sustain:if:able kiwi

Visualising online climate change activism: public eco-theologies in grassroots climate-justice organisations accepted

I’m delighted to have news overnight of a journal article about my research into grassroots digital activism accepted for publication with Theology (UK based journal). The article is scheduled for publication early in 2025.

This is the first piece of writing from my Edinburgh IASH Fellowship sojourn in June and July this year. The article outlines my novel contribution to the study of digital activism, visual images, and the construction of public eco-theologies. The research in the article draws on the social media of two UK climate justice groups as illustrative.

It’s nice to take topics like activism and social media into a journal committed to broadening knowledge of contemporary theological studies.

Reading Allowed and aloud: Cultivating listening structures in a literary city

Paper acceptance!

I’m thrilled to have a paper accepted for Books and the city: the 2024 Otago Centre for the Book Annual Symposium (21-22 November, 2024). The symposium is local, so that’s always a bonus.

My paper applies “listening structures,” a theoretical framework I’ve been reading around as part of my University of Birmingham, Psychology Cross-training Fellowship Programme for Theologians, to a local activity – Reading Allowed – that I’ve enjoyed being part of for the last few years.

Paper title: “Reading Allowed” and aloud: Cultivating listening structures in a literary city

This paper analyses the benefits of reading books aloud in public city spaces. Qualitative research is used to investigate the social impact of “Reading Allowed” as a collective listening structure.

“Reading Allowed” is an event that runs monthly on the ground floor of the Dunedin Public Library. Since 2022, people have gathered in the late afternoon to hear stories for all ages. For 60 minutes, readers from the University of Otago and Friends of the Library introduce and share excerpts from classic and contemporary literature.

Listening structures is a phrase used by organisational psychologist Guy Itzchakov (2024) to advance the science of listening. Listening structures refer to the processes and practices that build the human capacity to pay attention, deepen comprehension, and amplify intention (Kluger and Guy Itzchakov, 2022). Hence, listening structures contribute to social relationships and collective flourishing between individuals and organisations.

This paper considers “Reading Allowed” as a listening structure. It draws from the researcher’s ethnographic participation as a listener at “Reading Allowed,” along with interviewing readers and listeners. Attention, comprehension, and intention are themes used to analyse the qualitative data.

New ways to conceptualise the places of books in a “literary city” are provided when “Reading Allowed” is theorised as a listening structure. The research is theoretically important in advancing scholarship regarding the public nature of listening structures. The research also has practical application for those who care about books in the lives of cities and their citizens.

Dr Steve Taylor,
Director AngelWings Ltd; Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
IASH Research Fellow, Edinburgh University

Knitting as public theological witness

Researching Ordinary Knitters – people who knit for Christian projects in public spaces – has been a research side project for me since August 2021. This paper, if accepted, will be the first public articulation of data.

A paper proposal: Knitting as public theological witness

LOUDFence knitted strawberries, Newcastle 2024

This paper examines the ways in which acts of making are public theology. Matthew Engelke has researched how the Bible Society in the United Kingdom is active in public domains. He uses “ambient faith” as an analytical tool to theorise Christian activity that challenges the political and civic constraints imposed by the modern secular imaginary.

This paper applies “ambient faith” to recent practices of knitting in which Christians have been publicly active through yarnbombing and social activism. This paper draws on interviews with fifty knitters in four countries, along with participant observation of public interactions with several knitted projects, including visible displays of solidarity with those affected by abuse. While knitting is commonly seen as a domestic activity, done in private spaces, this paper describes how making offers new ways of relating and gives voice, particularly to lay women. Making as “ambient witness” offers new ways to think about the nature of public theology and Christian witness.