Hi folks, welcome back!
We hope you’ve managed to find some rest and joy over the last couple of weeks, and are continuing to look after yourselves as we traverse the dark and cold (in the UK, at least).
2024 will see half of the world’s population vote in elections, with pivotal votes occurring in Taiwan and the USA. As fascism continues to fester, and international law is threatened by the genocide in Gaza, coming together to help narratives emerge and spread in service of more equitable, just and regenerative pathways is ever more vital.
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To help us understand how to best meet your narrative needs in this crucial year, we would greatly appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to answer our brief survey about Inter-Narratives and the role it plays for you – thank you in advance!
Wishing you well
Event
On Black Imagination and Liberation Rehearsal
Amahra Spence & special guests | Jan 25th | Online
We’re so excited for this first Inter-Narratives event of 2024 curated by Amahra Spence with special guests including André Anderson & Tony Patrick. Together they will explore Black imagination, fugitivity, liberation rehearsal and ancestral intelligence.
As Founding Director of MAIA and Organiser of The Black Land & Spatial Justice Project, Amahra Spence brings a critical analysis of systemic injustice, to build infrastructure, redistribute resources and curate programmes that platform radical imagination.
André Anderson is the Headmaster of Freedom & Balance: the art college for the artist in everyone. André mainly focuses on democratising creative thinking in order to fully realise its potential in society, building educational frameworks that help exercise the creativity, leadership and self-awareness in those who would never call themselves artists, but innately are. One of his recent examples, ‘Authors of the Estate’ is a curriculum that explores the question “how do you turn council houses into publishing houses?” The end result was a 200-page book, written, published and distributed by Chalkhill Estate, in North West London.
Tony Patrick is a world builder, immersive director, and founder of the Tenfold Gaming Initiative and the (Re)Writers Room. Patrick creates fictional and immersive worlds and sculpts co-creation spaces which produce new artworks, prototypes, frameworks, and civic solutions. Patrick is a collaborator of Hereborn Park, a member of the Guild of Future Architects, and a Sundance Institute World-building Fellow.
Shares
Key: 📝 Article | 📋 Report | 🎬 Video | 🎙️ Podcast | ⚙️ Tool
Harnessing the wholeness of our efforts
Kwem, Global Narrative Hive
Four reflections on the Confluence gathering last year in Colombia – a bringing together of the narratives field that was co-convened by the Hive, PUENTES and IRIS. “If we can continue to hold onto each other, reminding ourselves of our shared vision of the world, and making spaces to convene and commune with each other from time to time, then, step by step we are building power with each other towards a more just world that we are all in desire of.”
#narrativestrategy #tactics
Art + Activism = Change. But It’s a Formula Philanthropy Largely Ignores
Ken Grossinger, The Chronicle of Philanthropy
“Political debates and legislation are too closely tied to the whims of the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Instead, what drives long term shifts is culture—the public attitudes and narratives that underlie progress… When artist-activists and community and labour organisers work together, they have the power to convert minds and hearts, and transform societies.” For evidence we need look no further than the recent response to ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’.
#narrativestrategy #tactics
The Jess Effect
IPPR
Reflections on the passing of Jess Search, from the staff and board of trustees at IPPR where she was Chair of Trustees. “We felt it was important to set out what we learned from Jess. Not just to remember Jess but to codify what she did so that we and the wider progressive movement can continue the work of a uniquely inspirational figure. Brought alive by stories and quotes from the team, trustees and alumni, here are our lessons from Jess.”
#tactics
Why Place?
Jenny Anderson
Exploring the principles and implications of viable societies, grounded in “regenerative places”, which might offer true resilience and restore belonging, and the perception shift required: “We will come back to the question of ‘reasonable’ in a later piece because it demands we discuss sufficiency which is almost always interpreted as ‘I get less and I don’t want less I want more’ rather than a change in our perception of ‘enough’ and quality, which in turn demands we rethink and rediscover what it is that truly makes us fulfilled, satisfied humans beyond material goods. No economic transformation of our current system can be achieved without this change in perception.”
