In the presentation we want to provide an insight into the participatory research and development project “Expanding Narratives. Youth and their Images of Sustainability”. The central questions of the project are, how young people from Germany and Tanzania perceive and negotiate historical and contemporary images and narratives of sustainability in the media and how they can get into a constructive exchange by analyzing and producing photographs of a sustainable future. These questions are addressed from a media pedagogical perspective. The introduction of a connecting research (PHD) project, which focusses on deepening the research conducted will be the closing outlook of our presentation.

Workshop Concept

The centrepiece of the project is a multiphase workshop which is designed, realized and accompanied by research in a hybrid format with local phases (in Cologne and Dar es Salaam) and virtual collaborative phases (via video conference, messenger and social media platform). An educator and a photographer at each location accompany 16 adolescents. In addition to two weekends, a buddy programme has been initiated for the time in between. In this programme one Tanzanian and one German youth come together and dedicate themselves to smaller tasks that aim to promote exchange. The adolescents are recruited via the project’s own Instagram account as well as via youth organisations, youth and media centres and schools. There was an open call for applications asking for a brief description of their motivation to partake if they are between 16 and 21 years old, live around Cologne or Dar es Salaam, have good English language skills and are interested in photography, sustainability and international exchange. Diversity was taken into account in the composition of the group. Furthermore, empirical surveys are embedded in the workshop (see below). The data collected are used to answer the following research questions.

Research Questions

The project addresses the following questions:

1. How do young people from different regions of the world perceive images and narratives of sustainability in the media? (Reception level)
2. What images and narratives of sustainability do young people from different global regions develop together? (Production level)
3. How have young people's images and narratives of sustainability changed over the last few decades? (Level of historical comparison)

Why these two countries?

The co-operation between Tanzania and Germany promises to offer insights into colonial relations, post-colonial entanglements and a reflection on the hegemonic dependencies of different regions of the world. With regard to adolescents, we want to foster an understanding of culturally different or similar narratives as they are transported in the media (Saleh 2014). The countries are also suitable for co-operation in this project because adolescents in both countries generally have a good command of English, which facilitates communication.

Cultural Media Education

Cultural media education opens up promising opportunities both for decoding visual forms of representation and deconstructing the underlying media narratives as well as for the creative translation of young people's inner images into powerful photography. In this context, the integration of young people's own photographic productions can promote intercultural communication and understanding processes (Niesyto 2024).

Historical and Postcolonial Perspectives  

Together with the participating adolescents, we reflect on the historically evolved perspective on sustainability. Therefore, with our co-operation partners from both countries, a curation of photographs from archives takes place (e.g. 60 years of the German Youth Photo Award). These photographs are discussed with the youths in comparison with their contemporary pictures. On a theoretical level, we build on concepts of ‘education for sustainable development’ and ‘global learning’ while at the same time subjecting them to critical reflection – to the extent that we have adopted postcolonial and racism-critical perspectives (see Danielzik 2013).

Our approach is to interweave practice and research. On the one hand, we develop a concept for media educational practice and publish it as an open educational resource (OER) at the end. On the other hand, we collect, analyse and discuss research data in the course of the workshop. The data will include audio recordings of discussions, ethnographic notes and photographs. These are analysed using content analysis (Kuckartz/ Rädiker 2023) and image hermeneutics (Holzbrecher/ Tell 2006) using MaxQDA software. Participatory Research The project is guided by participatory research, which uses the possibilities of collaborative partnerships and empirical research to critically reflect on and actively influence social, cultural and political contexts (see Reason/Bradbury 2008; Bergold/Thomas 2012). Under these premises, the adolescents participating in the project act as co-researchers. In concrete terms, this means that the adolescents are involved in the data collection by recording audios, taking photos and conducting short interviews with the other participating young people during the workshops. Concerning the data analysis, all of them will be involved in the image interpretation. They will also be given the opportunity to communicatively validate the interim results of our analyses of the transcribed discussions in the second workshop. Focus on photography and narratives For analysing the pictures, a method is adapted and used that can be categorised as a hermeneutic approach. Holzbrecher and Tell (2006) developed a method that is explicitly designed to interpret images together with youths in media educational settings in or outside of school. It is less strongly orientated towards art-scientific analysis steps than other approaches. In addition to the question of which meanings an image conveys on the levels of relationship, appeal and self-revelation (and in what way), the role of photography in the everyday lives of youths is also a central issue (ibid.).

The project “Expanding Narratives” takes a critical, creative and analytical look at narratives and images of sustainability. In our research, we, together with youths from Tanzania and Germany, explore how adolescents orient themselves in a visually digital world with regard to sustainability. At the same time, we use photography to explore ways in which they can relate and broaden their perspectives as well as position themselves creatively and aesthetically. The results of the project will be relevant and connectable to different scientific fields. In particular, we follow on from discourses on media education for sustainable development (Rieckmann/ Schluchtner/ Maurer 2024; Grünberger 2021) and artistic approaches to sustainability (Eckert/Grünberger 2024). Regarding the interrelatedness of cognitive and bodily/affective aspects when dealing with existential issues like the global climate emergency (Thiele/Krenzer 2024; Urner 2024), some limitations of the conducted project become visible which could be tackled in further research. Human experiences occur in general simultaneously on a bodily and a cognitive level influencing each other. Consequently also the experience, living and acting in the face of unsustainable socio-economic structures is experienced on those levels. A PHD-research project developed in the following of the presented „Expanding Narratives“ project wants to deepen the conducted research by developing research methods to scientifically gather data on the affective aspects in a media-cultural project of education of sustainability. The goal is to elaborate pedagogical implications for an emancipatory, future-oriented educational work. In the talk, we would like to introduce the cornerstones of the project „Expanding Narratives“, present initial answers to the research questions and discuss the challenges and potentials of international and participatory projects. Subsequently, further research questions and approaches will be in the centre, as developed within the PHD outlined above.

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