Participatory Action Research

While many educators acknowledge the challenges of a curriculum shaped by test preparation, implementing meaningful new teaching strategies can be difficult. Active Learning presents an examination of innovative, interactive teaching strategies that were successful in engaging urban students who struggled with classroom learning. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, the book proposes participatory action research (PAR) as a viable approach to teaching and learning that supports the development of multiple literacies in writing, reading, research and oral communication. As Wright argues, in connecting learning to authentic purposes and real-world consequences, participatory action research can serve as a model for meaningful urban school reform.

Con l’approvazione della Legge n.62 del 4 dicembre 2012 la Regione Calabria «promuove la costituzione, il riconoscimento e lo sviluppo degli ecomusei con l’obiettivo di ricostruire, testimoniare, valorizzare e accompagnare nel loro sviluppo, la memoria storica, la vita locale, la cultura materiale e immateriale e quella del paesaggio, le relazioni fra ambiente naturale ed ambiente antropizzato, le tradizioni, la ricostruzione e la trasformazione degli ambienti di vita e di lavoro delle comunità locali». La legge riconosce la tutela del patrimonio culturale ed etno-antropoligico calabrese come possibilità di sviluppo locale sostenibile.
In continuità con le direttive regionali la proposta di ecomuseo nel Basso Tirreno Reggino mira alla promozione  di tre contesti paesaggistici di grande pregio della provincia di Reggio Calabria  attraverso un sistema integrato di azioni e interventi che, a partire dal riconoscimento del patrimonio locale come risorsa, riattivi l’economia dei luoghi. I paesaggi della Vallata del Gallico, della Costa Viola e del Parco d’Aspromonte, pur coinvolti da anni in processi di salvaguardia e recupero, continuano ad essere soggetti a fenomeni inarrestabili di degrado e spopolamento. L’economia di questi territori appare fortemente compromessa dai processi industriali e di globalizzazione che hanno generato l’abbandono delle attività produttive strategiche. A livello locale, nel territorio reggino, assistiamo a fenomeni che in modo diverso si manifestano oggi in tutto il mondo, frutto dei rapidi mutamenti che destabilizzano la struttura della società, nel passaggio dall’era industriale e post-industriale a quella contemporanea, contribuendo alla riflessione su nuovi modelli sostenibili di sviluppo.
Proprio in reazione ai processi di decontestualizzazione e sradicamento che derivano dalle dinamiche di globalizzazione si assiste ad una crescente attenzione nei confronti del paesaggio e del patrimonio culturale come possibilità di ritrovare identità in un mondo omologato e standardizzato. L’ecomuseo, nel territorio calabrese, ricco di tradizioni e beni naturali, rappresenta la strategia per restituire valore agli aspetti locali, troppo spesso interpretati, erroneamente, come limiti allo sviluppo piuttosto che caratteri di pregio da salvaguardare.

This article discusses the efficacy of community-based peacebuilding efforts to develop sustainable peace in conflict-torn communities. Using participatory action research (PAR) is a powerful means of developing sustainable solutions to a conflict: It provides the means to test peace theories and draw upon a community's knowledge and strengths in order to develop interventions. The knowledge gained can be lost if not understood within national or regional contexts, particularly if there is divergence between interests that can destroy community-based peacebuilding accomplishments. Holistic approaches facilitate sustainable peace and foster learning applicable to other situations. Two case studies, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, identified broad principles that potentially can be applied in the development of policies and practices. In the Nigerian case, two communities had experienced years of conflict. The PAR component was based on participatory dialogue. In the Zimbabwe case, politica...

Recent decades have witnessed concerns over representation, inclusion, and social justice move from the margins to the centre of museum practice. While a growing number of institutions seek to reflect the diversity of their communities in exhibition-making, gaps remain in understanding applied approaches and practices. This book presents the inclusion of new voices and perspectives into the museum via “inclusive curating,” a facilitated process empowering a wide demographic of people to become curators. Grounded in a case study, this book offers guidance in putting inclusive curating into action alongside a range of practical resources and key debates. Curating is often considered an exclusive job for a privileged few. But, by breaking it down using methods demonstrated throughout this book, not only does curating become more usable for more people, it also contributes to understanding the process and practices by which our cultural spaces can become democratized.

Precarity Pilot is an online platform and a series of nomadic workshops that aim at addressing in inventive ways issues faced by precarious designers.

Shaken by the concerns that emerged from our earlier investigations, namely Designers’ Inquiry (2012-2013) and Designing Economic Cultures (2011-2013), Precarity Pilot wants to support designers in re-shaping, re-orienting and taking ownership of the course their working lives.

