Chapter: Participatory video for empowerment

Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change, 2018

Benefiting from more than 50 years of practice and innovation, participatory video (PV) is a firmly established approach in the field of communications for development. The term "participatory video" is used to refer to a very wide range of practices that involve nonprofessionals in making their own films as a means to engage communities, develop critical awareness, and amplify citizens' voices to discuss social problems that they prioritize. The canonical texts on participatory video all make reference to PV's grounding in the praxis of Brazilian popular educator Paulo Freire, and the influence of feminist practice is often also noted in

Fijian Studies: A Journal of Contemporary Fiji, 2008

Participatory video (PV) projects have put video technology in the hands of the most marginalised in society for self-representation and social reform. PV has gained a favoured place in many development projects and has been used by non-government organisations, development workers and indeed communities themselves to foster dialogue and to instigate change and empowerment. The case study discussed here combined action research and visual ethnography to study the process of PV production and how the community's engagement in it contributes to dialogue and community building in a post-conflict society. This study found that rural women in Fiji use social capital -their relationships and social networks -as a key element in video production to highlight community needs and linkages.

Online Submission, 2010

Communication is an important input in development. The role of communication is socioeconomic and cultural development at national and international levels. Development is considered an important component of "progress. The progressive change is described as alterations in awareness, motivation and participation of the individuals. With the revolution in communication and the mandate to reach people in the whole development process as partners, Participatory communication assumed great significance. Participatory Communication begins with people who know most about their own livelihood systems. Participatory methods of communication involve bottom up approach, it involves the community, constructs tools for advocacy with the help of the members of the community with reference to the specific content, culture and language favorable for the community. The present study, Video for Participatory Communication: An Exploratory Study with Video SEWA (Ahmedabad) was conducted to find out the effectiveness of video as a tool for participatory communication. The study was conducted with the organization Video SEWA in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The main objective of the study was to gage the effectiveness of video as a tool for participatory communication and its impact on skill development, awareness and empowerment. The timing of the study was four months. The process comprised of various stages, these were mainly focusing on aspects like: 1. Exploring the history and development of Video SEWA as an organization and a cooperative 2. Analyzing the participatory videos created by the community members at Video SEWA,in terms of its content, audience involvement and awareness. 3. Recording the Journey of Video SEWA members and analyzing their growth in terms of life skills and socioeconomic development. "Using videos to record and demonstrate women's work would raise the spirit, inspire confidence and solidarity and illustrate the power of collective action and Participation"

Within international development, strengthening the voice of citizens living in poverty is recognised as vital to reducing inequity. In support of such endeavors, participatory video (PV) is an increasingly utilised communicative method that can stimulate community engagement and amplify the voice of groups often excluded from decision-making spaces. However, implementing PV processes specifically within an international development context is an immensely complex proposal. Practitioners must take into consideration the different ways institutions may understand the use of participatory video for raising citizen voice; and how therefore the practice may be influenced, co-opted or even devalued by these institutional assumptions. To this end, this article interrogates how global PV practitioners express tension in their work. Analysis of their descriptions suggests six influential views on PV practice with the potential to diminish the value of voice from the margins. Nordicom Review 36 (2015) Special Issue, pp. 57-70

Gaia, 2022

Participatory Video (PV) is a method that involves supporting individuals in a group setting to co-produce videos. It is a community development, research and advocacy tool that has recently been adapted for online, remote facilitation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (Marzi forthcoming). As with the in-person methodology, an online PV process is geared towards fostering dialogue around a shared issue. During the process, smartphone videos are created by participants as a tool for communication and reflection. PV captures situated viewpoints, while fostering intra-group communication, peer-to-peer learning and skills development. PV also enables participants to communicate their ideas to an external target audience, which may include communities in other areas, policy-makers, or scientists. PV can support many different steps along a participatory research journey. In the early stages, PV may be applied to support the co-creation of video-based funding proposals or the development of group plans (box 1). Further into the research process, videos can be created by participants for project documentation and reflection purposes, or for participatory monitoring and evaluation (Lemaire and Lunch 2012). Towards the latter stages, PV could be used to support dissemination of "best practices" or to communicate results and lessons learned (Richardson et al. forthcoming). In these ways, video-making by participants can support both internal and external communication processes within a research project.

