. See original post on the Saskia Fernando Gallery … Continue reading Conversation with Gayan Prageeth →

The Defence Secretary and the President

Sri Lanka is led by a man who has, by his admission, two faces. In a more democratic avatar is Gotabaya Rajapaksa the President. Here, the individual in question is presented as smart, suave and sage. Before he spoke, his suit bespoke, as rapper Kanye put it in song, captures man and mission. An older … Continue reading The Defence Secretary and the President →

The end of free and fair elections

The proposed 20th amendment will be the death of free and fair elections in Sri Lanka. The study of political communications and digital propaganda for over a decade leaves no room for doubt on what will follow if (when?) the 20th Amendment, in its current form, is passed in Parliament. Worse, if the proposed amendment … Continue reading The end of free and fair elections →

‘The Tide Will Turn’ by Shahidul Alam: A cri de cœur of photography & prose

Alam’s power as a photographer, bearing witness to so much around him, is a belief that we – Asians, people of colour, brown folk, those from the Global South or in Hans Rosling’s framing, those from Tier 2 or 3 countries – are the best placed and able to tell our own stories. Alam started … Continue reading ‘The Tide Will Turn’ by Shahidul Alam: A cri de cœur of photography & prose →

9 April, Dunedin, New Zealand

I spoke to my father’s sarong on the morning of the 9th. It was my birthday, the first after Thaththa died. Growing up, my sister and I never celebrated our birthdays with parties. We never went to any either. I cannot recall what my sister got for hers, but I almost always got a book … Continue reading 9 April, Dunedin, New Zealand →