Storytelling is a fundamentally human mode of communication where the goal is to understand each other better through the creation of shared imaginaries. Stories have the power to change our opinions and our interpreted realities, depending on who is telling the story, how they are telling it and who is listening. When used in participation processes, storytelling offers a means to authentically and effectively engage with citizens.  It enables us to dive deep into the experiences and perspectives of citizens and use these to ignite change in our living environments.

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Our methodology: storytelling for participatory exchange offers a simple, constructive and impactful way to better understand the perspectives and desires of populations. The methodology works by enabling citizens to create imaginary representations of their real-life lived experiences, that indicate their concerns, ideas and desired futures. It can be deployed by anyone organising a project or activity where there is a need to engage citizens. It is designed to accommodate your unique objectives and can be moulded to different locations, languages and social contexts. It is free to use and all the resources have been designed to make the process as simple as possible to follow. And we understand that different projects have different specifications, so we have designed our methodology to be connected to different modes of engagement, visualisation, and output.

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Our methodology enables citizens to express their perspectives on their living environment and their desires for the future by telling imaginary stories that reflect their real life experiences. The principle is that in creating imaginaries that reflect our real experiences, we indicate our deep thoughts and feelings towards a situation. This is because we utilise both the cognitive (logical, evidence-based) and affective (emotional, feelings-based) dimensions of our minds, expressing both what we think and how we feel about it. Our methodology taps into this to produce a richness of insight that other participatory approaches cannot.

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We have designed a step-by-step methodology to guide you through the whole process of using storytelling for participatory exchange. The methodology includes approaches for contextual exploration and community mapping, the use of storytelling in a workshop setting, in-depth analytical procedures, and guidance on the sharing of insights with audiences.

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