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Paper short abstract:

I reflect on two experiences of visual research: #EverydayNile, a transdisciplinary collaboration with photojournalists from Nile basin countries, and a participatory visual research with Algerian youth to elicit an inter-generational conversation on a traditional system for groundwater management.

Paper long abstract:

I reflect on two experiences of visual research: the first, #EverydayNile, involves a transdisciplinary collaboration with photojournalists from different Nile basin countries to represent stories of everyday practices, uses and relations with water and the river; the second project is a participatory visual research with youth in the M’zab valley (Algeria), exploring the traditional systems of groundwater management used by their parents and grandparents, and imagining their future and the future of their oasis.

Reflecting on these two projects I discuss:

- working at or from the margins: when, and how, should we attempt to bring the margins at the centre of the political debate and decision-making process, and how the visual can empower us to achieve this goal;

- how to build trans-disciplinary collaborations between researchers, practitioners and communicators (photographers, journalists, …);

- how to combine different aesthetics, and how to publish and promote the photos and other visual material produced, including on social media;

- visual storytelling to imagine alternative futures and empowering narratives against mainstream discourses on the water or climate crisis.