In the field of communication for development and social change, reducing poverty and inequity requires practitioners to adopt approaches that prioritise transformative politics, equitable power relations, human rights and social justice (Dutta 2011: 7, 8; Servaes 2013: 369; Wilkins et al. 2014: 138). These are methods that support people on the margins in using their own agency and voice to engage in the “decisions and deliverables affecting their lives” (Dutta 2011: 3; Gaventa and Barrett 2010: 4; Servaes and Liu 2007: 2). Practitioners who work in an international development context have been especially keen to adopt participatory video (PV) processes that can strengthen, amplify and legitimise the voice of people living in poverty (Khamis et al. 2009: 130; Wheeler 2011: 55).
Participatory video is different than documentary filmmaking and even advocacy or activism video; where external filmmakers work closely with community members to construct a film about their situation for education or mobilisation purposes (Gregory and Gábriel 2005: 11). While it may have similar goals for experiential learning and collective action, the PV method specifically prioritises iterative processes of filmmaking, viewings and dialogue to support the people least heard in societies to represent them-selves privately and publically (Braden 1999: 1; Mitchell et al. 2012: 1; Plush 2012: 77). PV processes often aim to create new opportunities for awareness-raising and dialogue between the local filmmakers and policy-makers (Bery 2003: 161; Wheeler 2009: 10; White 2003: 9). This is especially meaningful for citizens who may have limited access to such platforms. With its potential for projecting unseen perspectives (Mitchell et al. 2012: 1; Wheeler 2011: 55), participatory video is often embedded into development programmes specifically to raise the voice of excluded or marginalised populations (Dudley 2003: 286; Plush 2009: 119).
Tensions, however, can arise for PV practitioners when working in international development contexts due to organisational, political and relational interests that often interact in contradictory ways in policy and practice (Gumucio-Dagron 2008: 229; Lennie and Tacchi 2013: 6; Waisbord 2008: 508). Because of this, it is vital for practitioners to consider particular expectations for participatory video that institutions (non-government or organisations, research bodies, government departments or funding agencies) may hold; and how practice may be influenced, co-opted or even devalued by these institutional assumptions. Such considerations are imperative if PV praxis is to live up to its potential for enabling citizen voice so it can be respected and sustained rather than undermined or denied (Couldry 2010: 1–2; Tacchi 2010: 7).
The research base for this article comes through a qualitative study that explored the cognitive representations and lived experiences of global PV practitioners The participants are from Australasia, Europe and the Americas; 75 percent are individuals who have focused solely on development practice; the other 25 percent have used PV as a research for development process. In clarifying For anonymity in a small field of practitioners, PV experience is capped at 16 years even through individual experience is much higher for certain practitioners. Statistical data is current from the date of the interviews in early 2014. The research allowed the participants to set the parameters of how they define a PV project. For example, one practitioner worked for many years with one group on one “project” but making many films. It was left to their discretion if they would define this as one project, or count each filmmaking activity separately. 18 of the 25 practitioners completed storyboards.
To locate institutional influences on PV praxis, the research analysed the tensions practitioners described in their practice. Through this process, the research identified more than 650 formulated meanings; and clustered them into 20 overall themes. The themes were counted and analysed to identify two key areas of influence–
In the study, a main concern for the practitioners is that institutions often fail to comprehend or embrace the underlying principles for For anonymity, practitioners selected pseudonyms. Practitioner quotes list their pseudonym and years of practice; represented by 1–3 years; 4–7 years; 8–15 years; or 16+ years. Once a practitioner has been identified by their years’ experience, they are subsequently referred to only by their pseudonym.
In this first institutional view of participatory video practice, named here as an
Practitioners explained that this growing emphasis on time-bound, pre-defined outcomes creates an environment where it is easier for development organisations to embrace what they labelled as “formulaic,” “technocratic,” “machine-based” or “simplistic” approaches to PV When you are talking about social change, it's not a linear process. It's not like you make an advance and there's no backtracking. We know that policies don’t get enacted in the same way they were intended a lot of the time. We know that the kinds of changes that need to happen and the kind of level of which that change needs to happen is not very connected to the policies that are available. There are a lot of questions about that. And if you are using PV in an instrumental way, you are merely going to reinforce all of those powers. You’re not necessarily going to challenge them. You are still within a system – that development system – unless you can find a way to challenge it
Even when PV has been designed to be more responsive to community concerns, a few practitioners described situations where results-based agendas have diminished potential for sustained citizen voice. A practitioner working within a large NGO, illustrated this through a story about a PV project embedded in a development programme in rural Africa focused on unpaid care.
