A narrative model for exploring climate change engagement among young community leaders

Abstract

Introduction: Decades of widespread knowledge about climate change have not translated into adequate action to address impacts on population health and health equity in Canada. Research has shown that context-based perceptions and interpretations mediate engagement. Exploring climate change engagement involves inquiry into contextual experience. Methods: This qualitative study has employed narrative methodology to interpret the meaning of climate change among community leaders in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, age 20-40 (n = 10). Climate change narratives were explored both structurally and thematically. Results: A model was developed to organize results and to describe concepts of fidelity and dissonance within participant narratives. Findings suggested that knowledge of climate change and personal motivation to act did not preclude narrative dissonance, which served as a barrier to a meaningful personal response. Dissonance can result where internal and external barriers mediate mobilization at moments in the plot: (1) moving from knowledge of the challenge to a sense of agency about it; (2) from agency to a sense of responsibility to choose to address it; (3) from responsibility to a sense of capacity to produce desirable outcomes despite contextual challenges; and (4) from capacity to a moral sense of activation in context. Without narrative fidelity, meaningful mobilization can be hindered. Conclusions: A narrative model is useful for exploring climate change engagement and highlights opportunities for a population health approach to address the conditions that hinder meaningful mobilization. By framing climate change narratives with emotional and moral logic, population health framing could help young leaders overcome internal and external barriers to engagement.

Keywords

• climate change, engagement, narrative methods, public education