Key Visual methods papers and chapters by Jacqueline Shaw
Making All Voices Count, 2017
Two of the central challenges in building accountability for marginalised people are how to reach... more Two of the central challenges in building accountability for marginalised people are how to reach and meaningfully involve the most excluded, and how to establish the kinds of relationships that mean they can achieve, influence and expect government responsiveness. This report explores asks how participatory video-an existing methodology for engaging marginalised people-can be adapted and strengthened inclusively engage citizens and foster responses from decision-makers. It presents four propositions for achieving this: 1: Ensure inclusive engagement during groupforming and building; 2: Develop shared purpose and group agency through video exploration and sense-making; 3: Enable horizontal scaling through community-level videoing action; 4: Support the performance of vertical influence through video-mediated communication. Discussion draws on two long-term participatory video processes at five sites in two countries, Kenya and Indonesia. Evidence presented suggests that extended participatory video processes can help mediate relationships, but for them to do so there is a need to develop more ethical and effective participatory video practice, and for more work to be undertaken on how to foster support from influential decision-makers.
Progress in Development Studies, 2021
The importance of involving communities in local governance through participatory processes is we... more The importance of involving communities in local governance through participatory processes is well established. However, spaces for social and political dialogue within communities and across social levels in inequitable contexts generally do not incorporate difference across community, or enable the most marginalised people to participate meaningfully. In this paper, we propose that participatory video can contribute to building agonistic pluralism, namely a recognition of the unavoidable tensions between perspectives, and maintaining, rather than erasing difference when working towards positive change. We draw on our comparable experience using participatory video methodologies to consider how it can be used to progressively build agency and deeper criticality, and to navigate between building collectively for political leverage and addressing difference between stakeholders across communities. We show that navigating between interests and intrinsic tensions requires a longer-term and iteratively evolving process of participatory video, rather than a short-term production method. We also discuss the contribution of participatory video to building dialogue between communities and influential decision makers given the intransigent challenges of political receptivity and responsiveness to local contestation and counter-narratives. Using an agonistic pluralist approach can enable practitioner-researchers wanting to apply participatory video more effectively and ethically to reflect on their intentions, processes and outcomes.
To achieve the transformational shift towards social accountability highlighted by UN post-2015 d... more To achieve the transformational shift towards social accountability highlighted by UN post-2015 deliberations, more equitable and responsive relationships are necessary between marginalised communities and leaders. Of particular relevance to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) era is the need to build both local collective dynamics and longer-term exchange between excluded groups and state agencies as the foundation for accountable governance.
Over the last decade there has been a rapid expansion in the use of participatory video to unearth neglected perspectives, and transform communication dynamics within communities and across social levels, but it is only recently that claims of real-world influence have been interrogated critically. In this paper, I propose that framing participatory video predominately as the means for participatory representation makes the curtailment of transformative social possibilities more likely. Therefore, I re-ground participatory video as a longer-term relational process (the means) toward community emergence (the consequence), in reference to key social psychological components. I draw on the use of participatory video by acutely marginalised communities in Kenya and Palestine to research the local enablers and barriers of change. Through exploring the possibilities and constraints in context I reflect on what such processes can contribute to community-driven development and how the key tensions can be negotiated. Looking ahead to SDGs this raises key questions about the challenges faced in building longer-term accountability between the poorest and most marginalised groups and influential decision makers who can support them.
Area doi: 10.1111/area.12167 - special edition 2015
Community practitioner-researchers are enth... more Area doi: 10.1111/area.12167 - special edition 2015
Community practitioner-researchers are enthusiastic about participatory video’s potential in opening
space for new relational dynamics to evolve across difference. In reality, practice involves negotiation
between the intention to build expressive agency and the (often conflicting) agendas of the variously
positioned project actors. There is an ethical need to acknowledge the messy reality of the participatory
video context, interrogate the power dynamics as processes evolve and understand participants’ experiences
of taking part. Research into the approach of Real Time, a UK-based participatory video project
provider, identified key practice tensions as basis for more nuanced praxis. In this paper, I reflect on three
tensions as they manifested in two UK projects: one with women from community development
backgrounds and one with men on a residential drug programme. I consider participatory video as an
iteratively evolving group process and suggest that the relationships that develop through project
interactions are a key to maximising possibilities. I propose that negotiating practice ethically is an
intrinsic factor in the emergent dynamics, which needs ongoing consideration. I conclude that there is
insufficient contextualised understanding about how participatory video’s potential can be enabled or
constrained in longer term projects.
