Visualising the Everyday: Participatory Filmmaking in Rural India

Abstract

Participatory visual research methods are increasingly used as a way to generate new forms of knowledge and to decrease the power differential between the researcher and researched. In this article, the author, who is
both a documentary filmmaker and academic, draws upon her research experience working with a group of women filmmakers in Andhra Pradesh in southern India. She filmed the women as they made their own film, but also asked four of them if they would use their cameras to film their everyday lives. Some of the women chose to challenge their husbands from behind the camera, while others in the group spoke openly about their lives in video diary interviews. This way of working generated five different sources of footage, which were edited together to form a coherent narrative and create a ‘third voice’. The author discusses her findings and what she learnt from this process and considers the strengths and limitations of this form of research.