What is it about?

Increasingly, researchers share climate information as narratives to support decision making and public action. In these contexts, however, scientists remain the focal storytellers. This article offers our methodology for researchers and communities to share narratives with each other and then to engage in collaborative storytelling. At the center of this work is how the humanities embrace the importance of narratives having gaps—narrative lacunae into which individuals can insert their experiences, needs, and values.

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Why is it important?

: Our storytelling methodology joins disciplinary practices from climate science, the environmental humanities, participatory human-natural systems modeling, performance studies, and the relationships-to-resilience ties of social capital from the social sciences. These practices contribute different strands to the process. We draw on climate science’s work on storylines for memorable events and the scenario capabilities of computer simulation modeling that can convey interdependencies across human and natural systems.

Perspectives

Fostering scientifically-based climate action requires more than just the description of human-natural connections: it requires direct relationship building that combines climate science with needs, concerns and values of our community partners.

Professor William J. Gutowski
Iowa State University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Minding the Gaps, Environmental Humanities, November 2023, Duke University Press,
DOI: 10.1215/22011919-10746001.
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