Articulating Community Dialogues and Participatory Video: Theoretical Insights Into Joining Creative Methodologies Across Disciplines

In this paper we reflect ways to use two participatory research approaches - Participatory Video (PV) and Community Dialogue approaches (CDA), and in particular the potential of bringing the two together in a process of what we define as ‘articulation’ (drawing on the work of Stuart Hall). This study used reflective discussions with eleven members of an active community engagement research project to identify the merits and limitations of each method, and the ways in which articulating both approaches impacted these merits and limitations. Findings reveal that articulating PV and CDA can add value to each approach, leading to a community engagement intervention that is more than the sum of its parts. The project team highlighted the ways in which bringing both approaches together helped to amplify co-learning opportunities, while also mitigating potential shortcomings in each individual approach. In particular we show how the articulation process had the potential to magnify community ownership of the research. The discussion illustrates how participants interpreted the articulation of these two participatory approaches from their own perspectives. We conclude that there is a need to reflect on the articulation of different approaches across disciplines as an ongoing research question that should be granted space for exploration.