Environmental Futures through Children’s Eyes: Slow Observational Participatory Videomaking and Multi-Sited Ethnography

Abstract

This article reflects on the lessons learned from a participatory videomaking study with children in India and South Africa. The study used a deliberately “slow” process to learn about children’s imagination of the future in light of environmental crisis. While arguing that this methodology holds promise as a way to co-create knowledge with study participants, the article also raises ethical questions that need to be addressed when this methodology is deployed in the service of specific research agendas.