Key words: UK, ethics, participatory video, participatory action research, group dynami
Thesis by Jacqueline Shaw
Participation and empowerment are major drivers of social policy, but participatory projects ofte... more Participation and empowerment are major drivers of social policy, but participatory projects often happen within contested territory. This research interrogates the assumed participation-empowerment link through the example of participatory video. Fieldwork unpacks the particular approach of Real Time, an established UK project provider. Disrupting representational framing, the emergent relational processes catalysed were explored in context, to address not whether participatory video can increase participants' influence, but how and in what circumstances. This thesis therefore builds more nuanced understanding of empowerment practice as the negotiated (rhizomic) pathway between social possibility and limitation.
Books by Jacqueline Shaw
Talks by Jacqueline Shaw
Jacqueline Shaw, Graham Jeffery and Kerrie Schaefer
Paper presentation - Community Development Jo... more Jacqueline Shaw, Graham Jeffery and Kerrie Schaefer
Paper presentation - Community Development Journal '50th' Conference, Edinburgh, July 2015
This participatory presentation explores the space between possibilities and reality in the application of cultural practices in community development. On one hand, practices such as participatory video, photovoice and digital story-telling, or participatory forms of performance, art and architecture, are often discussed optimistically in relationship to the perceived potential for social change. On the other hand, critical (pseudo-scientific) cultural
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policy studies increasingly call for empirical proof of social ‘impact’. There is, however, a considerable gap between vision and actuality, policy and practice. Furthermore, conceptualising practice as the means for groups from the social margins to communicate their stories, issues and insights compounds these tensions. This is because it positions cultural production as the end, rather than the context through which interactional processes are negotiated towards more radical ends. This presentation approaches cultural practices in community development as situated, contextualised, lived and relational practices often activated through partnerships across existing social divides, agencies and categories. The fundamental inter-dependence of contextual cultural practices suggests that the work is rarely methodologically ‘pure’ – it tends to be somewhat fuzzy, messy, blurred and contingent. The presentation aims to develop a more sophisticated account of these practices and processes acknowledging the methodological ambiguities, and the theoretical problems and practical risks and contradictions that they generate in the project space/territory.
The presentation will draw on extensive practice-based research by Shaw in India, Kenya and Palestine as visual methods convener for the Participate project, in the context of UN post-2015 deliberations, and ethnographic research undertaken in the UK by Jeffery and Schaefer as part of the AHRC-funded Remaking Society project. Participatory methods will be employed to develop critical understanding about the values and frameworks of meaning-making and un-making that are characteristic of these cultural practices as they drive iteratively evolving social processes towards community emergence.
Book Reviews by Jacqueline Shaw
Other papers by Jacqueline Shaw
Making All Voices Count Collection, 2017
Bunge La Mwananchi (BLM) is a Kenyan grassroots social movement that creates space for unrepresen... more Bunge La Mwananchi (BLM) is a Kenyan grassroots social movement that creates space for unrepresented people from the poorest backgrounds to raise and debate issues, and to amplify their social struggles. In 2015, BLM members carried out action research to find out how the movement sustains its power against co-option and division. A key finding was the importance of reaching across differences of ethnicity, gender, class and geography to increase BLM's influence. Following this, in 2016, long-standing BLM organisers and new members took part in a short accompanied participatory video project. This aimed to communicate the action research findings to the wider movement, and initiate further discussion of the implications. It also sought to raise awareness of the potential of using video recording and playback to open communication spaces between different BLM constituencies. As the Bunge movement is a verbal movement, video was considered an appropriate medium. However, there can be challenges in applying it effectively in practice, particularly in resource-and time-limited contexts. This research reflects on the experience of adapting and scaling down elements of the participatory video approach during the Bunge video project, to be resource-and cost-effective and less time-intensive. Lessons are drawn on how video processes can be applied creatively and accessibly to mediate exchange in similar contexts in the future. Citation Shaw, J. (2017) Connecting communication: using video to open spaces and mediate exchange between Kenyan grassroots activists, Making All Voices Count Research Report, Brighton: IDS.
