In it together! Cultivating space for intergenerational dialogue, empathy and hope in a climate of uncertainty
The urgent and interlocking social, economic and ecological crises faced by societies around the world require dialogue, empathy and above all, hope that transcends social divides. At a time of uncertainty and crisis, many societies are divided, with distrust and divides exacerbated by media representations pitting different groups against one another. Acknowledging intersectional interrelationships, this collaborative paper considers one type of social distinction – generation – and focuses on how trust can be rebuilt across generations. To do this, we collate key insights from eight projects that shared space within a conference session foregrounding creative, intergenerational responses to the climate and related crises. Prompted by a set of reflective questions, presenters commented on the methodological resources that were co-developed in intergenerational research and action spaces. Most of the work outlined was carried out in the UK, situated in challenges that are at once particular to local contexts, and systematic of a wider malaise that requires intergenerational collaboration. Reflecting across the projects, we suggest fostering ongoing, empathetic dialogues across generations is key to addressing these challenges of the future, securing communities that are grounded as collaborative and culturally responsive, and resilient societies able to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of change.
Funding
Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC)
Independent Social Research Foundation
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Digital Civics
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Find out more...Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship
Young people at a crossroads: Negotiations of environmental knowledges, practices and subjectivities in immigrant homes at a time of climate crisis
Economic and Social Research Council
Find out more...History
School
- Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
- Geography and Environment
Published in
Children's GeographiesVolume
21Issue
5Pages
803 - 818Publisher
Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© The Author(s)Publisher statement
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2022-08-27Publication date
2022-09-29Copyright date
2022ISSN
1473-3285eISSN
1473-3277Publisher version
Language
- en