Disrupting patterns at the end of an agricultural research project: experiences with community cinema and participatory video

This paper documents efforts to support a feedback and sharing process using Community Cinema and Participatory Video (PV), in the context of ending a five-year agricultural research for development (AR4D) project. By the final year, some troubling patterns of transactional interaction between researchers and farmer-participants had become established. This multimedia essay documents and describes our imperfect yet hopeful attempts to disrupt relationship patterns at the end of the project. Contributing to debates around collaboration within AR4D projects, we specifically highlight our disruption of: (i) a well-trodden communication path enrolling intermediary “gatekeepers” to contact participating farmers; and (ii) the protocol of paying participants to attend meetings. We reflect on how—at times—the changes we made, while implementing creative, participatory methods, opened up a newly interactive space to support reflection, feedback and sharing processes at the end-phase of the project.