sustain:if:able kiwi

Climate justice in digital spaces across transnational margins paper presentation

It was a late night, but I was very pleased to present at paper at the Digital Marginality & Plural Subjectivities conference hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, at the University of Edinburgh. My thanks to the organisers for all their work to draw together a 3 day hybrid conference.

After several experiences of presenting in the conference room at Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, it was quite different to be online and seeing the room digitally. But very appropriate for a conference titled Digital Marginality.

I was presenting in a panel with presenters researching digital solidarity with Papua, Māori responses to AI and the ethics of digital representations of indigenous cultures.

My paper, titled “Climate justice and the performing of prayer in digital spaces across transnational margins,” explored the visual nature of the 2024 Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration emerging from the 2024 Pacific Conference of Churches gathering. I placed the visual representation of kneeling for prayer alongside other visual images, from COP in 2021 and CHOGM in 2024, and used visual grammar analysis to reflect on the role of prayer in digital activism and what that means for how the West understands climate justice and digital activism. (The full paper proposal is here).

The followup questions were valuable and give shape to further work I might want to do turning the presentation into some writing.

• is the kneeling in the 2024 Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration an act of solidarity in that moment, or are there other spiritual and theological dynamics that emerge over time including through the digital sharing?
• how were the digital images shared? Did they ripple out or were they kept within closed networks? do we need to account for different lifecycles and uses of digital images?
• what are the complexities involved in sharing contextual actions on global digital platforms? how are Pacific voices heard in the West?

The presentation builds on my IASH Research Fellowship in 2024 into grassroots digital activism. Specifically it is the 5th conference presentation using visual grammar analysis to think theologically about online visual images. I have also written a book chapter and two journal articles. Based on the feedback from last night, there could well be a third article.

Making as connecting: IAMS 2026 conference paper

I’m pleased to have a paper proposal accepted for International Association of Mission Studies, July 17-21, 2026 in Pretoria, South Africa. I am so grateful the conference is offering a hybrid option, to enhance accessibility for global scholars.

The theme is “Walking Together in Mission: Facing Global Challenges for a Sustainable World.” My paper responds to this theme and brings together two of my research interests, craftivism and digital technologies.

Making as connecting: the role of digital technologies in the diffusion of handmade missional innovation

Key words: digital technology, innovation, knitting, local Christian communities, making, missio Dei

This article analyses the role of social media in the diffusion of innovation among local Christian communities. In Making Is Connecting (2018), David Gauntlett argues that the internet is a new media technology that amplifies makers and making in our world today. He proposes a shift from a ‘sit back and be told’ culture to a ‘making and doing’ culture. This paper examines the implications for the missio Dei in local Christian communities by bringing empirical case study research into dialogue with contemporary theories of innovation in digital technologies.

In research published elsewhere, I have used the five Marks of Mission to analyse craftivism in local community outreach, including yarnbombing knitted Christmas angels, knitting scarves in climate justice activism, and knitting strawberries in solidarity with victims and survivors of church abuse.

Different Christian organisations initiated these knitted missional innovations, including a local Methodist circuit, a parachurch organisation and a Diocesan staff team. In each case, an active web presence and grassroots social media activity were essential in how individuals in local church communities became involved. Despite online toxicity, digital technologies enabled a peer-to-peer diffusion of innovation, driven by grassroots interest rather than top-down strategies. Digital technologies facilitated unplanned innovation at the speed of authentic sharing and peer-to-peer local connections.

Theoretically, the research supports claims that digital culture is a domain of God’s action in the world. Practically, it outlines how digital systems can support local Christian communities as they participate in the missio Dei.

paper presenting at the Digital Marginality & Plural Subjectivities conference

I’m delighted to be presenting a paper at the (hybrid) Digital Marginality & Plural Subjectivities conference hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, at the University of Edinburgh. The conference runs 2-4 February and I’m presenting on Tuesday, February 3rd, at 10 pm NZT.

