Participatory Video: Indigenous Communities Are Using a Modern Tool to Revitalize Ancestral Ways

Participatory video helps restore Indigenous communities’ links to — and pride in — their ancestral languages, traditions, and knowledge.

 

Before we get to the “participatory” bit, can we all admit that video is having a moment of reckoning?

It’s no secret that corporate interests — and their political enablers — have co-opted most technologies, and video is no exception. Arguably, the use of video for advertising or propaganda has existed as long as video itself. From the earliest TV images of the 1930s to today’s digital video, political and corporate leaders have always tried to alter our perceptions.

Yet, for nearly a century, it was assumed that, even if they could be manipulated to deceive, video images were real. Recently, however, video has been turned on its head. With each passing year, it gets easier to create fake video images that look incredibly real. Consequently, telling them apart requires ever larger armies of experts. “Is anything real anymore?” people ask in resignation. Gone are the days when you could trust video as being, if not always impartial, at least real.

We Have Grown Used to Doubting Our Own Eyes

AI-created video, a very recent phenomenon, is already an immensely powerful tool of indoctrination, both commercial and political. Video is indispensable to the online influencers who intensify the consumerism that is burning through the planet’s resources. And video is part and parcel of social media, whose creators are known to target younger users. Through the “dark magic” of algorithms, videos can “go viral” in minutes, if not seconds.

Of course, not all “doctored” or fake videos feature misleading content, but many do. And even when their message is truthful, we have grown used to doubting what our eyes are seeing. We have become, more or less, video cynics.

We have become, more or less, video cynics.

Clearly, video is heading down a perilous road — at least in techno-industrial societies. Whether it influences your next purchase or your (or your child’s) body image, or whether it interferes with the next election, video is being dangerously abused.

So, is all hope for video lost?

The Solution is Participatory, Communal, and — Often — Indigenous

How technological societies got into this mess is a story for another blog! Happily, video is also experiencing an astonishing rebirth, driven by an entirely different purpose. And this counter-movement is happening in the most unexpected places on Earth. Indeed, many of the people who are busy using video in a singularly positive way might also seem to be the least likely to do so. After all, for the past 500 years, they have been the victims of colonialism’s technologies. Among other things, they have often found themselves at the “receiving end” of video cameras. We mean, of course, the world’s Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous Peoples have often found themselves at the “receiving end” of video cameras.

As the following four remarkable stories show, some Indigenous communities are using (and redeeming) video as a force for good. Specifically, they are using participatory video (PV), a film-making technique that involves training community members, in an ethical way, to debate, plan and film their own community experiences and practice. Many of them have never handled film-making equipment, so they receive training in basic filmmaking techniques.

Crucially, the PV process leaves the resulting films — and their copyright — in the hands of the community. In this way, video once again becomes a tool for community action based on truthful communication. Further, the PV process restores video to its original purpose: showing what is real. In turn, this helps counter the destructive, globalized trend of weaponizing video for personal or corporate profit.

How Participatory Video Restores Truth — and More

Participatory video restores truth in two ways. First, it allows Indigenous communities to send powerful and inspiring stories of cultural survival and thriving out into the world. In doing so, they broaden their audience as never before. This, at a crucial moment in human history, when we desperately need to know that other, more interconnected and sustainable worldviews exist.

Second, PV helps Indigenous communities to express their own ideas on their own terms. This empowers them to address issues that directly affect biocultural continuity and territorial sovereignty. Crucially, this communal ownership of the videomaking process has ramifications not just locally but also regionally and even globally. As we will see, video can bridge the vast distances that separate Indigenous communities who could learn from one another.

Communal ownership of the videomaking process has ramifications not just locally but also regionally and even globally.

Perhaps most importantly, PV ensures a plurality of voices, images, and perspectives. In fact, its communal structure is what ensures that truth remains central to the story. For it is the community who takes ownership of the ideas, images, and narrative, not some anonymous entity with no accountability.

Participatory Video: A Blueprint for Action to Restore a Community’s Biocultural Wealth

As a result of these built-in protections, instead of amplifying already powerful voices (tech and political elites, advertisers, etc.), PV bolsters the point of view of the community that is filming itself. Provided community members have equal access to video technology, PV can become a way to preserve storytelling across generations. In other words, PV works in a way quite similar to literacy.

