Problematising participatory video with youth in Canada: the intersection of therapeutic, deficit and individualising discourses

This paper draws on critical discourse analysis to explore power dynamics in a participatory video project that took place in an alternative education centre in New Brunswick, Canada. The paper addresses growing concerns at the paucity of critical scholarship devoted to participatory video research. Often championed for its democratic, critical and counter-hegemonic potential, participatory video has steadily gained favour in academic, developmental and educational contexts. However, practitioners implementing participatory approaches often fail to engage with issues of power. This oversight has meant that taken-for-granted assumptions about participatory video have often gone unquestioned. Appreciating this concern, this paper explores how power operates through individualising and deficit discourses in participatory video work with youth and how these discourses might reinforce oppressive thinking, consequently adversely impacting those who participate. This critique accents the importance of challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about participatory video by showing how the method can be shaped by, and play into, marginalising discourses. For practitioners, this is a reminder that power operates through all research and educational practices – even those claiming to be participatory, critical and counter-hegemonic. The paper adds to a growing body of scholarship that draws attention to complexities associated with participatory video and relocates it within the framework of critical participatory research.