My paper, titled “Climate justice and the performing of prayer in digital spaces across transnational margins,” builds on my IASH Research Fellowship in 2024 into grassroots digital activism.

The paper explores the 2024 Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration by the Pacific Conference of Churches and uses visual grammar analysis of digital images in the Declaration to reflect on the role of prayer in digital activism and what that means for how the West understands climate justice. The full paper proposal is here.

I’m grateful to the organisers who accepted my proposal – from among over 200 applications – and technology for allowing me to present without flying long haul.

Academic paper proposal – Climate justice and the performing of prayer in digital spaces across transational margins

A paper proposal I submitted today, for a hybrid conference early in 2026.

Climate justice and the performing of prayer in digital spaces across transational margins

The 2024 Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration by the Pacific Conference of Churches outlined how neighbourly love within creation can turn the tide for climate justice. The twelve-page document called for a decolonising of climate change language, using stories grounded in the faith and wisdom of Pacific people. The Declaration included digital photographs of church leaders kneeling together in prayer on a Fijian island. At this moment, performances of prayer were being digitally curated to assert indigenous identity and to express solidarity with communities experiencing the impacts of climate change.

This presentation will use visual grammar analysis of digital images in an interdisciplinary study of the performance of prayer in digital activism. First, selected indigenous digital activist social media sites will be examined to document how, in the Pacific, digitally performed prayer is framed as a holistic and communal activity. Second, the theological implications for prayer when climate justice is located in neighbourly love, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, rather than in rights and responsibilities derived from Genesis creation stories. Third, how digitally performed acts of Pacific prayer compare and contrast with digitally performed acts of prayer from the Global North.

The paper will outline how digital media plays an important role, first in allowing Pacific communities to voice an integrated worldview and second in weaving solidarity among global neighbours. However, such digital Pacific activism requires secularised approaches to digital activism that circulate in the Global North to renegotiate how they respond to cultures that kneel in public prayer.

Whether the proposal is accepted, time will tell. But I’m placing the proposal here because it’s another marker in my thinking around the digital activism research project, which I have been working on since my Visiting Research Fellowship in Edinburgh in 2024.

Earlier this year, I had an article published in Theology journal (Taylor, S. (2025). Visualizing online climate change activism: public eco-theologies in grassroots climate-justice organizations. Theology, 128(4), 247-256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X251354942). The article drew on two case studies to describe the presence of prayer as a distinct contribution being made by faith-based digital activists online.

Since I submitted that article to Theology, I have continued to read and think around the practices of prayer in contemporary climate justice organisations. The paper proposal I submitted today frames some ideas and puts them in writing.

Digital faith-based activism special issue – call for papers

I’m delighted to be editing a special issue for Ecclesial Futures journal on Digital faith-based activism: grassroots and indigenous insights.

Ecclesial Futures is a diamond open-access journal published through Radboud University Press. The publisher provides human copyediting and design layout and are at the forefront of open access publishing. You retain your copyright, you don’t pay for online publishing and your publication is available to everyone, without obstacles.

The Ecclesial Futures editorial board have agreed to a special issue on Digital faith-based activism: grassroots and indigenous insights to be published August 2026. All submissions will experience double blind peer review, by an editorial team committed to growing scholarship.

The special issue builds on my IASH Edinburgh Research Fellowship in 2024 and a Colloquium earlier in 2025.

We already gave a rich set of papers, but there is space for more. Details of the Call for papers are on the PDF here. Timelines are tight, with proposed abstracts due 1 December, 2025 and papers 15 January, 2026. But there is some flexibility so if you are interested drop me a line – kiwidrsteve@gmail.com.

Relational labour and faith-based digital activism book chapter acceptance

A chapter I wrote – “Relational labour and faith-based digital activism: theorising the interplay between online and offline” – has been accepted by the editors and signed to the publishers (Bloomsbury). Hooray.

