Participatory Video

Applications (why, when & where)

Participatory video is a form of participatory media in which a group or community creates their own film. The rationale is that making a video is easy and accessible, and is a great way of bringing people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories. It is therefore primarily about process, though high quality and accessible films (products) can be created using these methods if that is a desired outcome. This process can be very empowering, enabling a group or community to take their own action to solve their own problems, and also to communicate their needs and ideas to decision-makers and/or other groups and communities. As such, participatory videocan be a highly effective tool to engage and mobilize marginalized people, and to help them to implement their own forms of sustainable development based on local needs. [i]

Brief description

The objective of participatory video is to create a climate that encourages individual and group development. The specific technical and organizational skills learnt, and the video produced are part of the work, but it is the positive change that participants go through during the process that is the most important outcome. This informs the activity and approach at every stage of the work. Participatory videocan have far-reaching benefits and can be a potent tool for group empowerment (Shaw and Roberson, 1997).

Where in the project cycle is this useful?

Spatial scale

Local

Extractive/non-extractive

Extractive by definition but it is the choice of communities what to share.
The nature of the coverage might not be extractive, might be strengthening.

Complexity

Moderately complex.

For those applying the tool:

For participants:

Outcomes

Strengths

Intensity of engagement
Iterative: action and reflection
Process of consent
Energizing format
Antidote to “research fatigue”

Drawbacks

Can be physically challenging
Difficult to track large-scale spatial or temporal processes.

Illustrations

Nile Basin Development Challenge, Ethiopia

In 2011, CPWF Nile awarded a grant through its Innovation Fund to investigate and document the effectiveness of participatory video as a tool to bring local issues to the attention of planners and implementers of rainwater management interventions in Ethiopia. The resulting video made by community members from three sub-districts in Fogera District was recently shown to members of the Fogera Innovation Platform. The video, titled ‘A Rope to Tie a Lion’, captures community views on land and water management and focused on three issues: unrestricted grazing, water stress and government-led soil and water conservation work. The film received a positive response from members of the innovation platform who seemed to gain some insight into community perspectives.

Issues

“Empowering” people brings into question an array of ethical issues. The poor and marginalized are caught up in a complex web of politics and power dynamics that extend from the family and community level to issues at national and regional levels. Those who undertake participatory videoneed to consider (Tritz, 2009):

What responsibilities does one have when using a camera?
What is an acceptable way to approach someone when you want to photograph or video them?
What types of situations or images would you want to avoid capturing?
What happens to the photographs/ videos after the project?

Production crews need to be aware of the possible dis-empowering conditions that the asymmetrical knowledge, skills and experience conditions could present in a community production environment. Under such methods, the subject communities are seen to have a certain level of control in the film production process and are able to have some input into the production such that they are able to influence some representations in the documentary (Mhando, Undated).

For more on ethical issues see the References section.

Resources

Time:

Human resources:

Costing:

Origins and history

The first experiments in participatory video are attributed to Don Snowden, a Canadian who pioneered the idea of using media to enable a people-centered community development approach. Then Director of the Extension Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Snowden worked with filmmaker Colin Low and the National Film Board of Canada's Challenge for Change program to apply his ideas in Fogo Island, Newfoundland, a small fishing community. By watching each other’s films, the villagers on the island came to realize they shared many of the same problems and that by working together they could solve them. The films were also shown to politicians who lived too far away and were too busy to actually visit the island. As a result of this dialogue, government policies and actions were changed. The techniques developed by Snowden became known as the Fogo process. Snowden went on to apply the Fogo process all over the world until his death in India in 1984.

The first community-made video in Canada was the 1969 Challenge for Change video VTR St-Jacques, filmed in a poor Montreal neighbourhood. To make VTR St-Jacques, directors Dorothy Henault and Bonnie Sherr Klein trained community members to use video to represent their struggle for affordable and accessible medical care. VTR St-Jacques was shown across Canada and the U.S., inspiring other projects.

There has been no uniform movement to promote and practise participatory video, but different individuals and groups have set up pockets of participatory video work, usually molding it to their particular needs and situations. Participatory video has also grown with the increasing accessibility of inexpensive handheld video equipment.

An early and significant book on participatory video was published in the UK in 1997 by Clive Robertson and Jackie Shaw, Directors of Real Time Video. Real Time are an educational charity that pioneered many of the techniques. [ii]ethodologies still used today, and have been working in the participatory video field since 1984.

Conditions for use and dissemination

None.

Contacts

Gareth Benest
Director of Programs
InsightShare
[gbenest@insightshare.org]
www.insightshare.org

Learn more about this topic

References

Mhando. M. R. Undated. Participatory Video Production in Tanzania: An Ideal or Wishful? Accessed 20 December, 2013 at [[1]]

Moletsane, R. Mitchell, C., Stuart, J., Walsh, S. and Taylor. M. 2008. Ethical Issues in Using Participatory Video in Addressing Gender Violence in and Around Schools: The Challenges of Representation. Accessed 20 December, 2013 at [[2]]

Milne, D., Mitchell, C. And de Lange, N. 2012. Handbook of Participatory Video. AltaMira Press: Maryland, USA.

Shaw, J. and Robertson, C. 1997. Participatory Video: A Practical Approach to Using Video Creatively in Group Development Work: A Practical Approach to Using Video Creatively in Group Developmental Work. Routledge: London, New York.

Tritz, J. 2009. Using Photovoice & Participatory Video with Youth. CYFAR Conference, Baltimore, MD, May 21, 2009. Accessed 20 December, 2013 at [[3]]

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