Capturing lived experiences of voluntary contributions with participatory video: A manual and lessons learned

This manual provides practical guidance on applying Participatory Video (PV) in citizen science and agricultural research, drawing on experience from the 1000FARMS project and fieldwork in Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Guatemala. It positions PV not merely as a data collection technique but as a social innovation that reconfigures research relationships: by placing cameras in participants' hands, PV shifts farmers from data sources to co-producers of knowledge, making power dynamics visible and negotiable while building the trust that voluntary participation in citizen science depends on.

Grounded in Participatory Action Research and the iterative Action–Reflection–Action cycle, the manual covers the full process: preparing the research team, engaging participants and securing ethical clearance, equipment requirements, and four core filming exercises ("In front and behind the camera", "Searching for beauty", "Film just like that", and "Show and tell"), each paired with structured reflection. Further sections address collaborative paper-based editing, group screenings, content analysis through transcription and thematic coding, and options for documenting findings.

Ethical practice is treated as central, with detailed attention to informed consent, repeated on-camera consent before each recording, filming children, and protecting bystanders. A concluding lessons-learned section reports that co-editing is the method's most valued component, and identifies recurring challenges around audio quality, editing time, power dynamics, and returning footage to participants. The authors argue that PV produces authentic, contextual data while simultaneously transforming how researchers listen and engage — a slow, open-ended process in which less is more.