Voices From the South
Voices from the South is a joint effort of the Topos Partnership and EPI’s Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) to share lessons learned from our deep research across Southern and Midwestern States through the Southern Mindshift Project.
What is the Southern Mindshift Project?
Working closely with policy and organizing partners across Southern and Southern Midwestern states, this Topos/EARN EPI collaborative project—with support from The Rockefeller Foundation—starts with the cultural common sense and builds on this knowledge to co-create messaging strategies that can cut through conservative narratives. This five-year project will tailor and adapt these strategies to support existing campaigns on the ground, testing and refining the messages over time.
Why Southern Mindshift?
Anti-worker and anti-government cultural narratives are so deeply entrenched and pervasive in the South and Southern Midwest that competing worldviews often can’t even enter the conversation. What’s missing in the long-term progressive advocacy agenda is a coordinated effort to chip away at the cultural narratives that block progressive efforts across states and issue areas. Through a partnership of cutting-edge cognitive science research and on-the-ground policy and organizing expertise, the Southern Mindshift Project is poised to fill this gap.
