Paper short abstract:

Do women's stories and conflict related experiences at the local level count as forms of knowledge production? How can participatory video be used to navigate leadership and development issues, to empower and give a voice to the voiceless in the Niger Delta?

Paper long abstract:

In thinking about the extent to which participatory methodologies opens up new insights and facilitates the processes of co-production of knowledge at the local level, my work highlights that although leadership happens everywhere, for most of the women in the Niger Delta it poses a major challenge. It is one where the toxic model of patriarchy and associated inequalities come to play. For example, even in communities where women are represented on the Community Development Committees (CDC), the reality is that such a leadership is in name only, women leaders are not empowered or given a voice in charting the development agendas of most of the communities. Young women in the communities I engaged with are asking for empowerment and also roles in the discussions in conflict settings. They argue for equal participation on a level platform being mothers, wives, sisters and as daughters. In particular issues such as fear, poverty, violence against women and girls, inequalities, relegation of women, as well as resource related environmental issues are depicted using the women's own voices. Perhaps more leadership opportunities for women in the region could lead to changes in personal and collective values and also behaviour towards improving and entrenching nonviolence in addressing the Niger Delta issues. In this project, I used participatory videos to document local women's experiences, needs and hopes from their own perspectives in relation to developmental issues and conflict. This captured an 'insider view' in a lively way that is accessible to diverse audiences.

Paper short abstract:

Participatory theatre is argued to disrupt hierarchies of knowledge and expertise associated with development. However, in Kenya decolonising knowledge production is hindered by colonial legacies which shape not only the forms of theatre used, but the relationships of those involved in such uses.

Paper long abstract:

Participatory theatre is portrayed as empowering, imbued with potential to foster more equitable relationships between those intervening and the communities with whom they work (Epskamp 2006; Cohen Cruz 2019). However, in this paper I will draw upon ongoing research in Kenya to outline two key challenges for practitioners and researchers working through theatre and development. First, colonial legacies have shaped, and continue to shape, the wider landscape of theatre and performance in Kenya. Second, this historicised understanding demonstrates how colonial power dynamics continue to shape the partnerships we participate in, and through which we produce knowledge. More specifically, colonial desires to repress indigenous theatre in Kenya (Plastow 1996) led to the foundation of school drama festivals and the National Theatre in Nairobi, which have shaped theatre in the country in Eurocentric terms. I will suggest that this legacy is continued by well-being researchers and practitioners, as they seek to use forms of participatory theatre, particularly Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal 1995), to create more 'bottom-up' projects and 'decolonise'. Such forms of performance present a new global orthodoxy of theatre practice (Sadeghi-Yekta 2015; Dwyer 2016) which, far from offering radical alternatives, potentially maintains hierarchies of knowledge and expertise in development, thus entrenching the power of Western individuals and institutions (Kothari 2005; Moldonado-Torres 2016). Therefore, while those of us involved in participatory theatre might aspire to decolonise knowledge production in development, we are caught up in - and perhaps maintain - colonial legacies which we must seek to reveal and interrogate.

Paper short abstract:

"I wasn't very interested in culture. I never really thought about researching my heritage, documenting it or presenting it in an exhibition. Now that has changed. Now as soon as I hear someone reference to the past, I think about interviewing them and learning more. "

Paper long abstract:

"I never really thought about researching my heritage, documenting it or presenting it in an exhibition. Now that has changed, as soon as I hear someone reference to the past, I think about interviewing them. "(Female, South Hebron Hills, 2018)

Since 2017 around 30 young Palestinians from 33 Bedouin and villager communities in the South Hebron Hills, Palestine (SHH) have been trained on oral history methodology and have recorded the life-stories of older generations in their community about the different aspects of cultural heritage. The Bedouin communities of Palestine have a rich cultural heritage, which is intertwined with that of their non-Bedouin neighbours. The creation of Israeli closed military zones, the imposition of severe restrictions on movement, and forcible evictions have threatened the connection between Palestinians and their land. Collecting oral history stories has demonstrated the value of cultural heritage protection as an important resource to support Palestinian social and economic life.

The paper will critically reflect on how through participatory video recording conducted by the youth researchers the asymmetry of power relation was addressed? Who generated knowledge and how? How Coventry University staff with the power and privileges they hold facilitated the transformation of the power relations? How power relations were negotiated between the different groups of people - community leaders, young women and men as youth researchers and village elders? How the youth researchers utilised participatory video, learning, action, and reflection as a process of empowerment and contribution to decolonising knowledge and for protecting their own cultural heritage?

Paper short abstract:

In a fragmented society, we argue that action-research and participatory design can build the capacity for intra-city dialogue across the different dimensions of identity of local residents.

