INtergenerational Stories of Erosion and Coastal community Understanding of REsilience

Project Description

The East Yorkshire Holderness coast has some of the most rapidly eroding coastline in the world, due to the soft composition of the boulder clay cliffs. However, due to climate change, which has accelerated sea level rise and the frequency and intensity of storms, sections of the cliffs are now retreating at a rate of over 10m per year.

Understanding the lived experiences of children and young people and their evolving relationship with their environment, alongside building intergenerational relationships, spaces and dialogues within communities can be an effective way to help shape a more resilient and engaged community that are prepared for the challenges of climate change.

The INSECURE project used a matrix of creative participatory research methods to explore how young people engage, examine and understand coastal change within the context of their place within their communities. The project worked with over 60 young people at Withernsea High School, which is situated close to the eroding cliffs and thus the school students see the day-to-day effects of their changing coastline.

The researchers engaged with the students over a period of 6 weeks using participatory sessions to cover subjects like climate change, coastal erosions processes and related hazards and exploring the impacts of such issues on small coastal towns like Withernsea.
The sessions explored stories of Withernsea's past by engaging the young people with older community members and how coastal change has a long and interlinked history with the towns development and peoples lives.

The young people were additionally tasked with exploring themes of coastal change and climate impacts through the use of empathy and community mapping - which placed them at the heart of the wider community.

Through training the young people in research techniques and storytelling principles the young people were empowered and confident to gather and showcase stories of coastal change.

The pupils chose to present their findings in a range of creative ways, writing poems, short stories, alongside videos and pictures they had taken to represent what they had seen and heard. The outcomes of this project were to raise awareness and understanding of coastal change and how communities are living with these natural processes which are being exacerbated by climate change.

The project is also elucidating how the processes of being equipped with new knowledge can foster engagement with the environment and broader social action within the communities.
The film below is a culmination of these initial outputs the children and young people have collectively created as part of their journey.
https://youtu.be/dV6z0LKobfE

The film was nominated and was voted as one of the final 5 films in the Climate Crisis category of the Arts and Humanities Research Councils (AHRC) Research in Films Awards (RIFA) 2021.
Following this Principal Investigator Katie Parsons took part in an online debate during COP26 called "Can films save the planet?", which explored how filmmaking and storytelling can be used to inspire and mobilise present and future generations to adapt and change to help save our planet.
https://youtu.be/t0OLBqOvaI8