#tactics
How Wilders Hacked Human Psychology to Win an Election
Israel Butler, Civil Liberties Union for Europe
“Authoritarian political movements capitalise on real phenomena that threaten peoples’ values, like falling living standards. They also manufacture threats or portray changes as threatening…like migration…pinning the origin of the threat on marginalised groups and/or an ‘elite’.” Butler offers several lessons for progressive communicators to reach the movable middle before deceptive, self-serving authoritarians do, including focusing messaging on “reversing the growing gap between the very richest and the rest of society so that people can always afford to support themselves and their families.”
#narrativestrategy #tactics
Record number of UK newspaper editorials opposing climate action – almost exclusively from right-leaning titles
Carbon Brief
“Newspapers such as the Sun and the Daily Mail published 42 editorials in 2023 arguing against climate action – nearly three times more than they have printed before in a single year… The cost of net-zero…was consistently framed by right-leaning newspapers as something British people…‘just cannot afford’. These papers invariably fail to mention the costs of inaction.” As we know, investments in action are minor compared to the costs of inaction, and as Climate Barometer data suggests, public opinion is in favour of acting – but this could be changing.
#insight #tactics
The Economy: What You’ve Missed
Gary’s Economics, Gary Stevenson
An exploration of how Covid-19 government spending (£800bn in the UK, $10tn in the US) went to the already-wealthy; the effect this has had on inflation, interest rates, house prices and living standards; how this is driving voters towards “alternative” political options that are typically xenophobic or racist; and how unless we can deliver the message that the only way to improve living standards is to eradicate (oligopolistic) inequality, living standards and democracy will continue to spiral.
#insight #messaging #tactics
We will not be quiet anymore
Wschód
“A different Poland is possible, and that is what we will vote for on October 15. We don't want to passively watch older men decide for us. We are fighting for the voice of women and girls to finally be heard, because we are the 52% of society. This fall we are going to the polls. We have already been quiet.” Powerful comms that played a role in holding back a tide of authoritarian fascism in Poland, as, against the odds, young people and women helped to vote in a 54% coalition. (‘Wschód’ translates as ‘Sunrise’).
#messaging #tactics
The Pacific Pathfinder: A Toolkit to Imagine and Create Futures
Pacific Community
A thorough, practical and beautifully rendered guide for any budding (or veteran) futures worker, “designed to inspire the confident use of strategic foresight tools. It includes 10 foresight tools that have been adapted and used in the Pacific“ (originally shared here). “In a spirit of reciprocity, we hope this toolkit is a testament to the power of collaboration, curiosity and ancient wisdom for futures and strategic foresight.”
#narrativestrategy #tactics
⚙️ See here
Courses & Jobs
Key: 🎓 Course | 💼 Job
Facing Human Wrongs 2.0: Climate Complexity and Relational Accountability
University of Victoria (remote) | Six Weeks | Jan 14th, Mar 4th, Apr 22nd
New dates for the course based on Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures’ work, “an exploration of the ongoing systemic violence we perpetuate towards one another and the planet we are part of…moving away from guilt and shame, and cultivating a compass of sobriety, maturity, discernment, and responsibility.”
Curriculum Developer: Climate Justice
ual: | Deadline: Jan 21st
“In this unique and exciting role, you will work with colleagues to provide coordination around curriculum development for climate justice ensuring that UAL guiding principles are embedded within the curriculum.”
Climate Justice Policy Officer (and other positions)
Climate Policy Radar
“We are on a mission to map and analyse the global climate law and policy landscape. By supporting evidence-based laws and policies, our vision is to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, resilient and just world.”
Quotes
(This selection of quotes is intended as a resource, in the hope that they may be useful for your own communications.)
"The opposite of more is not less, it is enough." – Ece Temelkuran
“When we evoke the ‘We’ to do something, we have to specify who it is, who's going to do it, and how, otherwise we're not really saying anything.” – Jonathan Rowson
“I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community.” – Bell Hooks
“When I’m watching images of unimaginable loss and pain, I’m taking a moment to thank my exquisite sensitivities for reminding me of my humanity. I would much rather feel this much pain, than be numb to this kind of suffering.” – Leah Maneama
"Don't fall asleep in someone else's dream." – Black Liturgies
Thanks for joining us, see you here again in two weeks.
A reminder that if you have something that you’d love to see in these newsletters, or work you’d like to share in the community sessions, or if you have any feedback, please reach out at inter-narratives@greenfunders.org
Very best,
Paddy & Ella