In collaboration with Caterina Giuliani. The website has been funded by Akademie Schlos Solitude.

1 Action: Research should be more than just finding out; research should also involve an action component that seeks to engender positive change. 2 Participation: Research is a participatory process that requires the equal and collaborative involvement of the 'community of research interest'.

South-South Cooperation for Scaling up Climate-Resilient Value Chain Initiatives Project (SSCVC) is funded by    The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through the South-South Triangular Cooperation Fund (SSTC). The project was led by the Centre for Agrarian Systems Research and Development (CASRAD) with the cooperation of the other three institutions in Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
(CAAS), Laos (NAFRI), and Cambodia (CPS).
The project's main objective is to generate structured learning across countries based on a consistent approach to the Climate Resilient value chain (CRVC) with the engagement of smallholder farmer groups, processing units, and enterprises.
          SSCVC to provide the opportunity for a rich learning experience in the consolidation of past experiences in Participatory Action Research (PAR) and their application to a new realm as climate change adaptation (CCA) in partnership with teams of scientists throughout IFAD’s project.
          According to the IFAD Strategy for Agricultural Development (2011-2020) in Lao PDR  is fully compatible with its priorities as such modern technologies for increasing productivity and value-added agro-processing for domestic and export markets;(ii ) improving access to inputs and finance; (iii) promoting farmers’ organizations and improving their linkages with the private sector; and (iv) value chain development and improved value chain governance so in main activities above project, we can select study areas in three provinces.  Lao PDR SSCVC team has to work in sites of previously IFAD projects in three provinces as such Saravan, Xekong and Attapeu

This study aimed to enhance nursing practice in developmental care for preterm infants. A participatory action research (PAR) model was used as a catalyst for changing nursing practice. Participants were 30 neonatal nurses working in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at a university hospital in Bangkok. Data was collected using multiple methods. The findings revealed that enhancing nursing practice in developmental care for preterm infants was an empowering process which covered three components: nurses, administrators and the health care team and hospital policy. The nursesû component comprised six strategies: 1) the provision of knowledge and practice skills; 2) the provision of opportunities for sharing knowledge and experiences; 3) the encouraging of self-directed learning; 4) the provision of opportunities for creative innovations; 5) motivation; and 6) the encouraging of regular developmental care practice. The outcomes of the process of enhancing nursing practice in devel...

The popularity of Participatory Action Research (PAR) increases the risk of tokenism and blurring the boundaries of what might be considered ‘good’ PAR. This became a pressing issue when we were invited by the City of Amsterdam to conduct PAR on digital inequality with vulnerable citizens in Amsterdam, within serious constraints of time and budget. We decided to take up the challenge to offer citizens an opportunity to share their needs. This paper aims to increase the transparency of the complex reality of a PAR process in order to help new researchers learn about the challenges of PAR in real-life situations, and to open up the discussion on the quality and boundaries of PAR. Though we managed to implement some core ethical principles of PAR in this project, two were particularly under pressure: democratic participation and collective action. These jeopardized collective learning and might unintentionally feed stereotypes regarding people’s capabilities. Nevertheless, this small and local study did manage to create ripples for change.

Empowerment of people in challenging circumstances is a central premise of participatory health research (PHR). Empowerment, a process of strengthening vis-à-vis one's social environment, has three components: personal, relational, and political. The current PHR study was conducted with mothers living in unfortunate situations in the Netherlands. In this article, we describe how PHR fostered personal empowerment to a certain degree by 1. setting an agenda for the project (ownership), and 2. listening to and acknowledging the articulation of the participants' own story and a collective story about their issues (epistemic justice). One result of the study is that achieving relational and political empowerment can be challenging. Relational tensions in the group distracted us. Conducting critical reflection on more structural causes of the unfortunate situations of the mothers is a process that needs time and calls for relational sensitivity and inclusion. The participatory researcher as facilitator focused on ethics and tried to collaborate with creative outsiders to change the disharmony in the group. Reaching relational and political empowerment is a long-term process in PHR, but not without stumbling blocks on the journey.