A pilot study was undertaken to examine the feasibility of auditing and developing a national dat... more A pilot study was undertaken to examine the feasibility of auditing and developing a national database of acupuncture practice in the United Kingdom.
The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 2005
A pilot study was undertaken to examine the feasibility of auditing and developing a national dat... more A pilot study was undertaken to examine the feasibility of auditing and developing a national database of acupuncture practice in the United Kingdom.
Papers by Jacqueline Shaw
This paper describes and discusses a piece of inclusive and participatory fieldwork carried out a... more This paper describes and discusses a piece of inclusive and participatory fieldwork carried out at two sites in Bangladesh in close collaboration with local and international NGOs working on disability as part of the UK government (FCDO) funded Disability Inclusive Development (DID) programme. Our research fieldwork engaged two small groups of learners with specific identities (deafblind or young women) in workshops aiming to gather examples of and understand their experiences as young people with disabilities, both in general terms and about a work-focussed programme. Creative, visual and arts based multi-modal methods were used to encourage maximum participation, including from those with little or no spoken language or literacy. Some were accompanied by carers or supporters who also shared their perspectives. Local staff teams from collaborating INGOs and Organisations of People with Disabilities (OPDs) supported, participated in and learnt from the process. Detail about the work...
International Journal of Qualitative Methods
This article critically reflects on the use of an ‘intersecting methodologies’ approach to genera... more This article critically reflects on the use of an ‘intersecting methodologies’ approach to generate understanding of the diverse experiences of people living near contested large green energy projects in Kenya. Local subjectivities are essential to understanding the contestations engendered by these projects, especially in areas that are distant from decision-making and global capital. However, researching residents’ experiences in these settings is challenging due to historical divisions and recent conflict triggered by the projects, and the unequal power relations that exist between stakeholders. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of using intersecting methodologies for research in contested settings, which involved weaving together qualitative, ethnographic, community-based participatory research and participatory video. Challenges included the difficulties of supporting peer researchers in remote places to conduct complex research processes from afar, negotiating the le...
Participatory Video is a comprehensive guide to using video in group development work. Used in a ... more Participatory Video is a comprehensive guide to using video in group development work. Used in a participatory way, video can be a powerful tool, which allows clients to examine the world around them, gain awareness of their situation and become more actively involved in decisions which affect their lives
Healing justice is a political organising framework that aims to address the systemic causes of i... more Healing justice is a political organising framework that aims to address the systemic causes of injustice experienced by marginalised peoples due to the harmful impacts of oppressive histories, intergenerational trauma, and structural violence. It recognises that these damaging factors generate collective trauma, which manifests in negative physical, mental–emotional, and spiritual effects in activists and in the functioning of their movements. Healing justice integrates collective healing in political organising processes, and is contextualised as appropriate to situational needs. This provided the rationale for a research study to explore the potential of healing justice for feminist activists in Africa, and how pathways to collective healing could be supported in specific contexts. Research teams in DRC, Senegal, and South Africa conducted interviews with feminist activists and healers, in addition to supplementary interviews across sub-regions of Africa and two learning events w...
