More details on Expanding Narratives:

Narratives are of great importance in the course of profound transformational processes of society. They offer individual orientation when facing the challenge of interpreting observed transformations and changes. On one hand the individual tries to explain occurring events through the grand narratives. While on the other hand it anchors itself in new structures by telling its own story. Currently such processes can be observed with regard to generation of Youth, especially in terms of their engagement with the climate crisis, planetary boundaries and questions of sustainability.

Young people are articulating their demands for a livable future in clear and noticable ways. To do so they use media, which are at the same time spreading narratives of sustainability on their part, to which in turn Youth must relate and position themselves. In this context (photographic) images play a special role for the following reasons. Firstly, social media are strongly image-centered; secondly, images are used to mediate narratives; thirdly, in the course of discussing sustainability goals, images are considered to be more effective than only discursive linguistic representations; and fourthly, images are able to promote intercultural understanding.

This is where the research and development project Expanding Narratives. Youth and their Images of Sustainability builds on with approaches of cultural media education and participatory research. The guiding question is how young people from the so-called Global North and Global South perceive images and narratives and how they can get into a constructive exchange by analyzing images and articulating their own narratives. This question will be addressed from a media pedagogical perspective.

To implement the research objectives, a two-stage workshop on the topic  of "Images and Narratives of Sustainability" will be designed and carried out in a hybrid format with local and virtual collaboration  phases. A group of young people from Germany and a group of young people from Tanzania will take part.

By initiating processes of reflection in relation to climate discourses, their communication  and the associated possibilities for action, educational processes are also to be enabled. In doing so, the project contributes to achieving the goals of climate protection (Climate Action) and qualitative, equitable education (Quality Education) - two of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

The project uses a participatory research approach to address the following questions. To this end, audio recordings, observations and photographs are collected during the workshop and will be analyzed using methods of (qualitative) content analysis and involving the (perspectives of the young) participants.

1. How do young people from different regions of the world perceive and  negotiate images and narratives of sustainability in the media?(Receptional level/Level of reception)
2. What images and narratives of sustainability do young people from different regions of the world develop together (Productional level/Level of production)?
3. How have the images and narratives of young people about sustainability changed in recent decades? (Level of historical comparison)

In order to approach the last-mentioned question, a curation of historical photographs from the archive of the German Youth Photo Award will take place in cooperation with the German Institute for Youth and Children's Films. The historical photographs from African countries will be selected in consultation with the Goethe Institute Tanzania. The photos produced by the young people in the workshop will be presented online and on various events in Germany and East Africa.