Reinventing the reel
by Chris High
co-authored with Namita Singh, Lisa Petheram, Dr Gusztàv Nemes for an AltMira Press book - The handbook of participatory video.
In this chapter we explore the common threads within different strands of participatory video by considering some... more
In this chapter we explore the common threads within different strands of participatory video by considering some examples of practice. Taken together these reveal a rich diversity of purpose and application. Participatory video has been used as a term to describe some quite distinct practices, and conversely, there are instances of the use of video in social settings that seem to be closely related to participatory video without being described as such. This makes it difficult to immediately pin down what the term means, and indeed it is said that there is no common understanding of participatory video (Huber, 1998; Pettit, Salazar, & Dagron, 2009).
To scholars the diversity of participatory video practice presents two separate issues. The first is that it is necessary to bear in mind that participatory video has been applied in many more ways outside of academic research and education than inside. Even if one is only interested in participatory video solely as a component of research, an understanding of non-academic practice is likely to enrich and enhance methodological choices. The second is that participatory video is a rich site for a pragmatic and phronetic (sensu Flyvbjerg, 2001) scholarship that questions social experiences to explore what works and to what end. The question here is what lessons can be learned from diverse practices, and how to apply this learning elsewhere. Thus with participatory video, as with any practice, scholarship has a role to play in terms of providing a platform for considered and critical reflection, a space to consider the significance of what is and of what could be.
Effective reflection rests on some basic taxonomic work in order to gain an overview of the field. We therefore have selected three vignettes to show some key features of participatory video in practice, with an eye to establishing a broad baseline. These examples are drawn from our personal research in two cases and some background research in the third. For the purpose of this chapter, breadth is more appropriate if we are interested in to explore the range of extant practice, and the vignettes are simple outlines to provide illustration for an exploratory discussion rather than fully developed case studies with all of the detailed evidence presented.
Download (.pdf) “Envisioning the Return: Participatory video for voluntary repatriation and sustainable reintegration”
Co-authored with Charles Otieno, in Hanne-Lovise Skartveit and Katherine Goodnow (eds.), Changes in Museum Practice: New Media, Refugees and Participation. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010.
The politics of performance: methodological challenges of researching children's experiences of childhood through the lens of participatory video
by Namita Singh
Lomax, Helen; Fink, Janet; Singh, Namita; High, Christopher
This paper examines the value of participatory video (PV) for exploring childhood and children's experiences within... more This paper examines the value of participatory video (PV) for exploring childhood and children's experiences within the context of a larger research project which sought to examine the everyday lives of residents in a neighbourhood identified as 'disadvantaged'. Participatory methods are often premised on ameliorating the gap between the concepts and models of researchers and those of individuals and communities. However, within PV, there has been much less focus on the process of participation and its implications for research outcomes. This paper addresses this gap in order to explore how the children, researchers and residents co-produced a visual narrative about life in the neighbourhood, and in particular, how a methodological focus on PV as process makes visible its potential to offer valuable insights not only into children's social connectivities, relationships and friendships but also into the theorising of children's identities and childhoods.
'Mapping' and 'Doing' Critical Geographies of Home
2011 Published online before print August 24, 2011, doi: 10.1177/0309132511418708 in Progress in Human Geography
This paper reviews the diverse literatures on negative experiences of home at the domestic scale and sets out an... more This paper reviews the diverse literatures on negative experiences of home at the domestic scale and sets out an agenda to further ‘critical geographies of home’. Tying into broader debates in critical geography on the delineations between the ‘mapping’ of exclusionary landscapes versus the ‘doing’ of something to transform them, the paper finds that the line between these two modes should not always be dichotomously drawn. Now is the time that the burgeoning interest in, and catalogue of research on, home is capitalized upon by pushing towards a critical geography that simultaneously illuminates and catalyzes the addressing of domestic injustice.