In this second institutional view, the “Citizens” means some sort of social organizing. And without that, I don’t think you can have citizens’ voice. To me, citizens’ voice means social organisation, which then – in the final stages – has a voice. When I say final stages, there is that to-and-fro where you can actually use media as a way of assisting the process of social organising. So doing things together, people organise. That's the process as opposed to the output
A focus on PV as output can also lead to processes that inadvertently exploit community members: “It's not intended to be as such, but it ends up being cheap labor to make communicative documents for people who have the opportunity to use them and show them” It is important that we look at how that colonisation of local voices happens within NGOs. So much of what you can see – even in what are called PV tapes – is of a genre where the refugee kid provokes the response, “How sweet!” Or the peasant woman operating the camera provokes exclamations, “Amazing!” All of which produces what Deleuze would call schizo-cultural distance
A few practitioners observed that the output-focused view can be strong when PV is aligned with organisations’ communication departments as they traditionally focus on developing products and campaigns. This can be problematic since communication departments do not often have the mandate for “really reaching the communities and hearing their voice; and helping them to communicate”
In the third view of practice, named the As soon as you start to set an international or outside target, it can just be orientated about really just getting their voice and their thoughts. And there you go. The action kind of happens out there. It may kind of filter back. There may or may not be impacts directly felt by the target community. It is often how it tends to be seen in the development world
Many related this to a naive view within institutions that creating opportunities for voice alone will inherently lead to social change or justice. As a consequence, PV project budgets often only include resources to make and publically disseminate the community film or films. Funding for wider efforts that might ensure the participants’ voice has the potential to be recognised and responded to in the longer-term is often not considered. Practitioners explained that naive expectations often happen when participatory video is viewed as a means to give voice – like a gift or a commodity. This is where the
Examples of this in practice were shared by a few practitioners who discussed projects where NGO staff members, local government officials or community leaders were taught filmmaking skills in one to two days. They then used these skills to gather a wide range of opinions on the selected topic; often in short, community visits (i.e. providing people with In theory, it provides an opportunity for the people on the ground, community members in some of the poorest places, to say what are their needs; what are some of the issues. But on the flip slide, if you watch some of the videos we have, it's basically a wish list of “these are the things we want”
In a quest for wide geographical reach, the time-bound approach can also discount power dynamics inherent not only in who speaks, but in who holds the camera. This was illustrated through a technical description about how newly trained facilitators used a focus-group approach (with pre-determined questions) in an Africa-based PV project designed to capture multiple voices:
Let's say that they have a discussion of 45–60 minutes. After the 60 minutes, they interview the people who want to say something; or the most interesting people; or who the group feels are the right representatives to share their hopes and dreams. It is also easy for the editing if you first do a discussion of 45 to 60 minutes, and after that you do some short interviews of 3–4 minutes each with the four different questions
This example highlights a concern by other practitioners that approaches focused mainly on providing
That said, in the African project mentioned above, the facilitating practitioner also described how participants in the final videos felt when viewing their concerns on film alongside more powerful people in the community:
It gives them a feeling that they are recognised. And if they express that, it is already a big step in raising citizen voice. Because they feel recognised and feel listened to; they feel seen; they get a position in the community… Of course, the hierarchy remains; and that's probably in the culture. But at least people get the opportunity to share and speak up equally
This observation exemplifies how valuable it can be for people to have their voice recognised in public policy spaces. However, it likewise shows that having the opportunity for voice alone may not be enough to shift entrenched power relations. As the practitioner explained when talking about the focus-group approach to gathering opinions, “the disadvantage is that some of the marginalised people, they may not speak up in this train-the-trainer model I am using.” This echoes the concern another practitioner described when talking about how short-form notions for ra Fine; go and do something in three days, but don’t call it
The above section described three institutional views that the practitioners in the study said organizations’ often hold concerning the purpose or reason
In the fourth view, named the If we are doing a project and people are being listened to and they are able to engage with their wider society; and they’re developing a voice and their thoughts; and they are addressing us in the first instance, or a slightly wider audience, that's a political act. For some of the groups we work with, they just don’t expect anyone to listen to them or take notice of them… But in terms of whether that's embedded in the funding or whether that's what other people want to get from it… I find that a lot of the groups I work with, we don’t talk about that
Practitioners attributed the apolitical view to development organisations being, as one practitioner explained, “quite invested in their professional identities” in how they are viewed or in what they can say One of the problems about PV practitioners being very closely aligned to NGOs is that it can lead to the colonising of local voices in support of what are actually NGO agendas: programmes, policies and fundraising. It is the unspoken collusion, or maybe it is the unconscious collusion that takes hold of professional bodies and institutions as they struggle with their own internal management and financial matters
A practitioner who often uses PV for monitoring and evaluation illustrated this in explaining how institutions can mitigate political engagement through PV project design and funding. S/he Gender-neutral pronouns are used for practitioner anonymity. There are a lot of organisations who think they know what participatory methods are and have dabbled with them; and are applying them, but have not really gone through the shift – the internal shift; the attitude shift that needs to come clear to make it really authentic. And so in terms of power and who is holding that power, and in design and implementation, and organisation and projects, they haven’t shared that fully
