Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Stories (Inside/Out: using storytelling to understand the politics of exclusion in Europe and South Africa )
Berichtszeitraum: 2018-09-01 bis 2020-08-31
Objectives:
• Use storytelling to allow people categorised politically as inside/outside to surface and articulate everyday experiences of inclusion and exclusion
• Develop arts-based and creative techniques of storytelling as a process of co-generation and co-production of knowledge that moves between personal experience and narratives of exclusion and inclusion.
• Evaluate how the research process can, itself, contribute to deepening the quality of dialogue across boundaries of exclusion and inclusion in the UK and South Africa
• In partnership with civil society organisations, to explore how digital technologies and communication can be used ethically and responsibly to create and share stories that build public engagement and trust between groups
• Advance the understanding of trust, belonging and social cohesion, specifically in terms of how stories can help people to build new shared narratives in a context of powerful narratives of exclusion
This project used storytelling to generate new bottom-up narratives with migrants from inside and outside groups. These stories have been used to to challenge dominant top down discursive politics of exclusion by challenging the existing stereotypes about migrants and creating new forms of dialogue across divisions. Through the research process and the stories it generated, research participants and other audiences have recognised how they are connected in spite of political narratives of exclusion. This had led to greater recognition of the commonalities between groups, and why these matter.
The fellow used collaboration with scholars from other disciplines to develop the interdisciplinary nature of the research. This included the establishment of and participation in a reading and discussion group with psychologists, sociologists and political theorists on narratives and the development of funding proposals with scholars from these disciplines.
The fellow received mentoring and support to complete three large-scale funding proposals, totalling over GBP 4 million. The development of these funding proposals has enhanced the fellow’s capacity to lead a major research programme.
The project increased the credibility of the storytelling methodology with academic audiences by presenting the methodology at key conferences and other academic events and through publications.
The project increased the uptake of the methodology with practitioner/policy audiences through delivering webinars on using the methodology for the Institute of Voluntary Action Research, UK and Instituto Juconi, Mexico. These reached a practitioner audience with over 4000 views. In 2019, the fellow presented results of research and the methodological approach at formative workshop for the design of the Victoria Forum 2020, chaired by Lord Alderice at the Canadian High Commission. This presentation significantly informed the design of the Forum.
The project launched online versions of stories generated through research by adding a new section to Adonis Musati’s website to focus on storytelling (https://www.adonismusatiproject.org/storytelling).
The fellow expanded her blogging profile on storytelling by launching a new blog on Medium.com (open access version), and posted 9 blogs (www.medium.com/joanna_wheeler). _She also posted on a high profile blog, DiscoverSociety (https://discoversociety.org/2020/04/01/being-young-in-an-uncaring-city-the-personal-and-the-political-in-the-lives-of-south-africas-urban-young-people/). The blogs achieved over 3000 unique views and reads.
The fellow developed supplementary visual products and communication tools from creative products of research process. These were distributed via regular posts via the fellow’s Twitter account about research results and Adonis Musati’s social media accounts. This targeted a general public audience, achieving over 100,000 unique impressions across social media channels.
The fellow engaged policy makers with findings of research through a policy briefing (https://researchoutreach.org/articles/storytelling-across-social-divides/). It achieved 47,000 unique views, with the print copy distributed to over 200,000 subscribers including policy makers and other practitioners globally.