The initial research was presented at the Global Network for Digital Theology in June 2024. I thought I was just clearing my throat methodologically. So I was delightfully surprised to be invited to turn the paper into words a few months later. I submitted a chapter in April 2025 and revisions in June 2025. The chapter is due for release in 2026 in a volume titled – Disconnected: Digital Theology in and between Contexts, edited by Florian Hoehne and Frida Mannerfelt.

The book chapter is the second publication resulting from my stint as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh in the summer of 2024. The first was a journal article, recently published in Theology.

Visualizing online climate change activism: public eco-theologies in grassroots climate-justice organizations. Theology 128(4), 247-256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X251354942

Having multiple academic outputs (with more announcements to come) from a Visiting Fellowship is most encouraging.

Here’s the abstract for “Relational labour and faith-based digital activism: theorising the interplay between online and offline”:

Real life is invariably more complex than ideal theories. This paper describes research into how digital activists in faith-based organisations advocate for justice.

An initial literature review located typologies of online activism that originated in the USA and Europe. This raised the question of how to decolonise existing theories of digital activism. Identity, power and ethics in research suggested the need for a case study approach to centre the digital activism of indigenous communities. A side-by-side approach in research was also developed that brought visual grammar analysis of digital images into dialogue with interviews with activists.

However, in the real world, this ideal research design encountered the reality that my participants were conducting digital activism in their spare time. Auto-ethnographic reflection on how activists responded to my requests for interviews helped me realise that their responses were a valuable source of data. Relational labour is a concept that explains how my participants were activating for justice amid the mundane realities of their offline lives. Theologically, Jesus affirmed relational labour when he observed the tax collector and the widow making offerings in the temple.

My description of idealised methodologies, real-world research experiences and a theory of relational labour has implications for digital theology. Digital worlds are profoundly contextual worlds. Research must consider not only identity, power and ethics but also how offline realities shape online representations. While most researchers express gratitude to their interview participants, in this paper, I am equally grateful to the research participants who said no and later.

grassroots digital activism 12 months on

A year ago today I submitted my research ethics approval to undertake novel research into grassroots digital activism in climate justice. I was wanting to hit the ground running with my Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities (IASH) Fellowship through Edinburgh University in June and July 2024.

My interest in researching grassroots digital activism in climate justice had been sparked by two experiences. First, research with Te Pae Tawhiti 2040 project on the future of theological education for the Anglican Province of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia and being in Fiji hearing the priority of climate justice among those in the Anglican Diocese of Polynesia. Second, being asked to write a book chapter on mission and digital cultures for a handbook with Oxford University Press and finding less research on the marks of mission of treasuring creation than telling and tending disciples.

Thankfully, the ethics approval was granted and the Fellowship with IASH was a great experience. In the 12 months since, a range of research outputs have flowed. These include a journal article with Theology and an academic book chapter with Bloomsbury (both forthcoming). There have been 4 presentations of the research. Plus a successful 1 day Colloquium back in Edinburgh in April this year, which I continue to progress toward an edited book.

Yesterday I pulled out the ethics consent forms. I needed them as I talked with a digital activist group about their possible participation in the project and as I write up a second book chapter. It was uncanny how 12 months on, the ethics consent forms still exactly fit with how the research has unfolded.

Looking at the ethics consent forms helped me recall the excitement and vulnerability of starting a new research project and stepping into an overseas university ethics process. Along with joy at what has resulted and hopefulness about the ongoing future of this particular research project.

Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium call for papers

A research project I am currently working on ….

Call for papers: Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium
4 April, 2025. Hybrid, alongside a face-to-face gathering at the University of Edinburgh

Digital technology is changing the world. In response to global challenges, diverse grassroots faith-based organisations, indigenous or otherwise, are using digital technologies to activate for justice. These activists draw on contextual wisdom and religious resources and express their activist commitments publicly in social media forums. Some of these organisations describe themselves as indigenous. Others find terms like grassroots more helpful. Academic analysis of these local digital activisms provides ways to learn with and from online theologies that are immediate, provisional and contextual.

