This toolkit targets progressive campaigners and activists/advocates wishing to better engage the middle sections of society in order to push back the mainstreaming of populist narratives and put diversity and inclusion back on the agenda. There is a broad realisation that the standard approaches of only arguing facts and rights is not serving the progressive agenda, and as more and more populists influence the migration debate in Europe, we need to try something different to rebalance the public discussion. The toolkit was developed under ICPA’s project, ‘Reframe the debate! New migration narratives for constructive dialogue’ (2017-2019) as part of the Demokratie Leben programme, supported by the Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and Social Change Initiative. Initial toolkit research and development work was kindly supported by Open Society Initiative for Europe (OSIFE) and our reframing video by OSIFE and Robert Bosch Stiftung.
Europe in general is our main focus for these guidelines with a greater emphasis on Germany and UK as these are the countries in which we have most hands-on experience. However, we also draw on practice from the USA and at the global level, and as we see that the narrative challenges in the debate are often quite similar, we do hope the toolkit can offer some useful campaigning insights for many.