Newsletter #27
Blue wall | Narrative forms | Rigged systems
Hi folks,
Election! Sending much love and resolve to all those doorstepping, campaigning, advising, running, and of course voting.
There are a few last minute election-related pieces below, after a reminder of our upcoming post-election collective reflection session.
Normal service will resume in Newsletter #28.
Shared, as ever, in solidarity.
Session
Election implications
Collective Sensemaking | July 11th | 12:00-13:00 BST | Online
For our next community session, we’ll be holding space to reflect on the narrative implications of the election result for the rest of the year and beyond. We’ll be exploring what kind of narrative work will be required to encourage a trajectory towards caring, just and regenerative worlds.
🗳️ Election 🗳️
What the Manifestos Say on Energy and Climate
Carbon Brief
Comprehensive analysis of what each party is promising on climate change, nature and the net-zero transition, which despite seeming to have been a low priority in the campaigns, “are expected to play a “central role” in the election, with the environment and climate change the fifth most important issue to voters – after the cost of living, health, the economy in general and immigration and asylum – according to a recent poll from YouGov.”
#insight #tactics
Blue Wall Primer
Persuasion UK
Insight on the traditionally-conservative seats that may swing this election. “Blue Wall seats are largely found on the outskirts of big cities or in prosperous commuter towns of England, mostly - though not exclusively - in the south east… defined by a much higher than average number of graduates, and slightly more older voters, non-white voters and homeowners… marked by a level of social liberalism that is typically above the national average but far above the average for 'Red Wall' constituencies… and there's a significant disconnect between the values of voters in these seats and what they perceive the values of the Conservative party to be.”
#insight
Twice As Many Britons Want Tax Rises as Want Cuts
Financial Fairness Trust (Guardian coverage)
“People realise in terms of what the parties are promising on public services that there is a massive gap on what’s needed and what money is available. That is why the public backs these tax rises, because they would rather have that than even more deterioration of public services.”
#insight
Shares
Key: 📝 Article | 🎙️ Podcast | 📋 Report | 🎬 Film
Finding New Kinds Of Stories
Brett Davidson; On The Wild
Those of us who work in the fields of narrative change and impactful storytelling tend to focus a lot on narrative content: we get caught up with the idea that if we just tell better stories, we can change things. And by better stories, we mean stories that feature our favorite issues in a particular light, or that switch around the types of people who feature as heroes, villains or victims, and so on… (But) the narrative forms that have predominated, certainly in Western culture, are no longer capable of helping us adequately grapple with and understand reality (if they ever were). At a very simple level, our most popular stories are individualistic… Instead of imposing our explanatory and organizational shapes onto the world, we may have to listen and wait for new ones to reveal themselves to us.”
#narrativestrategy
Building and Resourcing Narrative Power
Mandy Van Deven, Chiara Cattaneo; Philanthropisms
A broad, precise and practical discussion on the role of philanthropy in narrative change, and narratives about philanthropy. Covers various questions, including: “What are the most prevalent narratives about philanthropy that need to be challenged or changed? What are the advantages of adopting an ecosystem approach to resourcing narrative work? To what extent does developing narrative power require a willingness not to set specific goals/ timescales or to demand attribution of inputs to outcomes? How do you manage the tension between the urgency of issues such as climate breakdown or racial injustice and the fact that narrative work often requires patience and a willingness to work over longer timescales?”
#narrativestrategy #tactics
🎙️ Listen here
Tax The Rich, Say G20 Citizens
Earth4All
“Across 17 G20 countries surveyed, a majority of adults (68%) support the policy proposal where wealthy people pay a higher tax on their wealth, as a means of funding major changes to our economy and lifestyles… Two in three people across 17 G20 countries surveyed (68%) agree that the way the economy works should prioritise the health and wellbeing of people and nature rather than focusing solely on profit and increasing wealth.“ Also see.
#insight
The World’s Largest Survey on Climate Change
UNDP
“More than half of people globally said they were more worried about climate change now than last year, and four out of five want their countries to strengthen commitments to address climate change... Survey results show high levels of support for a range of climate actions, including nature restoration, rapid transition from fossil fuels and climate education in schools… 86 percent agree that their countries should set aside geopolitical differences, such as those regarding trade and security, and work together on climate change.”
#insight
Two Tips For Talking About Rigged Systems
FrameWorks Institute (US)
“If our goal as communicators, advocates, scholars, and movement leaders is to build demand for different, better, and fairer systems, we need to communicate in ways that avoid provoking a sense of fatalism—that the problem is just too big to be addressed. We need to put forward solutions that are at the same scale as the problems we’re trying to fix—but when the problem (the system) is framed in such a general way, our solutions can either come across as too small to fix it or too big to be doable. We call this the ‘ambition-feasibility paradox’… and our research points to two important steps to take to overcome it.”
#framing #tactics
How to Stop “The Far Right”
Konstantin Krisin; Triggernometry
According to the Triggernometry host, who is “not right wing”, the language ‘far right’ is being used indiscriminately and offensively by ‘the woke’, in a way that masks the true ‘far right’ threats. “The way to stop the far right is to listen your fellow citizens hear their concerns and act accordingly. Naturally I do not expect the people I'm attempting to reach to heed this call. On the contrary I expect them to double down, dig their heels in and screw the lid of the pressure cooker on even tighter.” Note that he does not seem interested in citizens’ concerns about climate – Triggernometry were one of the sites investigated by CCDH in their New Climate Denial report. Also note the lengthy promotion at the end for a supplement company that seeks to cheat death.
#framing #reactionary
🎬 See here
Jobs & Courses
Key: 💼 Job | 🎓 Course
Editorial Steward
Healing Justice London
“A 6 month part time contract to build out an editorial space on our new website. We imagine this role as a rolling curator in residence to commission and share creative work and are really open to working with people who bring a sharp analysis on any of our focus areas (community-led health and healing, movement leadership, health justice, racial justice, disability justice, survivor work, grief work etc).”
Public Narrative: Leadership, Storytelling, and Action
Marshall Ganz; Harvard Kennedy School
“A transformative online program through which you can strengthen your capacity to lead. You learn how to tell a story of self that enables others to "get you"; a story of us that enables your community to "get each other"; and a story of now that turns the present moment into one of challenge, hope, and action. It is a groundbreaking practice that for years has proven an invaluable tool for senior public leaders, community organizers, students, and leaders across a range of organizations.”
Quotes
(This selection of quotes is intended as a resource, in the hope that they may be useful for your own communications.)
“Just as mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of underground mycelia, so are myths the aboveground manifestations of specific ecologies...Just as fungi originally taught plants how to root into the soil, so myths teach us how to root into relation with our ecological and social ecosystems.” – Sophie Strand
"The destination of life is this eternal moment." – Alan Watts
"Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows." – Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Grief is a path to understanding entangled shared living and dying; human beings must grieve with, because we are in and of this fabric of undoing. Without sustained remembrance, we cannot learn to live with ghosts and so cannot think.” – Donna Haraway
"How do we fall together, without falling apart?" – Alixa Garcia
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