In talking about the value of the “more activist and the more civic-driven processes” that can raise citizen voice, a practitioner offered this observation:
What I see is that quite often the word participation is being stimulated by a lot of actors, with really good results. But quite often within boundaries of what professional organisations deem interesting or necessary. And there seems to be a very wide gap between citizen activism and structural participation in organisations
In the fifth view, the You think you are teaching people to run a process, but people get power through having control of the kit. So you end up rather than spreading skills and breaking down power dynamics, you end up supporting the existing power dynamics within a community
The practitioners said local power can be most visible during participant selection processes that determine who will receive the PV training and equipment. Reasons for why certain community members become participants included the tendency for those with the most confidence to volunteer; people in power wanting their relatives or friends to gain from any skills or resources offered in the PV activities; or cultural norms that favour particular individuals or groups over others, such as related to gender or caste. A practitioner working in Asia explained the difficulty in breaking down power inequities as an outsider:
I had the experience where we wanted to integrate Dalits into the group. But in the end it didn’t work out. They came to the training. I don’t know if they were accepted by others or not. After the training other participants told us that the Dalit participants are not serious and are not interested to work towards making a film. But it's very difficult for me to know the reality... The field assistant who lives there has helped us to form these groups knows this community very well. But I don’t really know if what she says is the reality. I have to accept that
The practitioners described potentially negative consequences for participants both while creating their films and having them publically shown. They worried for people who describe deeply personal situations; criticise power structures that foster inequity; provide evidence of undelivered government services; or expose human rights atrocities. As an illustration of the tensions, a practitioner who often uses PV for child rights, said s/he sometimes sees child-led participatory videos and wonders, “Is this really the interest of the child? If they made this, isn’t that child going to get in trouble? How is follow-up being organised? Have they at all thought about this? Is ethics even a part of the process”
Another worry by practitioners was about the potential for harm when participants are not part of how their voice is being used; especially for populations who are already quite marginalised. This was illustrated by a practitioner who often works with refugee youth:
If you are asking someone to make media or you are engaging them in a media process and they are not engaged in the next stage in the civic action around it… then you have disempowered them. You’ve patronised that work rather than actually making them part of that process of that response
In the sixth institutional view of practice, named as the
What this means is that time is often limited for participants to not only acquire video production skills (such as videography, basic editing, visual language and storytelling); but to also learn the facilitation skills that set PV apart from traditional filmmaking. This is often seen as a contradiction for practice:
It is understood that to learn how to makes films, professional should do long-term college courses; or to become social, community workers or researchers the same. But somehow people in the community are supposed to be able to build skills overnight, even though they are much less well-placed due to life constraints to do so
The practitioner also shared concerns about short-term PV projects where the funding stops after the film or films are made: “There isn’t any finance to do what is the more important work. You get the funding to write your how-to manual, but not to ensure that what is done is used appropriately” What people really need is a mentoring process… If they decide that they want to run processes, whatever those look like, that they have someone, or more than one someone, who works with them and helps them work through all the issues and is with them along the way as they confront those problems and think about how to deal with them. And that's much more likely for people to then be able to use it. Running people through five-day, train-the-trainer workshops is not going to do it
Even when organisations support the need for sufficient training, finding funding can be difficult: “Participatory video is quite an investment. So far as I have seen, not so many projects are budgeting for that; or are not yet ready for that”
The two areas explored above –
Consideration of the influential views is especially vital when PV is located in an international development sector that primarily promotes traditional communication paradigms supporting vertical message delivery (Gumucio-Dagron 2009: 453). This is where the participatory aspect of social change communication is regarded as “mere rhetoric, not practiced or implemented in top-down ways” (Lennie and Tacchi 2013: 6). In such a context, it is only when practitioners are able to fully embrace the “complex reality of project application” that participatory video's potential for raising citizen voice can be meaningfully realised (Low et al. 2012: 61; Shaw 2012: 225).
Of course, such action is not straight-forward. It implies a “deliberate process of becoming unsettled about what is normal” (Eyben 2014: 1). This means that PV practitioners working in development need to pause and reflect on how they personally respond to the institutional views suggested in the study. It requires interrogating how their own views might play a parallel, influential role through varying degrees of response from compliance to resistance. Such responses may be related to their own theories on voice and participation, educational background, practical experience, peer influence, ethical approaches to practice and personal values. This should be aided by further academic research into what strategies are needed to reach PV's potential for raising citizen voice in an international development context. Or, more radically, what are the alternatives for participatory video praxis to work alongside dominant development structures in support of “transformative politics and redistributive justice” (Dutta 2011: 2, 8).
Such action supports theoretical arguments that focus the PV discourse away from best-practice debates. It does so by shifting the conversation to the intersection between “conditions under which participation is generated or regenerated” and PV practitioner skills, values and agency (High et al. 2012: 45). Pursuit of this knowledge will not only bolster participatory video as viable method for communication for development and social change. It can also, more importantly, strengthen the potential for the voices of excluded groups to meaningfully matter in the persistent struggle to reduce global inequity (Couldry 2010: 7).