Newsletter #23
Rehabilitation | Matriarchy | Unlearning
Hi folks,
Happy Beltane, welcome to summer. Or not, if you’re currently queuing to vote in the Indian election, where weather conditions similar to those described in the horrific opening to ‘Ministry For The Future’ are currently killing people, and dramatically reducing voter turnout.
Our thoughts are with them, and everyone fighting for democracy in defiance of increasingly repressive attempts to block and undermine it.
Thanks to everyone who came to our community session last week focused on Gaza and the wider region. It highlighted a real need amongst practitioners communicating on the situation for more sharing of narrative insight and strategy, and a general need for more spaces for collective reflection on how unfolding events are affecting the landscape we are all working in. If you have relevant polling or insight work, or are organising reflective spaces, please send them over and we will share.
Shared in solidarity
Shares
Key: 📝 Article | ⚙️ Tool | 📢 Campaign | 🎬 Film
Healing the Disease of Separation
Vanessa Andreotti, Chief Ninawa Huni Kui
“When we are seeking justice, we tend to invest in a future outcome, a destination point, that we imagine from a position of autonomy and entitlement. This process is often driven by the desires of the ego and prevents it from being a collaboration with the Land. By placing all investment in certainty and control, and a predefined outcome, we are prevented from repairing and healing relationships in the present, which inherently needs to be driven by something other than the transactional calculations of the ego… Rehabilitation only works when there is consent, not only intellectual, but affective and embodied consent and the first step is admitting we have a problem, in this case, it is also admitting the depth and scale of our individual and collective problems.”
#deepnarrative #narrativestrategy #tactics
Modelling injustice: South experts call for climate model paradigm shift
Rishika Pardikar; African Arguments
“A growing body of scientists and experts in the Global South are calling for what they see as ‘blinkered’ and ‘neo-colonialist’ assumptions in climate change mitigation models to be addressed. They argue that scenarios presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which inform policy at the national and global level, project unequal futures where developing countries remain poor for decades… Such modelling approaches 'perpetuate a cycle of poverty and under-development’, hindering progress towards achieving sustainable development goals and improving the well-being of populations in countries in the Global South.”
#issuenarrative #tactics
The Next Phase of Feminism Is Matriarchy
Nergiz De Baere; Chixmag
“Modern feminism has been clear on one thing: we must dismantle the patriarchy. But it’s not clear what will take its place… It’s time to focus on creating a matriarchy. Matriarchy is patriarchy in reverse, but not in the way you think. A patriarchy is a hierarchical social structure where men are in charge. The etymology of the word patriarchy literally means “domination of the fathers”. In this case, the Greek word -arche means domination or rule, as in “monarch” or “archbishop”. A matriarchy is a social structure where women (mainly mothers) are at the center… The Greek word -arche also means “beginning”, as in “archeology” or “archetype”. Matriarchy literally translates to “in the beginning, the mothers”. In a matriarchy, there is no top or hierarchy, there is only an inclusive circle where everyone’s needs are met.”
#deepnarrative #framing
How to Spot Five of the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Biggest Disinformation Tactics
Amy Westervelt, Kyle Pope; Guardian (US)
“Swayed for 30 years by fossil fuel industry propaganda, the media has been as likely to unknowingly amplify falsehoods as they were to bat them down. It’s only in recent years that more journalists started to shy away from “both-sides-ing” the climate crisis – decades after scientists reached an overwhelming consensus on the scope of the problem and its causes. The good news is that while the fossil fuel industry’s PR tactics have shifted, the stories they’re telling don’t change much from year to year, they are just adapted depending on what’s happening in the world.” Covers ‘Energy security’, ‘Economy vs environment’, and being ‘Part of the solution’.
#issuenarrative #tactics
Decapitalising Our Language
Atmos
“How can our language encourage us to care for the environment? Even in the most subtle ways, incorporating more nature-based language into our vocabulary may have a positive impact on our daily interactions with nature and our overall outlook on our environment. In using terms and phrases that don’t ask us to compete against ourselves or each other but rather, nurture, grow, and sustain those relationships, we can better understand and appreciate our planet.” So instead of ‘only the strongest survive’, say ‘together we thrive’.
#framing #tactics
📝 See here
Later is Too Late: Global Data Explorer
Potential Energy
“In 2023, Potential Energy, a global, nonprofit marketing firm creating public demand for climate solutions, carried out one of the broadest and most comprehensive global message testing studies conducted on climate change. Working in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, Zero Ideas, and the Meliore Foundation, we tested multiple framings of a wide range of policies to counter climate change — from curbing pollution to investing in clean vehicles — to find out how we can motivate the world to accelerate climate progress.” With this tool, you can “explore the data on a country level to see what message frames worked and zoom in by age, gender, political leaning, and more.”
