Understandings from the Process:

- Namita Singh

QuickTime™ and a decompressorare needed to see this picture.

How does PV affect the agency of women?

How and Where: The lens and its focus

• PV - my Practice and Research

• Ground Zero - Akshara in Mumbai and Mahita in Hyderabad, India

• The PV Projects - For local social change

• The freedom and critical perspective equation - through young

women participants

• Factors I explore - Viability and sustainability

Methodology: How I did, what I did (last

summer!)

• Participatory Observation

• Interviews

• Focus Groups

• Participatory Video

Agency in Context: It all makes Sen’s…!

• Citizen’s participation and agency

• Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach

• The ability ‘To do’ and ‘To be’

The Video-Making: Shoot to skill…

• Representation

• Raising Issues

• Engagement with Communities

Representation: Mirror, mirror on the wall…

• Is Representation essentially empowering?

• What about Reality and Aspirations?

• Resisting and Accepting Gender Norms

• Multiple performative identities

Raising Issues: What say you…?

• How to balance support and domination?

• Need to choose between product quality and participants’ agency?

• The freedom and critical perspective equation

Being with Communities: The Engagement Ring

• From harassment to respect

• From hostility to trust

• Community engagement as a source of agency

• The focus - wide angle or community oriented?

PV in Research: Shooting from my lip…

• Representation: Balancing reality and aspirations, resistance

and acceptance of gender norms

• Raising Issues: Treading between research agendas and

participants’ objectives

• Being with communities: ‘My’ audience; ‘Their’ audience

The Understanding : To be or not to be…

• Agency as the focus - understanding the contribution of

participatory processes in development

• Video or participants - choosing between the product and the

process

• PV as Technique or PV for Sustaining Agency - focusing on

furthering change