Finally, PV can foster network building and play a role in preserving and disseminating the body of knowledge available to the community. Once the community has identified the issues it cares about, PV becomes a blueprint for action. And this can play a huge part in the resurgence of Indigenous cultures throughout the world, as each combats the effects of globalization.

And now, let’s see how PV has helped four Indigenous communities in four very different regions of the Earth.

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Creating a “Visual Dictionary” to Restore an Ancestral Language

In “Speaking Our Identity,” Hellen Losapicho and Magella Hassan Lenatiyama, both from Kenya, confront us with a most challenging situation. Their orally transmitted language, El Molo, has lost all of its fluent speakers. And the anguish this causes their community is palpable. “We need our language back as a matter of pride,” says a community member. Otherwise, “we are forever dependent on others; just like a slave, we are nobody. Language and culture make you somebody.”

Undaunted, young El Molo people are using participatory video to create a “video dictionary” of their language and oral traditions. Tellingly, previous attempts by outsiders to document El Molo have been unsuccessful. What was the missing ingredient? Quite simply, trust. But in the words of the authors, “PV allows us to capture our culture and keep it alive for ourselves.”

To show that their language is part of their living culture, the community filmed traditional activities like fishing, mending nets, and building homes with local reeds. But they also pushed farther. For example, they went on to create El Molo textbooks to teach it to the next generation. And they decided to meet the Arbore people, across the border with Ethiopia, to renew their ancient ties with this cousin language. In effect, the PV project has empowered them to keep finding new sources of revival for El Molo. Importantly, they plan to continue using PV to document their evolving language and culture.

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Caught on Video: The Shift to Cash Crops Threatens Biocultural Diversity — But Is Reversible

In “North East Network Farm School,” two authors, Kewekhrozo (Peter) Thopi and Tshenyilou (Lele) Chirhah, use video-based storytelling to convey their urgent message. Both belong to the Chakhesang Naga People in India, who traditionally practiced ecologically adapted farming. Until recently, their ancestral forms of agriculture ensured a long term ecological and social sustainability of their food system.

But the modern shift to cash crop farming emphasizes profit and eats away at this delicate balance with nature. Worryingly, some villagers have become alienated from one another and from their natural environment, traditional knowledge, and culture. And, sadder still, some children have begun leaving the villages to attend school in neighboring towns. There, teachers are not trained to value the traditional cultures of their students. Hence the spiral of biocultural loss.

“How much do we know about ourselves through film?”

Enter participatory video! To reverse this biocultural loss, the two authors have partnered with the North East Network (NEN), a women’s rights and social justice organization, and the community development organization InsightShare. Specifically, they have documented, through film, traditional Naga foodways. In doing so, they have also revealed the connections between food and Naga cultural and spiritual values and traditional knowledge.

Early in the PV process, the chair of their village council presciently remarked:

“We [watch] all sorts of films, in English, Hindi, and even Korean. But how much do we know about ourselves through film? This will give us a chance to make our own films and look at ourselves.”

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To transmit this renewed pride in their own culture, the NEN Farm School teaches children and parents from urban areas about locally sourced food, farmlands, and ecologies. Through understanding the journey of food from farm to plate, Naga youth begin a transformation. First, they start to know themselves and recognize the power in being themselves. Thus empowered, they then begin to recover and readopt sustainable food production. In this way, the broken link between the generations can be reforged and made stronger to meet the challenges of the future.

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La Marabunta: An Army of (Video-Making) “Ants”

We continue our tour of PV in northwestern Mexico, with the inspiring story “Pintando La Raya: indigenous Resistance and Biocultural Conservation Through Participatory Video.” Photographer and videographer Thor Morales tells the story of two Indigenous groups, the Yaqui and the Seri. Both groups learn to use and then teach PV techniques to address what matters to Indigenous Peoples the most: territory. This single word, Morales reveals, “embraces culture, nature, history, dignity, land, food, dreams, landscapes, and mindsets.”

Interestingly, the advantage of video is that it emulates the traditional oral way of passing on knowledge. Video also mimics the experiential learning process common in most Indigenous communities. These are features that very few other technologies offer. So, though a modern tool, when owned communally, video is especially well suited to help revitalize ancient cultural ways. And the participatory approach ensures video is equally accessible and all voices have their say.

The goal, Morales explains, is to train an “army” or marabunta (nomadic ants that often gather in the millions) of PV filmmakers. By using video according to the community’s concerns and desires, the hope is to spark a movement, a march — a powerful, Indigenous marabunta.

