Network Day Narrative Learning for Regenerative Futures

Network Day

Narrative Learning for Regenerative Futures

Where on earth?

52.236790976309464 N, 6.857035978051233 E
(The DesignLab at University of Twente)

 When in time?

9.30-17.30h on 29 February 2024

(roughly 4,600 million years after earth’s formation) 

Who is ‘us’

We are a small, interdisciplinary group of scholars, educators, climate justice activists, artists and narrative change practitioners who believe human culture has to embrace its place as a part of nature. We are affiliated with the UT Storylab and the UT Designlab and supported by a collaboration grant from the BMS faculty of the University of Twente. 

Why

We believe that current crises (ecological loss, geo-political violence, mass migration, housing shortages) are also crises of meaning and imagination. We need practices for creating hopeful, empowering, embodied stories that provide direction and fuel to shape regenerative futures: stories of how all life on our beautiful planet can flourish. Stories that counter the existing exploitative and extractionist ones.

We want to contribute to narrative learning for individuals in professional learning communities working on regenerative futures. How does narrative learning take place? Can we co-create narrative knowledge, skills and attitudes and share them amongst each other? How can we empower those already working with storytelling for sustainability?

To allow for reflection and dialogue we need some common understanding of and affinity with the proposed approach of narrative learning for regenerative futures. Therefore, we will provide participants with a basic framework to be further developed and critiqued: “does this perspective/framework allow for more direction and energy in your specific projects?”

We wish to create this day together with artists, educators, academics, and others working on sustainability, catalyzing the learning process. We do this by facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experience.

For more information contact Anneke Sools a.m.sools@utwente.nl

Programme

WHO ARE WE? (in alphabetical order

Kirk Cheyfitz, a writer and narrative strategist, has been working for five decades on creating an artistically rich and scientifically rigorous new discipline that harnesses the persuasive power of narrative as fully as possible to change our society for the better. He is the founder and principal of Kirk Cheyfitz/POLITICAL NARRATIVE, based in New York City.

Corelia Baibarac-Duignan is assistant professor at the University of Twente and co-initiator of the RUrban Futures Collective. Originally trained as an architect, she is a transdisciplinary researcher and educator working at the intersection between sustainable futures, commons, and creative approaches to civic engagement with a focus on in inclusive transformations towards sustainable futures.

Sebastian Maximilian Dennerlein is assistant professor at the University of Twente  in the Educational Science and Technology program and the Professional Learning and Technology section. His focus is on technology-enhanced learning in the context of the workplace and on design-based methods for ethically responsible teaching and learning technologies. Sebastian is eager to explore how concepts and processes of transformative learning can contribute to the development of narrative learning.

Carolien Tjitske Hoogland is a passionate designer of gatherings that allow for learning and community building, in the realm of regenerative development. “Growing up in a concrete high-rise where the main natural elements were our two cats and my mother’s many plants, I somehow knew from a very young age that I wanted to work on preserving and cherishing this beautiful Earth”. Carolien started her working life at the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (Drift) in Rotterdam and is currently part of a small consultancy for nature and sustainability education in the city of Utrecht (SME). 

Lian Kasper organizes programs and trainings in nature-inclusive teaching methods, including the Work that Reconnects (Joanna Macy) consisting of a collection of reflections and group exercises that allow for a fundamental re-conception of the relationship between the human species and the rest of nature. This includes tools for coping with anger, sadness and despair around ecological loss. The method seeks to activate the intrinsic love and care that comes from feeling connected and in awe with to the natural world.

Julieta Matos-Castaño is a researcher and project lead working at DesignLab at the University of Twente. She works in the field of futures design, with a focus on using controversies to foster collective imagination in the context of urban transformations.

Steven R. McGreevy is assistant professor of institutional rurban sustainability studies in the Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability. His research interests include novel approaches to sustainable transitions and post-growth food systems, relinking of patterns of food consumption and production, and simulation and serious gaming as a tool for sustainability education and governance. 

Le Anh Nguyen Long is interested in understanding the shared rules, tools, rituals, games, practices, and values that guide people and communities who are working together to solved shared problems. Granddaughter, daughter, mother, sister, partner, friend, activist, and future ancestor, she teaches and does research on environmental and energy governance at the University of Twente. 

Anneke Sools is associate professor and co-director of the interdisciplinary Storylab at the University of Twente. As research fellow at the Design lab, she brings a narrative approach to shaping responsible futures. As guardians of PuurOord, where people plant trees in memory of their loved ones, she is part of a community who together learn how to be, do, play, care, dance, and celebrate in and with nature.

Elise Talgorn is a researcher, artist and consultant with a background in physics and sustainable innovation. She develops knowledge and experiences to reshape the relationship between people, technology and nature. Through systems stories, participatory story making, and visual art, her practice fosters collective creativity, perspective taking, and empathy for people and the Planet.  

Cristina Zaga is assistant professor at the Human-Centred Design group at the University of Twente. Her research focuses on transdisciplinary and relational design methods for just futures of work and care in more-than-human worlds. Cristina co-develops the Responsible Futuring approach at the DesignLab of the University of Twente.