This is a cross-over episode with the Scottish Communities Climate Action Network's (SCCAN) podcast 1000 Better Stories. This episode is hosted by SCCAN Storyweaver, Kaska Hempel, who interviews me about the Shifting the Narrative Project.
Shifting the Narrative is a research project I led at the University of Edinburgh from January 2022 until June 2022 engaging with over 50 storytellers who work with stories in relation to nature crises, nature connection, community and social change work, and environmental education. In these six months we collected and synthesised the experiences and wisdom of this group of people to come up with some good practice recommendations for communicators more generally.
We found that dialogue is integral to traditional and performance storytelling and that most storytellers working in this area integrate some form of dialogue into their practice. The research also highlighted that the flexibility of stories to interpretation is story's super-power, enabling listeners to meet story wherever they are. Live performances create community at least for the duration of the event, while allowing diversity in interpretation. These key findings challenge mainstream communication around nature crises, which emphasise reaching as many people as possible through broadcast forms of storytelling and ensuring clear messaging.
The University team consisted of myself (Alette Willis), Ramsey Affifi and Jule Hildmann in Education and Arno Verhoeven from the Edinburgh College of Art.
Our Community Partners:
Our research was funded by the British Academy, which funds research to inform policy. Our research contributed to their Net-Zero Policy Programme
More about the research project can be found on my blog: https://restoryingtheearth.com/stories/research-on-storytelling-ethics-and-social-transformation/shifting-the-narrative/
1000 Better Stories: https://scottishcommunitiesclimateactionnetwork.podbean.com/