Hi everyone,
In a week that saw a landmark ICJ ruling for Climate Justice, we also witness the astounding ongoing horror in Gaza.
As Ella suggests here, there are things we can all do.
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This week we’re introducing a new section to the newsletter, called ‘Spotlight’, where we will draw your attention to a particular organisation that is doing the work of narrative change.
Shared in solidarity
Spotlight
Shado Magazine
“shado is a lived-experience led community of artists, activists, organisers, creators and writers united in the fight for social justice and collective liberation…a platform for people to tell their own stories and take control of their own narrative, rather than being spoken for or about.” The community is fostering coordination across disciplines to establish shared infrastructure, “rooted in connecting artists, activists and journalists…three sectors which are pioneering change, but are often unfortunately working in separation.” They want to connect these fields “because we believe not only that the mission they’re working on is so often aligned, but also because greater impact can come through collaboration.” They deploy a range of activities to “disrupt, diversify and decolonise the current arts and media landscape through amplifying the voices of people on the frontline of social change, and connecting individuals and organisations which might otherwise have been working in siloes.”
🔆 See here
Shares
📋 Report | ✏️ Article | 🎬 Film
See our full searchable library of every share from these newsletters
Links
📋 Shattered Britain – More In Common
✏️ Who are Reform UK’s ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Voters? Part 2 – Unchecked UK
✏️ What Messages Might Reform be Vulnerable To? – Strong Message Here
🎬 Shifty – Adam Curtis
✏️ What Kind of Governance Enables Liberatory Infrastructures? – Siana Bangura
✏️ Solidarity Infrastructures – What Do We Leave Behind When the Grant Ends? – Laurence Meyer, Nino Ugrekhelidze, Salmana Ahmed, élysse marcellin and Cassie Denbow
Summaries
Shattered Britain
More In Common
The latest update to the ‘seven segments’ of the British population, charting where they’re at across a set of ‘drivers’, ‘fault lines’, their views on Immigration, Economics, and Climate, Politics, and the media they consume. The well-known segments receive a fresh taxonomy and distribution, as the political picture evolves, offering “a look upstream not just at what different groups think, but why they think it.” The four ‘drivers’ are “A crisis of trust; Exhaustion and struggle; Rising threat perception and a Loss of agency”. The ‘fault lines’ that help explain the division in Britain: “Appetite for change and risk; Simple or complex solutions; Individual agency; Conspiratorial thinking and ‘finding my own truth’; Multiculturalism and identity; Social disconnection; Attitudes towards free speech; The importance of identity.” There is also a webinar.
#insight
Who are Reform UK’s ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Voters? Part 2
Unchecked UK; Populism Unpacked
Following on from part 1, we learn of the two key factors driving support for Reform: voters are “more likely than not to think the country is getting worse, and more likely than not to feel disrespected.” Just 3 in 10 Reform voters say they feel respected, and 95% of Reform UK supporters believe Britain is in decline – which is “significantly out of step with the broader public”. 92% believe that “politicians don’t listen to people like me” and overall “tend to express economically populist sentiments, broadly agreeing that the economy is structured in a way that doesn’t benefit ordinary people,” with 74% “thinking big businesses take advantage of ordinary people” and 78% saying “rich people are able to get around the law more easily” – which explains why Reform are “positioning themselves as the party of domestic ‘family capital’, rather than national and international capital”.
#insight
✏️ Read here
What Messages Might Reform be Vulnerable To?
Steve Akehurst; Strong Message Here
Echoing a finding above, new research suggests that “by far the most impactful” message, when attempting to persuade Reform voters away from Reform, was a ‘corporate interests’ message “highlighting the money that Reform has taken from different interest groups, oil and gas especially, to question Farage’s motivations.” This message “pushed down not just on favourability to Farage, it was the only message to significantly reduce willingness to vote for Reform. It decreased Farage’s numbers as best PM, increasing Starmer’s lead over him in the two-way version of this question.” Overall we are reminded that “Reform is strong when the conflicts in British politics are cultural. They are potentially weaker, and Labour stronger, when the conflicts are economic.” The recommendation? Go “centre on culture (safe and unspectacular), and left on economics…actively seeking conflict and attention on the latter to raise its salience – especially as it relates to voters’ cost of living concerns.”