We live in a society that places increased importance on visual communication. A feature of grassroots digital activism is the use of visual images to activate for change. These include posting digital images, still and moving, that communicate Indigenous ways of knowing, repurposing memes to elevate local approaches and the use of emojis to centre the visual in activist communication. The visual grammar of digital activism provides rich resources for studying grassroots theologies.

Decolonial methodologies offer ethically formed and academically fruitful ways to research with and among grassroots digital activists. Digital and visual ethnography provides ways to learn with and from local communities. Sharing initial research findings with activists generates further learning in hermeneutical spirals of insight. Case study approaches provide ways to amplify the local and bring diverse contexts into conversation with other local contexts.

The Grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism colloquium invites papers that explore questions around grassroots digital faith-based activism. Themes could include:
• Case studies of faith-based activist organisations from diverse grassroots contexts, Indigenous or otherwise
• Insights from cross-indigenous case study comparisons
• Examination of the theologies present in grassroots digital faith-based activism
• The formation, development, identities and motivations, either of individual activists or grassroots organisations
• The role of gender in grassroots and indigenous digital faith-based activism
• The interplay between local theologies and established theologies
• Theological and ethical issues in the interplay between online and offline identities in activism
• Ways that online images interrogate, destabilise and complexify established hierarchies, whether religious, cultural or political
• Theologies and philosophies present in the grassroots repurposing of memes
• The challenges of activism given the pressures of surveillance, ideologies and political states
• The interplay between online visual identities and Indigenous epistemologies
• The ways that online Indigenous activisms are conceptualising relationships between religious resources and local cultures, religion and science, technologies, or politics

Reflective and evaluative presentations by grassroots faith-based online activist groups are welcomed.

Organisors and supporting groups include:
• Steve Taylor, Director AngelWings Ltd, Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
• Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh, expressing the 2021-2024 Decoloniality research focus.
• Researching Indigenous Studies and Christianity network
• Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Edinburgh
• Centre for Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh

Timeline:
Submissions open: 1 December 2024
Submissions close: 15 January 2025
Acceptance notices by: 1 February 2025
Draft paper of 2000 words by: 21 March 2025

All proposals will be blind peer-reviewed. Face-to-face attendance is not required, as the colloquium organisers will offer different ways to engage across diverse time zones, including paper presentations and breakout discussions. The colloquium is organised with a view to an academic book publication and runs in parallel with a public engagement project that will use podcasting to amplify activist voices (if funding application is successful).

Questions and paper proposals to: Steve Taylor, kiwidrsteve@gmail.com, Director AngelWings Ltd, Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka.

fun day plotting the IASH Digital activism research project

It was good today to spend some time reflecting on the IASH Digital Activism as justice-making project to date.

Over the last 6 weeks in Edinburgh, I have gathered a raft of research notes. I’ve written various research memos and pieces of data analysis. Together these total around 12,000 words.

Over the last 6 weeks, I have also presented 3 academic talks. Each of these have helped to clarify data and flesh out some arguments. But they’ve also meant I’ve skipped around a bit, collecting enough data for an “initial finding” in a presentation, but not enough for an indepth written argument.

In the up-next-soon, I have one full week left in Edinburgh. It would be nice in that week to gather threads and work toward something I could publish.

In the up-next-medium term, I have some grassroots activist organisations who are keen to participate. But they have some project deadlines, so have asked if they can be researched later in the year. Totally understandable.

Then in the up-next-longer-term, I want to develop the research in ways that involve multiple voices, not just mine. To make this concrete, a few weeks ago I submitted a funding bid. This is under peer review and could make possible a multi-voiced gathering. I have also initiated contact with a publisher, who has expressed enthusiasm for the project and my hopes for a multi-voiced project.

