Our Three Pillars
To navigate a dynamic, uncertain future and break through the communication noise, Frame45 has developed a three-pillar process. We balance our focus on knowledge production as it relates to migration and urbanisation, by incorporating a deep understanding of organisational ecosystems and employing various storytelling technologies. These three pillars of our approach bridge the gap between knowledge and action, and lead us toward more effective organisational and social change.
Knowledge Production
01 Knowledge Production
Knowledge gathering
Our process begins with the co-production of knowledge, bringing our academic insights to bear on your decisions. Frame45 isn’t concerned with lofty goals and unattainable strategies designed by experts and abstracted from their context. Rather, we enrich your expertise on the problems faced by the community of concern with our knowledge and data on migration, urban environments, and governance in Africa and Asia. This not only anchors our approach in the everyday realities of the host and mobile communities we work with, but serves as a model of the collaborative methods we advocate.
Centering interdisciplinarity
Using tried and true methods from a range of disciplines—politics, psychology, geography, sociology, anthropology, and urban planning—we plant our feet firmly in a given context, organisation, or city before beginning the process of reframing and rethinking solutions. The knowledge produced by such collaborative and inclusive methods is more likely to be itself inclusive, and the subsequent solutions robust and sustainable.
Organisational Ecosystems
02 Organisational Ecosystems
Unpicking organisational ecosystems
Once equipped with an understanding of the problem and its context, we must familiarise ourselves with your organisational ecosystem. This includes the wider network of organisations, individuals, and infrastructures through which your work unfolds.
Together, we identify the levers within this ecosystem which might help achieve the desired outcome. This means getting to grips with the particular power and incentive structures of your organisation. As well as mobilising new and effective forms of solidarity, and looking beyond obvious legal frameworks and rights regimes.
Meeting the challenges of today
Organisational ecosystems are not what they once were. Recent technological developments have revolutionised how such ecosystems and the entities within them function. From the changing nature and degree of collaboration, to the greater reliance on informal or gig-economies, the labour landscape is shifting. With full awareness of this context, our team works to mobilise additional resource streams, strengthen your strategy, and increase your effectiveness.
Building on what came to create what’s to come
Thus, building on the knowledge gained at the previous stage, we identify horizontal relationships and protections not reliant only on state structures. By fostering solidarity with host communities, drawing on the authority and expertise of local chiefs, employing social and neighbourhood networks, and more we can begin to envision, design, and prototype solutions.
Storytelling
03 Storytelling
Storytelling to bring about change
Finally, we help you tell a story. We take everything we’ve learned, about the migrant mothers, local businesses, and smuggled families, and tell stories that humanise them, that find new audiences and bring about meaningful shifts in thinking and behaviour. Using transmedia storytelling and activism, we work with you to construct narratives that transcend a single medium or genre.
We at Frame45 are firm believers in the mutuality of narrative nuance and clarity of purpose. Simplistic or reductive messaging is neither inherently accurate nor inherently effective. In fact, the pursuit of justice and liberation goes hand in hand with the nuanced depiction of migrants, refugees, and their host communities. Just as we must have both nuance and clarity, so we must tell stories reflecting the perspectives of both mobile and host communities. Storytelling allows us to enfold multitudes without compromising our message, our values, or our commitment to change.
Introducing transmedia storytelling
Digital media, and social media in particular, have garnered a dubious reputation in recent years. It seems to many that they lend themselves to abuse, to stoking hate and hostility. We, however, see liberatory promise in new media, the potential for democratisation, participation, and levelling. With the whole gamut of transmedia storytelling techniques in hand, we co-create messaging that explains, enlightens, and motivates your audience—whoever they might be—for the greatest impact.
A fresh take on old problems
Like any resilient community, our solutions are made strong by empathy, co-creation, diversity, and creativity. This is what we offer: a fresh take on old problems, a view around the corner, a small shift in perspective that opens a world of possibilities.