Eighty years ago, the United Nations was created to promote global peace, human rights and shared prosperity for everyone. Today, ongoing genocides like those in Gaza, Sudan and Xinjiang, along with unchecked extractivism, necropolitical governance, organ farming and disenchantment in traditional politics in the Global North, have left many people feeling fearful and disillusioned. These challenges often make it harder to build trust and meaningful connections between societies.

While multilateral governance remains essential, many of today’s most meaningful transformations are not under institutional patronage. The spirit of the UN Charter now often materialises through everyday diplomacy: the quiet, cross-cultural exchanges in communities, social movements and civil networks that cultivate understanding and repair.

This piece offers reflections on how culture illuminates paths towards peacebuilding grounded in confraternity and diverse forms of soft diplomacy.

Peacebuilding and culture

Several UN statements have highlighted the importance of culture and education in peacebuilding. Groups like the Alliance Internationale pour la Protection du Patrimoine in Switzerland and Heritage for Peace in Spain work to protect cultural heritage in conflict areas, seeing it as a key part of identity and belonging. However, these efforts often come in as a last resort, serving more as a way to survive than to truly transform communities.

A reactive focus risks obscuring deeper sociocultural dynamics. For culture to really help build peace, it needs to be part of bigger efforts like intercultural dialogue, civic involvement and inclusive leadership. This means seeing culture as something that changes over time, shaped by traditions, past injustices, power differences and shifting identities.

Culture can go two ways: it can reinforce narrow thinking or help bring people together. Cultural diplomacy, which uses a country’s cultural strengths to build understanding, can be key in peacebuilding. It helps grow empathy, break down ‘us vs. them’ attitudes, rebuild trust and ease political tensions, while also supporting civil society. This is why grassroots organisations are so important for building peace from the ground up.

Everyday diplomacy

Cultural diplomacy is practised, often quietly, by individuals in the rhythms of everyday life.

Tourism is a good example of soft diplomacy practices. When guided by curiosity and ethical engagement, it opens up space for dialogue, enabling travellers and hosts to act as informal ambassadors. Stereotypes are challenged, and “the other” becomes human, generating meanings that transcend geopolitical divides. The Peace Boat, launched by Japanese students after Second World War, offers a poignant example of these principles in action.

Yet, in a world with ever more international tourism flows, we see increasing social divide and elitisation processes, persistent colonialist patterns, exoticisation (and dehumanisation) of societies and omnipresent fear. Hypernormalisation and other survival mechanisms may be an explanation, but they cannot become a shield: they should guide us to the deeper causes of global disconnection from fellow humans and ecosystems.

Similarly, digital communications enable bottom-up diplomacy. When used beyond algorithmic bubbles, the internet allows for interactions, contrasting (or challenging) official narratives, allowing individuals to engage in dialogue with people around the globe on their own terms, opening a possibility for the emergence of transnational solidarities, amplifying underrepresented voices and facilitating the circulation of counter-hegemonic perspectives (for example, challenging the dominance of Global North epistemologies).

As a response to this, we are seeing a will in democratic governments to control digital communications. Security of vulnerable populations is used as an umbrella to justify the second attempt of the European Commission to pass a regulation now nicknamed ChatControl, after more than 700 scientists and academics signed an open letter against it and civil society opened a popular petition against it. In the USA, ICE is also building a team to monitor social media.

Threats do exist and security measures need to be enforced, within reason. Mutual aid networks have sustained societies when institutions failed; even, in post-Second World War Japan, limited state capacity meant that non-state actors played a role in meeting some social needs. From a personal perspective, the invisible structure is about retaining or yielding power, possibly in a context infused with fear and lack of trust.

Closing remarks: regenerative sociopolitics for peace

Micropolitics refers to the subtle, relational processes through which power, care and meaning circulate in daily life. In contrast to macropolitical systems that emphasise policy or hierarchy, micropolitics foregrounds gestures of connection. Within the context of cultural diplomacy and grassroots peacebuilding, this micropolitical lens illuminates how empathy, dialogue and mutual recognition can generate political effects without institutional mediation.

Regenerative politics builds upon this sensibility by moving beyond sustainability’s maintenance paradigm toward the active renewal of social and ecological systems. Where sustainability seeks balance, regeneration seeks vitality – the capacity of systems to heal, evolve and create new possibilities. Regenerative politics offer the possibility to restore the trust of people in governance structures by rooting governance in accountability, repair and collective healing, echoing the ethics of restorative justice.

Together, they reveal that systemic change begins with small gestures. Nevertheless, these practices do not work against institutions, but instead support them by connecting personal growth with bigger changes in society. Regenerative micropolitics helps link the original goals of the UN to the real, diverse world we live in today.