An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Steve Taylor (Visiting Research Fellow, 2024)
Visualising climate change activism: A visual grammar beginning with online Pacific/indigenous eco-theologies
My research at IASH is focused on grassroots digital activism and how organisations use social media to activate for climate justice. This research could have practical outworkings for organisations seeking to activate online for climate justice and theoretical implications in challenging Euro-centric theorisations of digital activism and visual grammars.
To initially confine my study, I am focusing on online visual images produced by organisations in the Pacific that are Christian. I focus on images because of their importance in communication and the Pacific because of my location. I focus on Christian organisations because of the place of spirituality in Pacific cultures, the current contested terrain in Pacific eco-theologies and the ways that climate change, as a crisis, offers new possibilities for partnerships across difference.
My initial challenge, and in outworking the IASH 2021-2024 theme of decoloniality, is how to research online images produced by indigenous communities. I propose an interdisciplinary side-by-side method that weaves visual grammar approaches from sociolinguistics and talanoa, a Pacific term for sharing stories in the space between. Such a side-by-side methodology could respect the interpretive visual resources of local communities and honour their commitment to communicate through the globalised flows of what is a world wide web.
As a work-in-progress in the context of Edinburgh, I will bring the visual grammar of a COP26 (Glasgow) speech by Simon Kofe and a volunteer grassroots (No Pelesitiki - Tonga) eco-campaign into conversation with publicity for the upcoming Portobello Sea Rising Festival.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81857401179
Passcode: 6aSe7GF7