Participatory Methods and Resources

Also, a ‘curated resource’ list on participatory video (PV) including a selection of tools, guides and literature that we feel are helpful for understanding participatory video and especially for advancing its emancipatory potential. The list can be found here: http://www.peoplesknowledge.org/resources/read/pvlist/

Participatory Video (PV) is used by groups to explore an issue of mutual concern, to document the opinions and aspirations of those participating, to construct a representation of this process in the form of a film and to pursue social change through this process.  As a method of inquiry, it resonates with the emancipatory and democratising character of Participatory Action Research (PAR), especially when it is employed in a way which acknowledges and aims to deal with power relations and inequalities (Kindon 2003). In some areas of international development work, PV is seen as a neutral catalyst for social change through awareness-raising and sharing knowledge. There is indeed a risk that PV can be instrumentalised and used as a mode of enrolling marginalised people into top-down research or development plans, limiting the agency of PV film making groups, and undermining the emancipatory potential of PV. Thus, as with other methods, PV demands a self-critical reflective process, especially when institutions are involved, in order to deliver on aims of emancipation and positive social transformation (Milne 2016, Shaw 2012). Click here for more details…