Participatory video is a hybrid activity – it mixes things up.  PV usually brings together people who are different in how they interpret the world, which has consequences for the meaning they grant one another’s actions and the criteria by which they judge the significance of the work that is carried out.  This paper explores the theme of identity in PV practice from the perspective of love and recognition – seeing that as humans we are different from one another in ways that matter to us and that shape what we do, and asking what it means to accept the other as a legitimate self. 

Drawing on a range of different projects, I look at some of the different ways that practitioners, community members, researchers and activists can construct participatory video in practice.  This highlights a number of conceptual traps that can make participatory video difficult: How the project isn’t a project, how a community isn’t the community, how empowerment can disempower and the pull of material interests.  Yet in spite of the pitfalls, an argument is made for the value of valuing differences and the power of accommodation – the search for points of congruence around which progress can be negotiated.  The discussion focuses on consequences for thinking about PV, long and short term commitments and an ethics of care and love.  I’ll almost certainly also show some pretty pictures.