Displacements. Contexts for a Participatory Media Project - Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 23 (2023) 86–109

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2023-0005

Abstract: This paper presents a participatory film intervention focused on young people, which was held within the framework of a grant coordinated by the Minor Media/Culture Research Centre and took place in the form of a summer camp in 2021. After revisiting some historical examples and definitions of participatory film, the author focuses on the concept of displacement as used in film theory and psychology, which he attempts to redefine and thereby reverse its negative connotations. The author analyses the catalyst method, one of the various forms of implementing participatory video as a visual research method, which was the one used in the research described here. The participatory film methodology based on the camera-as-catalyst is meant to foster inter-group collaboration through camera use in order to achieve a free performance and interplay of identities and ultimately to strengthen social cohesion. Beyond the emancipatory intent, the diachronic and synchronic case studies are also linked by the fact that most of the projects were also collaborations with young people, as was the case in the Minor Media summer camp. In the final section, the author analyses the films made by the young people in terms of their relation to contemporary popular culture and the performance of adolescent identities defined by liminality.

Keywords: minor media, participatory video, Challenge for Change, camera as catalyst, youth participatory action research (YPAR), displacement, liminality.