Journal of International Development
Diverse approaches to promoting disability inclusive employment aim to transform workplaces into ... more Diverse approaches to promoting disability inclusive employment aim to transform workplaces into truly inclusive environments, usually with intervention strategies targeting two main groups: employers and jobseekers with disabilities. However, they do not always consider other relevant stakeholders or address the relationships and interactions between diverse actors in the wider social ecosystem. These approaches often neglect deeper ‘vexing’ difficulties which block progress towards disability inclusive work environments. Most interventions rightly embrace hegemonic ‘social models of disability’ and use human rights arguments but may neglect entrenched structural factors. Disability inclusive employment is complex, with unaddressed invisible aspects that continue to limit progress. We explore some key relevant disability concepts and then interrogate evidence from the ‘Inclusion Works’ programme working in four middle- and low-income countries, considering some intractable barriers underlying the slow movement towards inclusive employment. Finally, we propose that a more participatory action orientated approach involving disabled people and others is needed to both generate deeper understanding and provide pathways towards new solutions to obstinate problems through progressive action learning processes in context. Programmatic interventions that work across the levels of the ecosystem and address power relations and interactions between stakeholders could lead to more substantial forms of disability inclusive employment.
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Key Visual methods papers and chapters by Jacqueline Shaw
Over the last decade there has been a rapid expansion in the use of participatory video to unearth neglected perspectives, and transform communication dynamics within communities and across social levels, but it is only recently that claims of real-world influence have been interrogated critically. In this paper, I propose that framing participatory video predominately as the means for participatory representation makes the curtailment of transformative social possibilities more likely. Therefore, I re-ground participatory video as a longer-term relational process (the means) toward community emergence (the consequence), in reference to key social psychological components. I draw on the use of participatory video by acutely marginalised communities in Kenya and Palestine to research the local enablers and barriers of change. Through exploring the possibilities and constraints in context I reflect on what such processes can contribute to community-driven development and how the key tensions can be negotiated. Looking ahead to SDGs this raises key questions about the challenges faced in building longer-term accountability between the poorest and most marginalised groups and influential decision makers who can support them.
Community practitioner-researchers are enthusiastic about participatory video’s potential in opening
space for new relational dynamics to evolve across difference. In reality, practice involves negotiation
between the intention to build expressive agency and the (often conflicting) agendas of the variously
positioned project actors. There is an ethical need to acknowledge the messy reality of the participatory
video context, interrogate the power dynamics as processes evolve and understand participants’ experiences
of taking part. Research into the approach of Real Time, a UK-based participatory video project
provider, identified key practice tensions as basis for more nuanced praxis. In this paper, I reflect on three
tensions as they manifested in two UK projects: one with women from community development
backgrounds and one with men on a residential drug programme. I consider participatory video as an
iteratively evolving group process and suggest that the relationships that develop through project
interactions are a key to maximising possibilities. I propose that negotiating practice ethically is an
intrinsic factor in the emergent dynamics, which needs ongoing consideration. I conclude that there is
insufficient contextualised understanding about how participatory video’s potential can be enabled or
constrained in longer term projects.
Key words: UK, ethics, participatory video, participatory action research, group dynami
Thesis by Jacqueline Shaw
Books by Jacqueline Shaw
Talks by Jacqueline Shaw
Paper presentation - Community Development Journal '50th' Conference, Edinburgh, July 2015
This participatory presentation explores the space between possibilities and reality in the application of cultural practices in community development. On one hand, practices such as participatory video, photovoice and digital story-telling, or participatory forms of performance, art and architecture, are often discussed optimistically in relationship to the perceived potential for social change. On the other hand, critical (pseudo-scientific) cultural
26
policy studies increasingly call for empirical proof of social ‘impact’. There is, however, a considerable gap between vision and actuality, policy and practice. Furthermore, conceptualising practice as the means for groups from the social margins to communicate their stories, issues and insights compounds these tensions. This is because it positions cultural production as the end, rather than the context through which interactional processes are negotiated towards more radical ends. This presentation approaches cultural practices in community development as situated, contextualised, lived and relational practices often activated through partnerships across existing social divides, agencies and categories. The fundamental inter-dependence of contextual cultural practices suggests that the work is rarely methodologically ‘pure’ – it tends to be somewhat fuzzy, messy, blurred and contingent. The presentation aims to develop a more sophisticated account of these practices and processes acknowledging the methodological ambiguities, and the theoretical problems and practical risks and contradictions that they generate in the project space/territory.