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Indeed, Morales points out, “Video opened the door to a new form of communication within villages. Through interviews with neglected and forgotten persons such as elders, youngsters, and women, PV allowed for their voices to be heard.” Thus, PV is the key to real, truthful and culturally relevant freedom of expression. Significantly, the communities felt they were no longer dependent on foreign media to speak for them. And finding themselves speaking on camera, community members shed their fear or shyness and began expressing themselves.

As we will see in the next story, PV training has had powerful reverberations felt far beyond the Yaqui community. Who could have guessed that two of its women would go on to train other Indigenous peoples, all the way in Brazil? And yet that is exactly what happened!

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From Mexico to Brazil: Participatory Video Bridges the Vast Distances Between Indigenous Communities

A perfect example of the power of PV to help Indigenous communities transcend colonial borders and spark a resurgence is another story by Thor Morales, “La Marabunta in Brazil: indigenous Women as Biocultural Diversity Defenders.”

In Mexico, biocultural diversity is nurtured mainly by Indigenous women. They teach their mother tongues; cook traditional foods; cure with local herbs and ancestral knowledge; and retain traditional attire. Thus tied to land and home, Indigenous women rarely travel beyond their village, let alone go abroad. In the struggle to stem the loss of biocultural diversity, “the most radical Indigenous persons are women,” observes Morales.

Thanks to an alliance between the Yaqui tribe and InsightShare, Morales helped seed an initiative named La Marabunta Filmadora. Possibly unique in the world, this Indigenous movement uses video to defend territories, languages, dignities, and the natural world.

Keeping Ancient Traditions and Ways of Life Alive with the Help of Video

Eusebia Flores and Anabela Carlon Flores, two intrepid Yaqui women from northern Mexico, are members of the community PV group we met in the previous story. Defying cultural taboos against women leaving home, they head for Brazil on a revolutionary mission. Their goal: to share the empowering storytelling tool of PV with the Guajajara people in Northeastern Brazil. There, the two Marabunta women facilitate a participatory video training. Their students are ten Indigenous youngsters from the Guajajara village of Zutiwa. The goal: to show them how video can help keep ancient traditions and ways of life alive and well.

As Eusebia remembers it, the encounter deeply marked her and Anabela’s lives as Indigenous persons and as women:

“The nervousness of meeting a different community and the fear of not perfectly understanding their language didn’t stop me from connecting with their ideology, their way of thinking as Indigenous people. This gave me the confidence to carry out the training activities.”

Remarkably, what drives the two women defenders is a very simple idea. If participatory video can help others to restore or revive their biocultural diversity, they simply must share this skill. Contrast this, if you will, with the aggressively individualistic approach to video that is prevalent in technological societies!

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Participatory Video: The Way Video Was Meant to Be Used

What we have seen in these four stories is a radically different attitude to video from what we may be used to in industrial societies. The Indigenous attitude displayed in these examples of PV use is essentially communal, collective, democratic, and driven by hope. The contrast with the superficiality and private interest that drive so much video production in technological societies could not be clearer.

Sometimes, the teacher has to relearn everything.

Instead, with basic training, these Indigenous communities have seized on the power of this modern technology to help them reach their communal goals. To them, PV is a means to achieve collective self-determination in the face of a globalized, tech-driven onslaught on their lands, rights, and identities. And self-determination, for them, is the key to their biocultural survival and thriving.

Is there a lesson for those of us who hail from the very same societies who introduced video to these Indigenous communities? Indeed, there is. We can start by recognizing that sometimes, the student becomes the teacher, and the teacher has to relearn everything.

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For a Deeper Read:

Terralingua invites you to take a deep-dive into the world of participatory video with these resources:

• Voices of the Earth project: Zanzibar – This project supports Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ efforts to maintain or recover their languages and cultural traditions. These traditions often reflect their historic presence on the land and their cultural and spiritual connections to it. In this section, we visit the main island of Zanzibar (Unguja). Here, the members of two villages recorded different aspects of five of their sacred groves using participatory video.

   

• Biocultural Diversity Toolkit, Volume 4: “Documenting and Revitalizing Oral Traditions” – This volume of Terralingua’s Biocultural Diversity Toolkit presents appropriate methodologies which the conservation community can use to support biocultural conservation work. Among otherrs, this volume explains in detail how to use informal approaches like participatory video.