Participatory Video on Groundwater Governance with Youth in the M’zab Valley, Algeria

Abstract

In Algeria’s M’zab Valley, the skills, knowledge, values, and rules of common resources management for surface and groundwater have been transmitted for centuries. Young people have traditionally learned agricultural and water distribution tasks through oral instruction and field observations from a very young age. However, this intergenerational continuity now faces challenges. Climate change has altered the water cycle, leading to water scarcity that has further disrupted collective organisation. Younger generations have lost interest in their traditional water governance knowledge. Local traditional knowledge holders approached the researchers with a request to involve young people in the management and preservation of common water resources. We responded with a participatory visual approach that integrates different forms of knowledge, including a documentary made by professional researchers and grassroots videos produced by four young scouts in a M’zab oasis community. The participatory video experience enabled the scouts and the other research participants to remember the past, by transmitting traditional ecological knowledge, to document the present, by identifying problems, and to imagine future by pointing at alternative solutions. This experience allowed to bridge different knowledge systems traditional, scientific, and emotional and generations as a contribution to more sustainable common resource governance.