Me and my cellphone: constructing change from the inside through cellphilms and participatory video in a rural community

Abstract

Drawing on fieldwork with rural teachers in S outh A frica, this article highlights the significance of cellphone technology in participatory video and its potential to alter the research environment. To date much of the work in the area of participatory visual methodologies (including participatory video) and particularly in the context of working with marginalized communities, has relied on researcher‐led projects wherein it is the research team who as outsiders bring cameras for research with the community. In most cases the team departs, taking the cameras with them, but even in cases where the video cameras are left behind, sustainability is still an issue. In the case of cellphones and the production of cellphilms, the dynamics change. We reflect on our fieldwork in two rural schools, where all of the teachers had cellphones and regularly used them for various forms of communication including texting and accessing F acebook. None however, prior to the project had ever produced cellphilms, and only one had used a cellphone in any pedagogical way. In considering critical issues of using participatory video, we address T ouraine and D uff's (1981 T he voice and the eye: an analysis of social movements C ambridge U niversity P ress, C ambridge) notion of the sociological intervention, and ask questions such as: Can this work with cellphones be regarded as a non‐interventionist intervention? How does the widespread use of cellphone technology alter the power dynamics related to ownership of both the production and the recording device? To what extent do some of the ethical concerns of previous work become obsolete and to what extent are there new ethical concerns (for example, distribution) to be addressed?