Education as Change, 2008

In this paper we explore how visual participatory methodologies, such as participatory video documentary, can be used by researchers to engage educators to take action concerning social issues that impact on their teaching. Educators from township schools in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth, voluntarily participated in a two day video documentary workshop. From the wide range of challenges identified, the vulnerability of learners affected by HIV & AIDS was selected by the teachers as the most pressing issue. This research therefore brought together two important current issues in South African society, viz the teaching profession and educators (often viewed as unwilling and/or unable to intervene in the lives of learners or in the broader community) and HIV & AIDS, creating opportunity for change in both. Participatory visual methodologies offer teachers the opportunity to play a leading role in researching and developing ways to increase awareness around the social and educational injustices deriving from the HIV & AIDS pandemic. Participatory video documentary work thus has the potential to move teachers into action that facilitates social change. The paper explores just whom the research is for, and how participatory research can be utilised to promote social justice in school and in the community.

The use of Participatory Video (PV) in development projects with marginalised communities by Non-government organisations is increasing. Though PV practice has expanded, there has been limited academic discussion and debate on the subject. PV is often assumed to be a non-problematic process that enables less powerful groups to gain power and participate in social change processes. This research contributes to the emerging academic debates by critically investigating how participating in a long-term PV project can provide participants the opportunity to gain agency and to engage with local social change in a sustained manner. It studies projects by two NGOs in Hyderabad and Mumbai, which work with young women participants, using gender as a lens to examine the role of power relations within the projects. This thesis draws on three key concepts: (i) participation, (ii) agency and (iii) gender norms. Using the conceptualisation of agency in the Capability Approach, it focuses on the various aspects of a long-term PV project that can either promote or restrict young women’s agency. The methods of collecting data were interviews, group discussions, participatory observation and participatory video-making with the research participants. The analysis of the data was carried out using a framework which maps the relationships between the various phases of a long-term PV project and the participants’ agency. Based on the findings of the analysis, this thesis argues that oppressive gender power relations within their household and the community, and hierarchy within a supposedly participatory project are critical influences on young women’s ability to become agents of change. In particular, the thesis draws attention to: (i) participants’ need to continuously negotiate power with the household and community members, (ii) inherent hierarchy and the nature of participation in a long- term PV project, (iii) the relation between participants’ need to access resources and hierarchy within a project, and (iv) the difference in needs, goals and impacts identified by donors/NGOs and the participants. The thesis proposes a conceptual model of participatory video as an agency-development process, which shows how these factors are crucial in developing and sustaining participants’ agency. This thesis builds new knowledge by providing an in-depth understanding of power relations in long-term PV projects and what impacts agency - areas which are often overlooked in the literature on PV.

The purpose of this study is to examine critically the phenomenon of participatory video and to situate within this the participatory video project that was initiated as part of this study in the informal settlement area of Kayamandi, South Africa. The overall objective of the dissertation is to consider the potential of participatory video within current-day South Africa towards enabling marginalised groups to represent themselves and achieve social change. As will be shown, the term ‘participatory video’ has been used broadly and applied to many different types of video products and processes. For the preliminary purposes of this dissertation, participatory video is defined as any video (or film) process dedicated to achieving change through which the subject(s) has been an integral part of the planning and/or production, as well as a primary end-user or target audience. The two key elements that distinguish participatory video are thus (1) understanding video (or film) as a tool for social change; and (2) understanding participation by the subject as integral to the video process. An historical analysis thus considers various filmmaking developments that fed into the emergence of participatory video. These include various film practices that used film as a tool for change -- from soviet agitprop through to the documentary movement of the 1930s, as well as various types of filmmaking in the 1960s that opened up questions of participation. The Fogo process, developed in the late 1960s, marked the start of participatory video and video advocacy and provided guiding principles for the Kayamandi project initiated as part of this dissertation. Practitioners of the Fogo process helped initiate participatory video practice in South Africa when they brought the process to South African anti-apartheid activists in the early 1970s. The Kayamandi Participatory Video Project draws on this background and context in its planned methodology and its implementation. Out of this, various theoretical issues arising from participatory video practice contextualise a reflection and an analysis of the Kayamandi project. Lastly, this study draws conclusions and recommendations on participatory video practice in South Africa.