Participatory video in geographic research: a feminist practice of looking?

Abstract

This paper explores how participatory video – a methodology increasingly used in community development and anthropological research – may enable a feminist practice of looking which does not perpetuate hierarchical power relations and create voyeuristic, distanced and disembodied claims to knowledge. I reflect on experiences from a participatory video project with members of a Maaori tribe in Aotearoa New Zealand in light of geographers’ uses of video to date. I argue that participatory video, if used within carefully negotiated relationships, has potential to destabilize hierarchical power relations and create spaces for transformation by providing a practice of looking ‘alongside’ rather than ‘at’ research subjects.