So today was spent plotting ways that I might produce different outputs. The IASH time was always about the conceptual space to set up the ethics process and research design. It was never intended to complete the project. At the same time, I don’t want to juggle yet another unfinished project, as I already have several too many of those. Equally, having several projects on the go can help with managing timelines.

So today was about plotting. Can there be something in the short term, that is distinct, yet sets up outputs in the medium and long term? Can I match an argument I’ve verbally developed with an already gathered concrete set of data?

After several coffees, and then some thinking thoughts into (1800) draft words on a page, I can see some ways forward.

Socrel 2024 “Digital activism as justice-making” conference questions

I was pleased to present a paper on “Digital activism as justice-making” at the British Sociology Association (BSA) Sociology of Religion Annual Conference. The theme for 2024 was Religion, Justice, and Social Action which fitted really well with my IASH Fellowship. Being in Newcastle on Tyne, just down the road from Edinburgh also worked really well, providing an international conference forum without having to travel too far! it was nice not to enter the most jet-lagged conference attendee award.

This paper is the third presentation of work from my IASH Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh. My data and methods have grown significantly since I proposed an abstract back in February. That in itself is encouraging, seeing how the project is growing and taking shape.

Participants asked a range of excellent questions. As per my standard conference talk practice of taking handwritten notes and writing them up later, here are the questions I was asked, and comments that were made:

1. 1. Are indigenous ways of knowing appearing in the data?
   2. How many of these groups (indigenous Christian climate change activist using online platforms for climate change activism) exist?
   3. How to account for the public dimensions of being online? One of the theoretical typologies that I use included the possibility of digital activity that is illegal. Would activism groups post about such activity online?
   4. Is there a possibility that indigenous approaches to climate change might be able to provide different approaches and solutions than we currently experience in Eurocentric approaches?
   5. It is fascinating how social media gives voice to communities and provides ways for researchers to listen and learn with and from them.
   6. (In the cup of tea queue the next day) – Have you had focus group participants offer different responses to your visual grammar readings?
   7. (Also in the cup of tea queue the next day) – The collective, practical, participatory ways of being that I’m noticing in my research of activist groups in the Pacific is also present in working class British activism.

As you can see, within the confines of 10 minutes for questions, some really helpful matters for me to think through. Every question and comment informs my ongoing thinking. It also provides feedback on how what I am communicating is being received across cultures.

It was great afterward to exchange contact details with researchers at Durham University, Manchester University and Hong Kong University, who are also researching climate change activism. It confirms that my research is timely, yet is also unique. A good sweet spot.

Visualising climate change activism – Edinburgh IASH seminar

I’m delivering a Work-in-Progress seminar on Thursday 27 June at 13:00 BST as part of my Visiting Research Fellowship. In the tentative and exploratory nature of work-in-progess, here’s my work today as I conducted an interview to reflect on online images, transcribed the interview, then did an initial thematic analysis of the 4010 words.

Visualising climate change activism: A visual grammar beginning with online Pacific/indigenous eco-theologies

My research at IASH is focused on grassroots digital activism and how organisations use social media to activate for climate justice. This research could have practical outworkings for organisations seeking to activate online for climate justice and theoretical implications in challenging Euro-centric theorisations of digital activism and visual grammars.

My initial challenge, and in outworking the IASH 2021-2024 theme of decoloniality, is how to research online images produced by indigenous communities. I propose an interdisciplinary side-by-side method that weaves visual grammar approaches from sociolinguistics and talanoa, a Pacific term for sharing stories in the space between. Such a side-by-side methodology could respect the interpretive visual resources of local communities and honour their commitment to communicate through the globalised flows of what is a world wide web.

Folk can join in-person in the IASH Seminar Room, or contact me for a zoom link to join the webinar.

consenting to digital activism

Whoop! A first signed consent form in a research project is a moment worth celebrating. It takes hours of work to get to this stage of a project.

