IFPRI is seeking an individual consultant to use narrative insights to facilitate multi-level participatory innovation processes for locally led climate action in India.
Background:
Participatory innovation for climate action can be supported and enhanced by gaining and leveraging insights from narratives of stakeholders and affected citizens that reflect their attitudes, beliefs, heuristics, and cultural values on potential local climate actions and which thereby influence their decision-making processes and implementation of the decisions. This study will collect and analyze narratives through semi-structured interviews, and social media observation to reveal concerns, priorities, and perception of opportunities and barriers to climate action of government and private sector stakeholders and affected citizens in the relevant area. The insights gained provide a strong foundation for understanding the operative social networks, dynamics, and tensions. That understanding is essential in supporting effective facilitation of multi-level dialogues on climate action in land, water, and food systems.
The consultant is expected to undertake the following activities:
1. Assess the social, institutional, and environmental situation in the study site (tentatively, in the state of Odisha) in India.
2. Lead the development of protocols for individual interviews in collaboration with IFPRI and Indian partners.
3. Guide the collection, machine translation, and transcription of interviews and social media entries for coding.
4. Provide training on the use of the protocol with digital recording devices and on processing, categorizing, and analyzing the collected materials, collaborating with the project team.
5. Co-facilitate a workshop with the project team in India to allow reflection on and discussion of the preliminary analysis of collected data with a set of stakeholders and affected citizens.
Deliverables due by end of 2025
1) A list of collected narratives from the study site grouped by relevant topics
2) A Working paper that reports on the preliminary insights gained from interviews, social media, and workshops, and summary and comments on positive outcomes of the narrative approach in this project and aspects of the project and approach that need improvement.
Contract period: Upon receipt of signed contract: approx. July 1, 2025, to December 31, 2025
Required qualifications:
1. Ph.D. or equivalent academic experience in sociology
2. Experience in narrative analysis to support knowledge, learning, and societal change initiatives
3. Experience in facilitating extended dialogues among stakeholders with different degrees of access to relevant science information, institutional support, and legal advice in situations of conflict between resource use and conservation in a commons area.
4. Experience in developing a protocol for interviews and coding the qualitative data.
5. Strong background and experience with science and technology, including in applications needed to address local impacts of global change.
6. Demonstrated capability and experience in communicating complex social and technical issues in writing, speaking, and creating experiential learning systems.
7. Experience with working in India
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Note: We are unable to respond to every applicant individually; only the selected applicant will be contacted.