#insight #framing #narrativestrategy
Shifty
Adam Curtis; BBC iPlayer
Curtis weaves his trademark tapestry of image, sound and logic to portray a story of power in the UK, proposing a explanation of our recent political history. We explore how an “underlying pessimism about human motives”, along with a mistaken belief in the possibility of control, led Thatcher’s government and its descendants to gradually give away their power. We see this happen through often ludicrous spin and deception, the financialisation of capitalism, and the privatisation of public goods and services (a process we learn was invented, or at least expanded by the Nazis). Major events are set against a backdrop of how the population was feeling, to provide an unsettling, revealing, infuriating and always entertaining perspective on the making of this moment, and a stark observation about the nature of power today. The ending provides an honest reflection on the role of work like this in these times.
#issuenarrative #deepnarrative
What Kind of Governance Enables Liberatory Infrastructures?
Siana Bangura; Catalyst
Defining governance as “our ways of working and being together, and our ways of relating to one another,” Bangura explores efforts by groups such as Multitudes Co-op, who have been “experimenting with what it takes to activate healthier ways of being together in community,” and what “liberatory infrastructure” is required to support it. As outlined by the Transformational Governance Collective, this crucially includes “the informal structures, policies, practices, relationships and cultural expectations that determine how decisions are made, how roles and resources are allocated, and how collaborative activity happens…grounded in principles of shared power, collective decision-making, accountability, and transformative change…to dismantle oppressive systems and build more just communities.” Powering this work is the concept of ‘ustopia’, which Ruha Benjamin defines as “what we create together when we are wide awake.”
#infrastructure #issuenarrative #framing
✏️ Read here
Solidarity Infrastructures – What Do We Leave Behind When the Grant Ends?
Laurence Meyer, Nino Ugrekhelidze, Salmana Ahmed, élysse marcellin and Cassie Denbow; Alliance Magazine
Following a retreat held last year on Digital Liberation, co-hosted by Weaving Liberation, Dalan Fund, Whose Knowledge? and Numun Fund, the authors reflect on what is required for resilient justice work, and outline the priorities of a new Solidarity Infrastructure Collective. The Collective imagines “a collectively owned and governed movement space – physical solidarity infrastructure – that transcends one-off grants” aiming to “mobilise our different resources to challenge the dependency cycles we all, at different levels, find ourselves in” with a key objective of working towards “the collective ownership of land in Europe and West Africa governed by local groups.” Accompanied by concrete examples, they suggest that sustainable long-term resourcing requires: “Enabling peer solidarity; Enabling income generation; and Supporting land justice,” recognising a shared “urgency in radically reimagining the role of philanthropy.”
#infrastructure #tactics #framing
✏️ Read here
Noticeboard
💼 Role
Future Generations Panel, Investment Olympics
Friends Provident Foundation
Deadline: Jul 28th | 7 days, Aug ‘25 - Jun ‘26 | Age 18-25
“Even though investment impacts young people and future generations the most, they are the most excluded from decision-making. We believe this needs to change. As part of the upcoming Investing olympics, we are aiming to bring the world of investing into the light and challenge the industry to work for the needs of future generations. We are looking for six young people who will form the Future Generations Panel to shape how the Investing olympics works and support investment decisions worth many millions of pounds. We are looking to recruit a diverse panel of young adults who are often excluded from investment decisions and most at risk of future social, environmental and economic threats.”
Quotes
(This selection of quotes is intended as a resource, in the hope that they may be useful for your own communications. See a full list of all the previous quotes.)
“Power doesn't corrupt; it is magnetic to the corruptible.” – Frank Herbert
“The norm is not normal: it's a construction // Designed to stifle the inner life and increase production.” – Kae Tempest
"The infrastructure of justice demands philosophical literacy, historical consciousness, and moral seriousness – precisely what pragmatists abandoned for speed and supposed relevance." – Otto Voigt
“We are coming down to earth; we will not arrive intact.” – Bayo Akomolefe
“Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.” – Ruha Benjamin
Thanks for joining us, see you here again in a few 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