First there is the funding application, seeking resources to undertake research (thanks IASH Edinburgh). This is mixed with a literature review to develop a research question that builds on what others re thinking. Next there is the ethics application, thinking through the risks and benefits of various approaches to research. For this project, this required a lot of reading in ethical research with social media data and ways not to compromise the safety of children in domains that allow anonymous comments. Then there is initiating contact, connecting with organisations and explaining the research to participants. Hours of work make the first signed consent form a moment worth celebrating.

The digital activism in justice-making is briefly introduced here. I am using a mixed methods approach. This involves seeking permission to undertake a visual grammar analysis of online images on social media, alongside offering conversations (focus groups) about the online images. This side-by-side approach should help understand the visual public theologies being offered by grassroot organisations as they activate for climate justice.

Whoop whoop. After positive interactions this week, a first signed consent form!

conference proposal: Missions in Digital Culture: A Transforming Shift

Missions in Digital Culture: A Transforming Shift
by Rev Dr Steve Taylor, AngelWings Ltd, Flinders University

IAMS 2022 conference paper proposal

The digital is a rapidly morphing field. Technology impacts our work and homes and changes health care, leisure, and religious practice. Digital missiology examines how mission intersects with the internet, digital culture, and other forms of digital technology. The IAMS conference themes – of power, inequalities, vulnerabilities – provide a valuable hermeneutical frame to overview the current state of research, assess the contributions, and consider future directions for research in digital missiology.

This paper aims to discern how digitalization is changing the methods and conditions of mission. Particular attention is given to empirical research and ethnographic studies of digital resourcing, including trans-national studies of ecclesial innovation in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the United States. These experiments in digital missions will be analysed missiologically. If, as Marshall McLuhan claims, the medium is the message, then how is the vulnerable Christ present as an animating presence in these digital experiences and networks? The analysis will include dialogue with two recent reappraisals of McLuhan by Douglas Coupland (2011)) and Nick Ripatrazone (2022), as part of a reappraisal of embodiment and participation, informing theologies by which mission might be understood as being re-contextualised for an emerging digital world

This work is part of a larger project seeking to re-theorise Bosch’s notion of paradigm shifts. While Bosch focused on paradigms, the argument is that transforming generativities occur in shifts rather than paradigms. Hence digital cultures offer significant resources for indwelling and embodying missio Dei as transforming shifts in mission.

Lockdown ecclesiologies: the limits and possibilities of enforced online first expressions

And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt. 18.3)

In April last year, in the midst of lockdown here in Aotearoa New Zealand, I was invited to offer some theological reflection on being church online, with the hope of an online publication. Then in July, the request came for me to expand the writing, from 3,000 words to 5,000, with the possibility of the work appearing in a book project.

News this week that the book project has found a publisher – SCM/SCM/Westminster John Knox – and a time frame for publication – November 2021 – in time for American Academy of Religion launch. The book has around 13 contributors, reflecting from diverse contexts including Ghana, Switzerland and Thailand, along with the usual UK and USA. Tentatively titled Ecclesiology for a Digital Church, it examines the impact of being digital on church thought and practice.

Here’s the title for my chapter, along with my current 1 sentence summary —

Lockdown ecclesiologies: the limits and possibilities of enforced online first expressions

Enforced online first expressions are an invitation to attend to our enfleshment, appreciating ourselves as child-like, making visible the kingdom as we learn a new (internet) language.

My writing was shaped by a Nurturing faith online community of practice I had started as lockdowns began, seeking to support church leaders. Sensing the struggles, I had initiated the offer of a supportive environment to encourage action and reflection. As a result, I had the privilege of walking alongside some 25 leaders, from 5 different countries, all wrestling with the challenges of lockdown. This became an invaluable resource, informing my own struggles as I sought to lead a theological college community into enforced online formation and innovate with online education across the wider Presbyterian Church (called Bubble courses).

It’s a delight to see some of my theological ponderings – particularly the work of 11th century theologian Rupert of Deutz – find a published outlet.