Environmental education research needs to take into account the relational dimension of the ecological challenges of our time. It requires the development of methodological techniques that prioritize community concerns, and generally foster positive relational dynamics of the research and study group. This leads to the construction of a research and educational approach around the collective and cocreated interpretation of stories related to ecological bonds and knowledge, and the adoption of illustrations enabling participation, inclusion, and interaction among the parties. Through the lens of critical legal analysis and participatory research, we explore the beneficial effects of cocreating knowledge with the help of a specific learning toolkit (LT), built around storytelling and designed to stimulate respectful relationships between participants. The LT addresses a wide audience of indigenous and local communities, students, and researchers. Founded on participated storytelling, collective interpretation, and illustration, the toolkit includes (1) the project cover, (2) an illustrated handbook based on an indigenous story, and (3) the illustration and conceptualization of a silent book. Through the interpretation of stories on the ecological bonds between humans and nonhumans, we analyze how the process of looking for common solutions to environmental threats makes participants reflect on their relational connection to the theme and each other. We also observe how the discussion generates a sense of responsibility that comes with bringing a new idea into being. The result is that both education and research become part of the solution to the challenge itself in the shape of a harmonious relational and transformative experience. The solution lies in the recognition of the individual and collective capacity to change systems by changing relationships. Only through a collective effort towards a common sense of relational accountability and trust we can heal the wounds of our planet, and our individual and collective wounds.

The overall aim of this report is to record the emotions, aim, objectives, results and conclusions that we developed during the Virtual Roundtable for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Academia, on November 25, 2020. The report is built around the event and is meant to enclose our space of reflection (30 days, initiated on the Facebook page of the Centre). The report is divided into five sections: 1. Introduction; 2. Welcome; 3. Keynote speech; 4. Engaging with a story; 5. References; 6. Appendix.

The overall aim of this report is to record the research objectives, results to date, and points for further investigation regarding knowledge co-production in climate governance. The aim is to continue the conversation initiated at the Scientific Strategic Workshop “Co-production of knowledge in climate governance”, held at the University of Bayreuth Center of International Excellence "Alexander von Humboldt", on May 5–6, 2022.

Content: Our presentation will focus on a project idea that brings together conventional and unconventional teaching methods by means of a story of indigenous stories illustrated by artists. Storybooks -when authentic and not grammatically sequenced- have the merit among the others to: (1) convey a direct message; (2) offer different interpretations of a certain event, liberated from cultural assumptions; (3) expose the reader to several tenses at the same time (Ellis, Brewster, 2002; Mourão, 2003) which gives a sense of circuitry and multidimensionality; (4) be dynamic and adaptive, and therefore not statically connected to certain events or interpretation, as well as released from beliefs and value-sets; (5) be uncontroversial, thus universally shareable. Objective and audience: collecting indigenous stories from different legal traditions that will be narrated by two shape-shifters feminine spirits. Both stories and storytellers mirror the fluid and immanent governing water and earth, in such a way that can be understood by students, indigenous and non-indigenous researchers, community members. Methodology: Focus groups will be set up with the aim to collect stories from the coastal and rural communities of two Regions: two communities from the Western coasts of Canada and New Zealand (representing the Sea-Region); two local communities from Brazil and India (representing the Earth-Region). These are chosen for their rich and diversified local knowledge, based on the centrality of the sea and the earth in the human existence. Community-based artists and storytellers will be engaged in co-creating the final outcome (a story illustrated by an indigenous artist per community). The story of the stories, with the two feminine spirits as protagonists, will be illustrated by one or two children book’s illustrators. Expected result: an illustrated book, that will have the original trait of being a frame story narrated by the two spirits of water and earth, containing indigenous narratives on the symbiotic relationship that governs communities and nature.

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