Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I bring practical experience of using participatory methodology as a tool for knowledge production and the importance of women's voices in the peace and conflict dynamics in Africa. In rethinking thinking, I argue for the importance of visual methodologies for research impact.

Paper long abstract:

In rethinking the way knowledge is produced, this reflects concerns about the ways knowledge from projects and studies, especially on the global south, are manipulated, with concerns about who will benefit. The situated nature of knowledge, the wish to create non-hierarchical knowledge, and the orientation towards emancipatory action form part of these concerns. Participatory approaches and methodologies have long been advocated as a means to generate knowledge that addresses power inequalities, passing power from researcher(s) to research participants (Chambers 1997), and endorsing diverse perspectives of social realities as endogenous knowledge. In this paper, I argue for the use of participatory methodologies and in particular, storytelling and participatory video to document women's experiences in conflict situations. In rethinking thinking on how we study women in research, there is the need to rethink whose work we are drawing on, contest the methods we use to measure inequalities and development, and ground the knowledge reproduced in our local contexts. Specifically, we as researchers should have a research agenda that is not extractivist by sharing with the people and participants we work with.