Paper long abstract:

In a fragmented society, we argue that action-research and participatory design can build the capacity for intra-city dialogue across the different dimensions of identity of local residents. However, traditional participatory processes are often unable to deal with internal diversity, particularly when there are pre-existing conflicts. Using a collaboration between two universities, an NGO, and local residents in Bar Elias (Lebanon) as a case study, we demonstrate how the development of an intersectional methodology sensitive to social diversity can contribute to individual and groups of residents developing an "aware participation" in city-making and in setting the vision for the city. Bar Elias is a town which significantly increased its population with the arrival of people displaced from the Syrian war and hosts Syrians, Palestinians and Lebanese but presents spatial segregation. The entrance road to the town was chosen as the site of the action-research and participatory design to plan and implement small-scale social infrastructure enhancements which could help address a number of vulnerabilities faced by different groups of residents. By analysing the process of implementing a participatory spatial intervention, the chapter argues that the outcome of the process was more than the physical infrastructure intervention; the process built a human infrastructure made of residents from different identities of the city who are able to participate in and initiate city-making processes that take into account and analyse the diversity of needs and aspirations. Through the process, residents are able to exercise a new kind of urban participatory citizenship that transcends the limitations of traditional state citizenship

Paper short abstract:

This paper introduces the idea of methodological layering within storytelling as an approach to participatory research. We argue that layering in storytelling enables the construction of counternarratives that contribute to the decolonising of knowledge by the storytellers themselves.

Paper long abstract:

This paper introduces the idea of methodological layering within storytelling as an approach to participatory research. We refer to layering in three ways. First, layering includes the different versions of a story that bring together affect, relationships, events and place. Second, the layering of the story reflects an evolving understanding of the self (what is my own story?). Finally, layering is informed by an understanding of wider structures or frames (how do wider systems interact with my story?). We trace how these layers are iteratively developed through visual, discursive and embodied forms of knowledge within a creative storytelling approach.

This approach emerged from practice, particularly in Africa, in contexts characterised by oppression, precarity and injustice. Within these contexts, research is informed by colonialism and often reinforces hierarchies between researcher and researched, among others. We argue that layering within storytelling helps us to work with the complex social issues bound up with deep and persistent injustices, but also to directly challenge the colonial nature of research. While some methodological practices fix or reify the frame of identities, this paper explores how methodological layering engages critically with notions of identity. We trace how identity is framed in a complex and constitutive way through iteration and layering. This offers the possibility that through cycles of telling, listening and re-telling, storytellers see themselves, others and society differently. Layering in storytelling then enables the construction of counternarratives that contribute to the decolonising of knowledge by the storytellers themselves.

Paper short abstract:

Community empowerment is key to capturing valuable information that researchers cannot envisage. Therefore, unlocking community hidden treasure requires the use of bottom up approaches that empowers the research participants. Therefore, participatory photography is one key method in such processes.

Paper long abstract:

In exploratory research, photographs are used as a tool for generating an in-depth discussion and reflection during the interview process which leads into a deeper understanding of the subject by the researcher (Creswell, 2014). In a research seeking to find out people's emotional bonding to their original home during flooding induced resettlement, participatory photography data collection method was used.

Participants were trained to use the camera handed to them by the researcher to capture significant features shaping their emotional attachment to their environment. Grant et al. (2015) indicated that Participatory photography is one of the bottom up data collection methods that allows the researcher to explore broadly through community driven discussion unlike the conventional way of generating the discussion based on the researcher's preconceived ideas. Participatory photography method could be done either by using the photographs collected by the researcher or the research participants themselves taking photos of their community and generate a discussion based on those photographs. Therefore, in this study, the researcher allowed the communities to take the photographs within their community as in this way the participants were empowered to own the process as they were well knowledgeable of their community rather than basing the discussion on pre-set ideas by the researcher. This was seen to be effective to collect valuable information that the researcher could not think about. This also motivated the research participants who were happy to have the camera and take photographs within their community at their own convenient time.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper I argue that (1) Hermeneutical Marginalization is a significant epistemic and moral issue in knowledge production and that (2) Participatory Methodologies offer the potential for knowledge production processes that does not produce or reproduce Hermeneutical Marginalization.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on the concept Hermeneutical Marginalisation from the field of Social Epistemology it is argued in this paper that (1) Hermeneutical Marginalization is a significant epistemic and moral issue in knowledge production and that (2) Participatory Methodologies offer the potential for knowledge production processes that do not produce or reproduce Hermeneutical Marginalization. Miranda Fricker conceives of Hermeneutical Marginalization as an asymmetrical ability to affect the hermeneutical resources needed for knowing. This occurs due to disadvantaged individuals or groups unequal participation in knowledge production processes, which in turn renders the knowledge biased as it is unduly influenced by the more hermeneutically powerful. Participatory Methodologies offer the possibility of knowledge production processes in which the hermeneutically less powerful can participate on more equal terms. This paper is divided into 5 sections, the first of which is an introduction in which the arguments made are positioned in relation to the field. In the second section Hermeneutical Marginalization is argued to be a significant moral problem as it renders the knowledge of disadvantaged groups and individuals suppressed. Section three is dedicated to the development of three 'principles of equal participation' that is necessary for Participatory Methodologies to not produce or reproduce Hermeneutical Marginalization. In section four the limitations of the two arguments is discussed, particularly in relation to the ideal of Epistemic Justice. The last section of the paper is dedicated to conclusions and thoughts on further considerations at the intersection of Participatory Methodologies, Social Epistemology and Ethics.