#framing #messaging #insight
⚙️ See here
For The Win
Black Sands
“Investing in our world is investing in our future. Food. Energy. Resilience. How can we invest in a better future for us all? Since 1960, the World Bank’s IDA fund has been unlocking a series of global win-win benefits, such as helping to prevent pandemics by boosting local healthcare, keeping food affordable by supporting farmers and strengthening economies by investing in women worldwide. This year, we need countries to step-up to replenish IDA’s funding in order to unlock the accessible and affordable finance that countries need.”
#issuenarrative #messaging #tactics
📢 See here
1,000 Agencies Celebration
Clean Creatives
“Over 1,000 advertising and PR agencies worldwide have taken the Clean Creatives pledge not to work with fossil fuel companies. To celebrate, we created a very special Rube Goldberg machine – which you may remember from the portfolios of decades past – to show that what seems really hard is actually very simple. If 1000 agencies can drop fossil fuel clients, so can you. We hope the complex but fascinating contraption serves as a metaphor for moving toward a sustainable future. But seriously, we hope you feel as proud of this achievement as we do. It shows what we can accomplish as a community committed to real, impactful change.” Also see.
#tactics
🎬 See here
The Shitthropocene: Welcome To The Age Of Cheap Crap
Patagonia
“Join us as we talk to leading experts in the field, hold the perpetrators accountable, and embark on an investigation into why the things we use to cover up our naughty bits have all gone to shite… a journey from the cellular-level origins of our lack of impulse control to the ways our central nervous systems have been hacked in the name of capitalism. It’s also about how we might begin to save ourselves from ourselves. Plus there are dancing cave people.”
#deepnarrative #framing
🎬 See here
Events & Courses
Key: 🗓️ Event | 🎓 Course
(Un)learning Cycle
Becoming Crew | three events, May - July
“We are collaborating with a distributed faculty of guest teachers to bring you live, participative, (un)learning sessions, and practice driven change rooted in the following ongoing inquiry: How might we compost & re-imagine the dominant story of our times, the story of our separation?” Register for one or all of three events over three months, led by Bayo Akomolefe – ‘The Age of Fugitivity’; Azul Carolina Duque – ‘Facing Denials and Unlearning our Colonial Habits of Being’; and Ella Saltmarshe – ‘How Being Polytemporal Might Help Us Meet This Moment’. They are offering a 10% discount code for Inter-Narratives community with the code INTER10.
Material Matter[s]: A Skills For Transition Learning Journey
Civic Square | 19th May - 18th Sept
“A four month learning journey to fundamentally reimagine our relationship to materials, and learn the practical skills to embody and enact the regenerative material transition of our homes, streets and neighbourhoods, to support a socially just and ecologically safe planet for all life.”
Building Emotional Resilience
Resilience.org
“Resilience+ is a new area of resilience.org where you can dive deeper into selected sustainability topics and access extras like exclusive live discussions. We’ll be rolling out new content and features throughout 2024. To start off Resilience+ we are offering a series of Deep Dives, in-depth explorations released every few months featuring live online events with experts, discussion events, and supplementary resources—all curated and hosted by the team at Post Carbon Institute. This first Deep Dive includes: a Panel event with renowned experts (live and recorded); Live discussion hosted by Good Grief Network; 2 recorded interviews with emotional resilience experts; 3 articles by Richard Heinberg and Rachel Donald; Additional curated resources. (Currently discounted)
🎓 See here
The Ethical Agency Summit: Time For Collective Action
Creatives For Climate | June 6th | Amsterdam
“The Ethical Agency Summit will provide an overview of the state of play across the (advertising and marketing) industry, bring together frontrunners to share and discuss and map pathways forward for collective change. We’ll be joined by Badvertising, Reclame Fossielvrij, ClientEarth, B Lab, Wieden+Kennedy, leaders from the recently launched Ethical Agency Alliance and many more.”
Quotes
(This selection of quotes is intended as a resource, in the hope that they may be useful for your own communications.)
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
“In spiritual bypassing, people want to think they are “one” with everything beautiful, while negating their connection with everything that is destroying that beauty.” – Vanessa Andreotti
“I am the tragic mask. I am how you defend yourself from what it is catastrophe to have to know." – Ruth Padel
“Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances”. – Toni Morrison
“There are no new ideas, just new ways of giving those ideas we cherish breath and power in our own living.” – Audre Lorde
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