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Paper short abstract

This paper examines participatory visual methods in climate adaptation research through a pilot study in Nigeria’s Lake Chad region. It shows how localised approaches can obscure structural drivers of vulnerability, and proposes a critical, justice-oriented framework of situated climate knowledge.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the potential and limitations of participatory visual methods in researching locally led climate adaptation, drawing on a pilot study with farming communities in Nigeria’s Lake Chad region. We examine knowledge systems as the foundation of climate adaptation, shaping how communities understand and respond to climate change. Using photovoice diaries, we explore how participatory visual research surfaces tensions between indigenous and dominant Western knowledge systems. We observe that participatory approaches tend to centre the local, and as such risk neglecting the global political and economic structures driving climate vulnerability, leading to apolitical or technocratic framings of adaptation. Revisiting the core theory of participatory research - Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy - we argue that embedding participatory research in conscientização (critical consciousness) can make it truly transformative. In dialogue with Donna Haraway’s notion of situated seeing, we propose a framework that grounds climate understanding in local experience while making visible the structural drivers and power dynamics shaping climate impacts. The paper makes two main contributions: first, it proposes a framework for participatory climate research that brings critical pedagogy into dialogue with climate pedagogy; second, it introduces the concept of situated climate knowledge, which grounds climate understanding in local experience while recognizing structural drivers and supporting adaptation strategies that are both context-specific and justice-oriented.