“Hearing everyone’s perspective makes me want to make a change”: a podcast as a lever for change in an Arctic Indigenous community

Abstract

Narratives hold great power as a deep leverage point for transformative change as they shape people’s perceptions and influence their actions. In Arctic Indigenous communities, however, local food system narratives are often understandably pessimistic because of numerous food system challenges, posing the risk of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. This also applies to St. Paul Island, Alaska, where the local Aleut community faces major challenges in their food system, and prospects for the future are largely negative. To foster the dissemination of positive narratives about the Indigenous food system of St. Paul Island, we designed, recorded, produced, and published the “Tipping the Iceberg” podcast. By means of one trailer and four episodes, the podcast provides background information on the overarching research project and portrays the past, present, and future states of the St. Paul Island food system. To explore the podcast’s potential to leverage change, we conducted two surveys (pre-podcast survey: n=27; post-podcast survey: n=15) among local community members, gaining insights into changes in their perspectives on the food system and their sense of empowerment to take action from having listened to the podcast. The survey results suggest that the community enjoyed listening to the podcast, felt that the podcast represented them well, and that it increased a sense of empowerment to take action to improve the food system in most listeners. Our preliminary findings provide valuable insights for researchers seeking to create societal impact through narrative-driven interventions, demonstrating how podcasts can serve as effective tools for disseminating alternative narratives that may contribute to longer-term processes of change.