Dr Robert Emmett Alexander (aka Barefoot Bob) - Community Engaged Communication for Reduction of Disaster and Climate Risks Using the Arts

IAS Residential Fellow Dr Robert Emmett Alexander (aka Barefoot Bob) delivers a seminar on their research, fully titled "Community Engaged Communication for Reduction of Disaster and Climate Risks Using the Arts" - This presentation explores processes of locally appropriate communication of disaster and climate risks and good practices to address them through steps of first external and local knowledge co-creation of messages for context-specific good practices for vulnerability reduction and then contests using locally relevant art types to spread these messages for improved discussion, decision-making and action. Conceptual frameworks first explicate roles of knowledge co-creation communication approaches, components of them for effective community-engaged resilience strengthening that overcomes social and behavioral change communication constraints and rationale for arts contests designed for this purpose. Explanation of methodology development with relevant examples of processes, lessons and sample drawings and song, theater and poem videos from contests in East and Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and the Philippines will provide basis for discussion of opportunities and challenges for implementation locally in different contexts. The seminar will conclude with description of the book being developed on this topic. For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias