Critical video engagements: Empathy, subjectivity and changing narratives of water resources through participatory video

Tremblay, Crystal; Harris, Leila M.

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.02.012

Cited by 39 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…For Evans (2018: 203), hydrocitizenship represents a step towards full ecological citizenship in which local people develop ‘… an enhanced awareness of, and sense of responsibility for, water as a vital, shared eco-social resource’. It thus corresponds with contemporary understandings of citizenship as ‘… an approach practiced as people move through their daily lives and activities’ (Tremblay and Harris, 2018: 181), reflecting an active engagement with water governance that is characterised by ‘… learning, negotiation and practice’ (Evans, 2018: 203). As a result, Evans (2018: 203) suggests that hydrocitizens are encouraged to ‘… engage directly with critical issues of global sustainability and environmental change in local/community settings by envisioning these ‘macro’ issues through the lens of everyday relations and lived experience’.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 55%

From the hydrosocial to the hydrocitizen: Water, place and subjectivity within emergent urban wetlands

Gearey

Church

Ravenscroft

2019

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

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This paper argues that the expansion of corporate social responsibility initiatives within the English water sector, and in particular the opening up of privately owned public spaces (POPS) in urban settings, have generated spatially fixed forms of human-environment relationships that we have termed ‘hydrocitizenships’. Utilising empirical fieldwork undertaken within an emergent wetland POPS, we suggest that these novel modes of citizen agency are primarily enacted through the performativity of volunteering, in multiple civic roles such as landscapers, citizen scientists, stewards and storytelling guides. Members of the local community thus effectively curate new civic subjectivities for themselves in response to the site and its organisation, by producing for themselves new modes of ‘hydrocitizenship’. These hybrid intertwined forms of practice prompt us to ask questions about the extent to which these apparently new forms of environmental citizenship are self-directed, or manipulated. As access, control over, and use of, water resources are a synecdoche of structural power relationships within contemporary neoliberal economies, we can go further to suggest that these blue-green POPS are emblematic of a new iteration of hydro-social relations in which water, place and subjectivity become the collateral through which new POPS are secured. For water companies seeking to deploy corporate social responsibility there is, then, a subtle two step move to be made, by building brand loyalty and then developing new forms of resource management in which local communities accept heightened levels of responsibility for sites to which they are offered recreational access. These emergent ‘hydrocitizenships’ thus encapsulate very specific geo-spatial subjectivities and performativities which lock in access to waterscapes with closely scripted conditionalities regarding activity and behaviour.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 55%

From the hydrosocial to the hydrocitizen: Water, place and subjectivity within emergent urban wetlands

Gearey

Church

Ravenscroft

2019

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

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“…Sultana (2015, p. 638) argues that research on emotions can help illuminate poorly understood dynamics of resource access and conflicts. Scholarship on the emotional dimensions of water politics is a growing field with significant implications for water resource management (e.g., Bulled, 2017;Cole, 2017;Goldin, 2010;Morales & Harris, 2014;Tremblay & Harris, 2018;Truelove, 2019;Wilson, Harris, Joseph-Rear, Beaumont, & Satterfield, 2019).…”

Section: Background: Lines Of Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Water and mental health

2020

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There is a well‐established connection among water quality, sanitation, and physical health. The potentially important relationship between water and mental health is considerably less studied. Reviewing evidence from ethnography, geography, folklore, indigenous studies, rural medicine, drought research, and large‐n statistical studies, we argue there is now good theoretical rationale and growing evidence of water insecurity as a possible driver of mental ill‐health. Furthermore, some nascent evidence suggests that emotionally meaningful interactions with water might improve mental health outcomes. Leveraging these literatures, we address the many ways in which mental health outcomes are conceptualized and operationalized in water research, including as emotional distress, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, somatic symptoms, and quality of life. We outline arguments supporting seven possible (and likely interlocking) mechanisms that could explain such a relationship: (a) material deprivation and related uncertainty, (b) shame of social failure, (c) worry about health threats, (d) loss of connections to people and places, (e) frustration around opportunity losses and restricted autonomy, (f) interpersonal conflict and intimate partner violence, and (g) institutional injustice or unfairness. However, we explain that as most existing studies are ethnographic, qualitative, or cross‐sectional, a causal relationship between water and mental ill‐health is yet to be confirmed empirically. More research on this topic is needed, particularly given that poorly understood connections may create barriers to achieving Sustainable Development Goals 3 (health) and 6 (water). We further suggest that tracking mental health indicators may provide unique and as‐yet underappreciated insights into the efficacy of water projects and other development interventions. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented

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“…Participatory video has gained attention in the last decade and is of increasing interest and use globally in both academic research and in development and social justice projects. Several critical papers (Kindon, , ; Milne, ; Mistry & Berardi, ; Mistry et al., ; Plush, , ; Rogers, ; Shaw, ; Walsh, ; Wynne‐Jones et al., ) have shed light on the nuances of power embedded in participatory video exercises and the limitations of the method for achieving social change (Tremblay & Harris, ). Walsh (), Shaw () and Mistry et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farmers as experts: Interpreting the “hidden” messages of participatory video across African contexts

Snyder

Cullen

Braslow³

2019

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Recent scholarship has contributed important insights into the political dynamics inherent in the process of making and showing participatory videos. As a research method and an instrument for social change, participatory video has both potential and limitations for overturning the power dynamics embedded within research and in development processes. This paper focuses on experiences of incorporating participatory video in land management projects in four countries in Africa. Along with other participatory methods, the videos represented an effort to include community perspectives and objectives into the research process. Analysis of participatory video has largely focused on examining the tensions and contradictions involved in the process of making participatory videos. There has been less focus on the content of the videos themselves and what it might suggest for empowerment, voice and representation. This paper attempts to address this gap by examining the implications of the narratives that emerge in five different videos. On the surface, the participants appear to repeat dominant national and global narratives about land degradation. However, the fact that farmers present themselves as experts on these topics and the ways in which they appropriate and reconfigure the dominant narratives, can be seen as an act of empowerment. In this way, they preclude the need for external intervention on how to manage their resources.

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Critical video engagements: Empathy, subjectivity and changing narratives of water resources through participatory video

Cited by 39 publications

References 41 publications

From the hydrosocial to the hydrocitizen: Water, place and subjectivity within emergent urban wetlands

From the hydrosocial to the hydrocitizen: Water, place and subjectivity within emergent urban wetlands

Water and mental health

Farmers as experts: Interpreting the “hidden” messages of participatory video across African contexts

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