2: Methods

2.1: Review

IAA funding for Finding the Story Arc was used primarily to employ a postdoctoral researcher – or RIA (Research and Innovation Associate). Milo Harries (MH) was recruited to this role and given an initial orientation by SSB (as Project Lead) and by Jonathan Moxon (JM), LCC’s Executive Manager for Flood and Climate Resilience (as Project Partner). MH’s first task was to review SSB’s previous research and to identify underlying principles that could be used to guide the current project.

Reviewing documentation of this past work, MH noted its interdisciplinary orientation, but identified a number of core convictions and techniques characteristic of contemporary practice in drama, theatre and performance. These include: careful analysis of situations and role relationships; attention to the nuances of dialogue; an applied understanding of narrative structure; openness to the unexpected and a willingness to improvise; an aptitude for critical and flexible listening.

Drawing these ideas together, the researchers articulated a method they now refer to as LEAF, which moves iteratively through a cycle of four phases: Listening, Emergence, Action, and Feedback. This model, which informed all subsequent activity on the project, is articulated in detail in a separate document. Whether deployed in a single meeting, or over the months-long development of a new performance, the LEAF method demands that its users prioritise receptive attention to others as the core driver for any creative response.

2.2: Engagement with the ARC team

Throughout the project’s eight months, the researchers adopted a listening role as ‘critical friends’ within the ARC team. One or both attended weekly online meetings, offering reflections and suggestions as appropriate. MH also became a regular attendee at the weekly ‘business engagement’ sub-team, while SSB acted as independent chairperson for periodic, in-person meetings of the full ARC team.

This ‘embedded researcher’ approach was appropriate to context. Plans for ARC were still in development throughout the IAA funding period, and it was yet to be formally incorporated as a CIC. Technical NFM plans and financial modelling for the scheme were at an advanced stage, but the ARC team had only recently begun approaching prospective supporters from the business sector, asking for ‘Expressions of Interest’ in supporting the putative CIC.

With ARC’s ‘terms of engagement’ still being shaped, the researchers were well positioned to articulate emergent understandings and to query unacknowledged assumptions within the team. In July 2024, they also facilitated an in-person workshop with ARC team members, using facilitated dialogue and role-playing methods to experiment with modes of address and role relations. Key questions included:

what is the story and who is telling it?

who is the audience and why should they listen?

are you offering a monologue or seeking a dialogue?

2.3: Independent interviews

The researchers also pursued a parallel enquiry into role relations by conducting a series of forty interviews with members of the Leeds business community. Mostly conducted by MH, these confidential, unstructured conversations invited respondents:

to reflect on whether the business sector had a role to play in developing ‘climate resilience’ (whatever that term meant to them);

to share any personal narratives that arose from these conversations (e.g. flood stories);

to offer any reflections they had on the ARC ‘offer’.

Recruitment of interviewees was conducted through a combination of methods including: cold email contacts; approaching individuals suggested by ARC team members; attending business networking meetings and following up with ‘warm’ respondents; cold-calling at premises within Leeds’ riverside ‘flood zone’. This sampling method was necessarily unscientific, and respondents were self-selecting. However, it should be noted that these interviews were not designed or intended to gather ‘research data’ in a systematic way.

Rather, the conversations were conceived as a form of public engagement, and as an enquiry into relational dynamics. They were recorded only in the form of handwritten notes, detailing key observations and telling phrases (as per the LEAF method). This approach enabled respondents to speak freely and candidly. Indeed, a recurrent feature of the interviews was that respondents often volunteered surprisingly frank, personal assessments of their professional positions. This seems to have resulted from the interviewer’s role as an outsider. By openly acknowledging his ‘conscious incompetence’ with respect to business matters, MH invited respondents to walk him through the basics.

2.4: Creative response

Notes from MH’s interviews became the starting point for a creative devising process. The implications of respondents’ comments and stories were carefully reflected upon, in order to develop a staged response in support of ARC’s objectives. It should be noted that the aesthetic form of this response was not determined in advance of the devising process. Rather, in line with the LEAF approach, the researchers sought to be responsive to context.

The decision was eventually taken to develop a participatory performance that would mimic the format of the business networking meetings that MH had been attending. Designed to be staged in intimate, informal surroundings (e.g. pub function rooms), the performance would operate as a public extension of the dialogue-based interview process. Invited audience members would experience a playful reframing of stories and questions relating to ARC’s offer, and have the opportunity to hear each other responding to it. This format requires minimal staging and thus allows the piece to remain portable and easily re-performable, in response to demand.

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