Participatory Video: Rural People Document their Knowledge and Innovations

This 4-page article describes the process of Participatory Video (PV) which provides an opportunity for rural people to document their own knowledge and experiences and to express their wants and hopes from their own perspectives. The author, Chris Lunch, notes that indigenous knowledge and local initiatives are usually documented according to the interpretations of outsiders. These are the steps of the PV process:

• "the rural people rapidly learn how to use video equipment through games and exercises facilitated by outsiders;
• the facilitators help local groups to identify and analyse important issues in their community and to plan how to show this on video;
• the video messages are directed and filmed by the local groups; and
• the footage is shown to the wider community at daily screenings, setting in motion a dynamic exchange of ideas and perceptions."

The potential of PV, according to the article, for exchanging information among individuals, such as farmers, or among and between communities, is strong because completed films can promote awareness and communicate ideas, innovations, and theories. They can serve the purpose of lobbying or advocacy at local, national, and international levels, due to their portability and ease of sharing information.

The author points to the example of a project in Turkmenistan in which, through the medium of video, farmers promoted to each other the advantages of organising a farmers' association for exchanging technical innovation, opportunities for development and exploration of ideas for the future. "The villagers emphasized the need to learn from the more
experienced local farmers and to re-discover traditional methods of conserving water, storing produce, drying fruit
etc. This traditional knowledge still exists, but is held by only a small number of individuals..." due to a recent history of Soviet-style centralised farming. In the process, local knowledge was recognised, retrieved, and disseminated through making and viewing the videos.

The example of Turkmenistan also demonstrates the challenges of working with women in an Islamic culture. A woman who participated in the original training was successful in involving a group of women in learning to film and complete films, including one modelling for other women useful skills in milk production and processing to produce high-quality products for the free market.



The collection of films then became an advocacy tool when shown to representatives from a number of international donor agencies, embassies and local organisations active in the agricultural sector. Because the communication medium of video is primarily visual and verbal - described here as indigenous means of communication and, due to the increasing availability of technological means of dissemination of this evidence of indigenous knowledge exchange - the advocacy potential is global in nature.


The following are the lessons learned:

• ..."[L]ocal people are quick to take control of the PV process and to recognize its potential as a tool for sharing experience and local knowledge between different groups.
• PV can be used as a means of collecting, validating and disseminating farmer-developed technologies to audiences
  across national boundaries, whether they are farmers, researchers or policymakers
• Having a woman in the PV facilitating team made it much easier to work with women in a Islamic country and, thus,
  to bring women's perspectives into community analysis of the situation and possibilities.
• PV films about farmer innovation and experimentation can help to bring farmers' own voices and images to the attention of policymakers in agricultural research and development (ARD). It is one way of bringing farmers' perspectives into multi-stakeholder platforms on the subject, and can stimulate other stakeholders to open up these platforms directly to farmer researchers. In this way, farmers can gain greater influence in decision-making about the ARD agenda."