In 2023, working together with the Hub South America, the Political Economy and Sustainable Development team made significant strides in promoting responsible gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru. Through stakeholder workshops held in Peru and Switzerland, they brought together miners, indigenous people, and experts, to foster future collaborations. They have also discovered misconceptions about mining and how it has influenced past decisions made by the private sector, NGOs, and governments.
Based on these findings, the research team designed the project called "Narrative Intervention: The Case of Production Technology for Gold Mining in Peru," which aims to explore the influence of narratives on the adoption of clean technologies for mining among artisanal miners in the Peruvian Amazon, specifically in the Madre de Dios region. This study is based on the working paper "Analyzing Climate Change Policy Narratives with the Character-Role Narrative Framework," written by Prof. Dr. Kai Gehring and the PhD Researcher Matteo Grigoletto.
To address this issue, the team will use a lab-in-the-field experiment to combine the precision of laboratory experiments with the realism of field experiments. They will promote an aspirational narrative embedded in videos to overcome psychological barriers and facilitate behavioral change. This study is conducted by the PhD Researcher Matteo Grigoletto and Dr. Fernando Fernandez, with the local support of Alejandro Portillo, a research associate at the Hub South America.