Participatory video

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The basis of this article was kindly provided by Insight and taken with permission from their book "Insight's into Participatory Video: a handbook for the field". Feel free to add to the below and edit as you wish!

What is Participatory Video?

Participatory Video is a set of techniques to involve a group or community in shaping and creating their own film. The idea behind this 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. 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 Video can be a highly effective tool to engage and mobilise marginalised people, and to help them to implement their own forms of sustainable development based on local needs.

How does Participatory Video differ from documentary filmmaking?

Whilst there are forms of documentary filmmaking that are able to sensitively represent the realities of their subjects' lives and even to voice their concerns, documentary films very much remain the authored products of a documentary filmmaker. As such, the subjects of documentaries rarely have any say (or sometimes have some limited say) in how they will ultimately be represented. By contrast, in Participatory Video the subjects make their own film in which they can shape issues according to their own sense of what is important, and they can also control how they will be represented. Additionally, documentary films are often expected to meet stringent aesthetic standards and are usually made with a large audience in mind. The PV process, on the other hand, is less concerned with appearance than with content, and the films are usually made with particular audiences and objectives in mind.

What are the origins of Participatory Video?

The first experiments in Participatory Video were the work of Don Snowden, a Canadian who pioneered the idea of using media to enable a people-centered community development approach. This took place in 1967 on the Fogo Islands, with a small fishing community off the eastern coast of Newfoundland. By watching each other’s films, the different villagers on the island came to realise that they shared many of the same problems and that by working together they could solve some of 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.

Since then, 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 home video equipment.

How widespread are Participatory Video methods?

Participatory Video is used all over the world and has been applied in many different situations, from advocacy and enabling greater participation in development projects to providing a therapeutic and communicative environment for the mentally ill or disempowered. Methods vary from practitioner to practitioner, some choosing to keep the process more open, and others preferring to guide the subjects more, or even to wield the camera themselves. There is no fixed way in which Participatory Video has to be done, other than that it involves the authorship of the group itself and that it be carried out in a truly participative and democratic way. This quality of flexibility enables Participatory Video to be applied to many different situations.

How does Participatory Video work?

There is no standard practice for carrying out Participatory Video. Different groups use it in different ways. Insight's website [1] explains how they use Participatory Video: (copied from website with permission)

- Participants rapidly learn how to use video equipment through games & exercises.
- Facilitators help groups identify & analyse important issues in their community by adapting a range of PRA-type tools with Participatory Video techniques.
- Short videos & messages are directed & filmed by participants.
- Footage is shared with the wider community at daily screenings.
- A dynamic process of community-led learning, sharing and exchange is set in motion.
- Communities are involved to varying degrees in editing their films depending on a number of logistical considerations, in all cases they always have full editiorial control
- Completed films can be used for horizontal and vertical communication

Why use Participatory Video?

Participatory Video carried out well can become a powerful means of documenting local people’s experiences, needs and hopes from their own perspectives. It initiates a process of analysis and change that celebrates local knowledge and practice, whilst stimulating creativity both within and beyond the community. When done well, Participatory Video presents the “inside view” in a lively way that is accessible to people at all levels. All community members have equal access to the process. All voices are expressed and heard. The video medium is transportable, easily replicated and easily shared; it thus has a wide “spread effect”. Participatory Video gives a voice and a face to those who are normally not heard or seen, even in participatory programmes that focus on identifying local innovations and enhancing endogenous development.

[edit] Useful Participatory Video Links:

Insightbased in France and UK, founded by Chris Lunch and Nick Lunch

Deccan Development Society (Community Media Trust) Founded by PV Sateesh. 

Maneno Mengi PV pioneers in Tanzania, see Lars Johansson.

Video in the Villages PV pioneers in Brazil, working with indigenous communities see Vincent Carelli.

[edit] Participatory Video Resources:

Recently published and very informative handbook which can be downloaded for free "Insights into Participatory Video: a handbook for the field"

Please provide more resources if you know of any.