Author: Caitlin Hobbs
Can Changing the Narratives and Stories We Tell Transform Our Food System?
On the second day of ORFC, Carmen Posada Monroy (food systems and sustainability consultant) and Charlotte Dufour (practice advisor to the Conscious Food Systems Alliance with the UN) ran a workshop inviting us to rethink the narratives we tell about our food systems.
In the room were a mix of researchers, NGOs-workers, chefs, and communicators in the world of food and farming. In other words, all storytellers. Carmen and Charlotte explained how narratives are performative and how what we communicate impacts the world. From this, they asked us to consider how changing these narratives to tell a different story from the one we know can bring about much-needed change.
We began by tasting some honey, which immediately brought an awareness of our senses to the room and encouraged conversation with our neighbours. We were asked to consider the origins of the honey; the bees who had produced it, the beekeepers, the microbes, and even the memories that the taste and smell conjured. This resulted in smiles and laughter. We were then asked what challenges honey represents and what might prevent bees from successfully producing? Thoughts of pesticides, diseases and habitat destruction filled the room, creating a more solemn mood.
This was exactly what Carmen and Charlotte were after, for us to consider the ‘pains we eat’. They claim the world’s pains are rooted in food systems’ harmful patterns and the narratives underpinning them. These pains include climate pain, hunger pain, pain of waste and ecosystem pain. And, says Carmen, everything is related to everything else. So when we eat, we incorporate others through our food. Just as when we eat an egg, we are eating how the hen was treated.
At this point, the quote “Sustain those who sustain you and the earth will last forever”, from Robin Wall Kimmerer, was shared on the screen.
From here, we proceeded to an exercise whereby a person from each table was to act as ‘nature’. At my table, we all felt a pull towards water and decided to be the River Wye. After considering its different traits and the threats facing it, we wrote a letter of gratitude (and deep apology) to it.
Carmen and Charlotte then explained their concept of ‘beacons’ or lighthouses as a means to help guide communicators and decision makers to create new narratives on food systems. Under a new lens, they hope we can identify stories of hope, with personal narratives and ‘storydoing’ – a way of actively involving someone in the story through a memorable experience, rather than storytelling, which aims to persuade with a compelling story.
We rounded off the session by using this concept to experiment with creating new narratives within our groups. Sticking with the river theme, our group wrote a children’s story from the perspective of a fish in the polluted River Wye, with the hope of giving an honest yet hopeful account which might encourage care and awareness of our environment. I left feeling there was something here; that if we can use stories to really connect people to what can feel like an overwhelming and complicated food system, and bring them along with us on this journey, then there is hope in changing it for the better.