Transforming climate-social futures

The climate crisis affects already today in particular marginalized groups and will even stronger affect young people in the future. Both groups are not well represented in global climate political negotiation processes and lack modes of participation on the local scale. While education provides scientific knowledge, it lacks imagination to build collectively livable futures. Based on different leverage points, i.e. climate data, the political-institutional setting, actor’s strategies and values as inner and collective images, we explore ideas and concrete strategies for responsible and caring (co-)living in and beyond the city of Salzburg. Together with marginalized young people, activists, artists, educators, social workers and the city administration the project aims to develop climate-social futures through shared imagination and shaping scenarios. We address three questions: 1. What are the needs, interests, strategies and visions of marginalized young citizens and activists in Salzburg when addressing the climate-social crisis in its multi-level dimension? 2. How can shared imaginations of climate-social futures in a diverse community, including marginalized citizens, be created together with arts-based methods? 3. What are the social, institutional and political barriers and possibilities for shaping and implementing climate-social futures? We will examine existing leverage points (understanding of global climate data in its local context, political strategies, needs and values as inner pictures) combined with climate-social future scenarios that are based on imaginative knowledge. We will co-create these scenarios with young people through participatory action research. We will use arts-based approaches which are strongly interwoven with our interdisciplinary and participatory research design. This will provide us with knowledge in the co-creation of climate-social futures and methodologically in the understanding of leverage points.