Participatory arts and affective engagement with climate change: The missing link in achieving climate compatible behaviour change?

Abstract

Despite a growing number of arts based climate change interventions and the importance emphasised in the social psychology literature of achieving affective (emotional) engagement with climate change before climate compatible behaviour change is likely (exactly the kind of engagement the arts and humanities are arguably best at), to date there has been no systematic application of interpretive social science techniques to understand the ways in which these arts based interventions do, or do not, achieve affective public engagement with climate change and hence might hold the key to unlocking broader climate compatible behaviour change. This article makes three key contributions. First, it analyses the literature across social psychology and participatory arts to demonstrate why participatory, climate change based arts interventions could hold the key to more effective approaches to engaging multiple publics in climate compatible behaviour change. Second, using a small sample of participants in an arts based climate change intervention in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland, it demonstrates the potential value of combining social science techniques (in this case Q Methodology) with participatory arts interventions to better understand and learn from the ways in which climate based arts interventions achieve affective public engagement with climate change. Thirdly, it extends its analysis to engage explicitly with the under-researched issue of the role of place attachment and local, situated knowledge in mediating the influence of climate change communication. These contributions provide the basis for a significant new research and policy agenda looking forward.