Finding shared meaning in the Anthropocene: engaging diverse perspectives on climate change

Abstract

The scientific evidence of climate change has never been clearer and more convergent, and calls for transformations to sustainability have never been greater. Yet, perspectives and social opinions about it remain fractured, and collaborative action is faltering. Climate policy seeks to forge a singular sense of climate change, dominated by an ‘information deficit model’ that focuses on transferring climate science to the lay public. Critics argue that this leaves out certain perspectives, including the plurality of meanings uncovered through participatory approaches. However, questions remain about how these approaches can better account for nuances in the psychological complexity of climate change, without getting stuck in the cul-de-sacs of epistemological relativism and post-truth politics. In this paper, I explore an approach through which we might find shared meaning at the interface of individual and collective views about climate change. I first present a conceptual framework that describes five psychological reasons why climate change challenges individual and collective meaning-making, and also provides a way to understand how meaning is organized within that. I then use this framework to inform the use of photo voice as a transformative (action-research) method, examining its ability to overcome some of the meaning-making challenges specific to climate change. I discuss how participants from a coffee cooperative in Guatemala reflected first on their own climate meanings and then engaged in a meaning-making process with other actors in the coffee value chain. Findings suggest a psychosocial approach to climate engagement—one that engages both subjectively and intersubjectively on the complexities unique to climate change—is helpful in acknowledging an ontological pluralism of ‘climate changes’ amongst individuals, while also supporting a nexus-agreement collectively. This may in turn contribute to a more effective and ethical process of transformation.