The presentation will draw on extensive practice-based research by Shaw in India, Kenya and Palestine as visual methods convener for the Participate project, in the context of UN post-2015 deliberations, and ethnographic research undertaken in the UK by Jeffery and Schaefer as part of the AHRC-funded Remaking Society project. Participatory methods will be employed to develop critical understanding about the values and frameworks of meaning-making and un-making that are characteristic of these cultural practices as they drive iteratively evolving social processes towards community emergence.
Book Reviews by Jacqueline Shaw
Other papers by Jacqueline Shaw
Papers by Jacqueline Shaw
Over the last decade there has been a rapid expansion in the use of participatory video to unearth neglected perspectives, and transform communication dynamics within communities and across social levels, but it is only recently that claims of real-world influence have been interrogated critically. In this paper, I propose that framing participatory video predominately as the means for participatory representation makes the curtailment of transformative social possibilities more likely. Therefore, I re-ground participatory video as a longer-term relational process (the means) toward community emergence (the consequence), in reference to key social psychological components. I draw on the use of participatory video by acutely marginalised communities in Kenya and Palestine to research the local enablers and barriers of change. Through exploring the possibilities and constraints in context I reflect on what such processes can contribute to community-driven development and how the key tensions can be negotiated. Looking ahead to SDGs this raises key questions about the challenges faced in building longer-term accountability between the poorest and most marginalised groups and influential decision makers who can support them.
Community practitioner-researchers are enthusiastic about participatory video’s potential in opening
space for new relational dynamics to evolve across difference. In reality, practice involves negotiation
between the intention to build expressive agency and the (often conflicting) agendas of the variously
positioned project actors. There is an ethical need to acknowledge the messy reality of the participatory
video context, interrogate the power dynamics as processes evolve and understand participants’ experiences
of taking part. Research into the approach of Real Time, a UK-based participatory video project
provider, identified key practice tensions as basis for more nuanced praxis. In this paper, I reflect on three
tensions as they manifested in two UK projects: one with women from community development
backgrounds and one with men on a residential drug programme. I consider participatory video as an
iteratively evolving group process and suggest that the relationships that develop through project
interactions are a key to maximising possibilities. I propose that negotiating practice ethically is an
intrinsic factor in the emergent dynamics, which needs ongoing consideration. I conclude that there is
insufficient contextualised understanding about how participatory video’s potential can be enabled or
constrained in longer term projects.
Key words: UK, ethics, participatory video, participatory action research, group dynami
Paper presentation - Community Development Journal '50th' Conference, Edinburgh, July 2015
This participatory presentation explores the space between possibilities and reality in the application of cultural practices in community development. On one hand, practices such as participatory video, photovoice and digital story-telling, or participatory forms of performance, art and architecture, are often discussed optimistically in relationship to the perceived potential for social change. On the other hand, critical (pseudo-scientific) cultural
26
policy studies increasingly call for empirical proof of social ‘impact’. There is, however, a considerable gap between vision and actuality, policy and practice. Furthermore, conceptualising practice as the means for groups from the social margins to communicate their stories, issues and insights compounds these tensions. This is because it positions cultural production as the end, rather than the context through which interactional processes are negotiated towards more radical ends. This presentation approaches cultural practices in community development as situated, contextualised, lived and relational practices often activated through partnerships across existing social divides, agencies and categories. The fundamental inter-dependence of contextual cultural practices suggests that the work is rarely methodologically ‘pure’ – it tends to be somewhat fuzzy, messy, blurred and contingent. The presentation aims to develop a more sophisticated account of these practices and processes acknowledging the methodological ambiguities, and the theoretical problems and practical risks and contradictions that they generate in the project space/territory.
The presentation will draw on extensive practice-based research by Shaw in India, Kenya and Palestine as visual methods convener for the Participate project, in the context of UN post-2015 deliberations, and ethnographic research undertaken in the UK by Jeffery and Schaefer as part of the AHRC-funded Remaking Society project. Participatory methods will be employed to develop critical understanding about the values and frameworks of meaning-making and un-making that are characteristic of these cultural practices as they drive iteratively evolving social processes towards community emergence.