TRUST Seminar 2 September 2015

The Uppsala Transdisciplinary Seminar in Education and Sustainable Development (TRUST) is arranged in collaboration by researchers at SWEDESD and the Faculty of Education at Uppsala University. 

Professor Michael Wilson and Dr Antonia Liguori, Loughborough University, UK will be presenting:

“I can’t remember the name of the dog…”: Stories about (and not about) drought, flooding and climate change.

DRY (Drought Risk and You) is a four-year research project (2014-18) funded by the UK Research Councils (RCUK), exploring how storytelling might be harnessed to work with drought science to build resilience and preparedness for drought and water scarcity at personal, community and governmental levels in the UK. It emerges from earlier work exploring the uses of digital storytelling to engage local communities and to capture lay knowledge in the public discussion around flooding, risk and climate change.

Using examples from a range of projects this seminar will explore the value of storytelling in environmental policy-making arenas, not only as a tool of engagement, but as an alternative knowledge system and as a method of bringing new voices and perspectives to bear on complex global challenges.

Mike Wilson is Professor of Drama at Loughborough University. His research lies in the field of popular and vernacular performance and he has published extensively on Storytelling, Grand-Guignol and Brecht and his collaborators. His work on storytelling has led him to research the interface between storytelling and digital technology and the way in which the internet has enabled the telling and sharing of stories of everyday experience. He has recently been researching the use of storytelling as a framework for public policy development, especially in relation to climate change and environmental challenge. He is a member of the Peer Review College for the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council and has also been a reviewer for the Natural Environment Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He sits on a number of advisory boards for the UK Research Councils and chairs the Arts and Humanities Panel for the British Council’s research programmes.

Dr Antonia Liguori joined Loughborough University - School of the Arts, English and Drama as Research Assistant to work with Professor Mike Wilson on DRY Project with a focus on digital storytelling. She has a PhD in History and Computer Science from the University of Bologna and a Masters in Contemporary History from the University of Rome. She is also a journalist and a Web content and SEO manager. Since January 2006, she has coordinated the Multimedia Department at BAICR Sistema Cultura with the aim of contributing to the enhancement of the Italian cultural heritage through the use of innovative methodologies and the creation of digital environments. Since September 2012, she has managed two European Projects about digital storytelling on behalf of the Luigi Sturzo Institute (Italy). From the beginning of 2013, she’s been working in a narrative research at transnational level to understand how to adapt the digital storytelling methodology in different contexts (both social and cultural) and to verify the possible use of digital storytelling as a tool to guide adults to self-evaluate their competencies and find new job opportunities.

Including Post Seminar, at 15.00-16.00 Refreshments and Networking