This project involved professional storytellers and a climate change researcher facilitating young people in developing storytelling performances that communicate lived experiences of climate adaptation from around the world. We worked with young people of working class and ethnic minority backgrounds from West Yorkshire, whose voices are seldom heard in public discourse on climate change. Together we examined two key questions: 1) Who are already being most affected by climate change? 2) How are they adapting and what can we learn from their experiences? Using remote technology, we meet activists, researchers and community members from both the Global North and South, and from this material the young people co-created ‘suitcase stories’ – micro performances that packed into a suitcase and used objects, voice and narrative to tell stories from the climate frontlines. ‘Suitcase Stories’ will supported public engagement and understanding of climate research in young people’s own communities, and modeled a creative, empowering, enquiring approach to climate adaptation in the secondary curriculum.
The project was conducted by Olalekan Adekola, Catherine Heinemeyer, Natalie Quatermass, Matthew Reason and Natalie Wood. Institute for Social Justice, York St John University.
Funding from Natural Environment Research Council as part of the ‘Creative Climate Connections’ programme.
https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/research/institute-for-social-justice/research-themes/ecological-justice/suitcase-stories/