In the coming decades, the platforms and formalisms scholars employ to display, transform, and transmit information will continue to evolve. Innovations in information management did not stop with the codex. They will not stop with the PC. The purpose of this paper is to explore a specific implication that new paradigms of computing—especially those pertaining to 3D objects and 3D environments—will present for the discipline of history. Put simply, this study suggests historians will need to re‐think the aesthetics of their discipline. Drawing on the experience of the<it> 3D Virtual Buildings Project</it>, it suggests there are two possibilities historians can and ought to explore. The first is to test the efficacy of 3D objects as cognitive tools, tools designed to assist student realization that historical works are models, models that must be distinguished from the objects they represent. The second is to explore the use of 3D‐immersive environments as platforms to display research findings. If Virtual Reality is to emerge as a viable medium for the historical discipline, scholars will need to transform their practice. Assumptions regarding the constitution of narrative, authorship and the scholarly work will all require modification.

Green Book on Participatory 3-D Modelling

Mapping and mapping tools, which consist of coordinates, geographical information systems (GIS), databases and software, enable the collection of standardised information (rivers, mountains, inventoried industrial concessions, deforestation rates, etc.). They cannot, however, fully convey the specificity of the geographic sites involved: their meaning, use and heterogeneity. Nevertheless, the latter remain characteristics of primary importance when one wishes to understand a territory in order to manage it in the most equitable and sustainable way possible.

3-D mapping offers new prospects aimed at facilitating the on-going process, while taking it a step further. The process used to transfer traditional indigenous knowledge to a map usually relies on technology. Indigenous and local communities are trained to use GPS and to chart geographical co-ordinates, and the information is collected, worked out and visualised by a qualified operator. As the Itombwe pilot exercise strikingly demonstrates, mapping in 3-D facilitates this transfer of information onto the map.

3-D mapping provides a visual representation on the scale of a dwarfed natural environment. Through the contours of its landforms it gives communities immediate cognitive reference marks. The advantage of the 3-D approach pertains first and foremost to its ability to mobilise participants in this way, as the model arouses people’s curiosity and presents a learning interest for all. As it involves the indigenous and local communities in the construction of the model itself, all the way through to its presentation, this approach allows them to create a final and physical product without any external intervention. This differs significantly from 2-D mapping, for which Itombwe communities would have to entrust the co-ordinates they have determined to map made by a GIS technician based in Bukavu. Moreover, by doing away with the technological aspect of GPS and the complexity of 2-D representation, 3-D participatory mapping places the various interlocutors and facilitators on the same level of understanding and perception of the territory. Consequently, this approach facilitates communication and the reaching of consensus in decisions relating to sustainable management, which can be made based upon the mapping exercise. Finally, the process legitimises the decisions made and makes them sustainable, owing to the fact that it allows an ownership of the process not only by the “elite” of the trained community cartographers, but also by all members of the community, including the youth and the elders, both men and women. Through the exercise, elders have the opportunity to transfer knowledge to the younger generation and to perpetuate lessons of the past, while all community members can be proud of having contributed to the creation of the map.

This article traces multiple directions in the evolution of agroecology, from its early emphasis on ecological processes in agricultural systems, to its emergence as a multidimensional approach focusing on broader agro-food systems. This review is timely, as agroecology is being increasingly applied within a diversity of scientific-, policy-, and farmer-based initiatives. We contrast different agroecological perspectives or “agroecologies” and discuss the characteristics of an agroecology characterized by a transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented approach. Our final discussion describes the contents of the special issue, and states our goal for this compilation, which is to encourage future work that embraces an agroecological approach grounded in transdisciplinarity, participation, and transformative action.

The following text attempts, without pretending completeness, to analyze approaches to action research based on where and how they position themselves socially , on how they work, and on their actual basic distinctions. The result is a tentative typology presented roughly historically, which cuts through the many labels typical of current action research. Different approaches are useful, each for different purposes. Still, most circle consciously or subconsciously around some form of "practice" which works as a standard of measurement or quality criterion. The conclusion is that there is a certain sine qua non in the field of action research, i.e. a form "toward which, ways of doing things tend to evolve from a wide variety of starting points".

اقدام پژوهي شکل خاصی از پژوهش است که در دنیای واقعی مستقر شده است، بنابراین به یک شکل تحقیق از دنیای واقعی تبدیل می شود. اقدام پژوهي در مورد اقداماتی پر نفوذ برای اقدام اجتماعی و سیاسی است و سپس توضیح دادن به دیگران که چه کاری انجام داده اید، چرا این کار را انجام داده اید و امید دارید از انجام آن چه چیزی به دست آورید. ازآنجاکه اقدام پژوهي مبتنی بر اقدام و عمل است، اقدام پژوهي اغلب "تحقیق مبتنی بر اقدام" نامیده می شود. همچنین اغلب "تحقیق کارورزی" است، زیرا کارورزان آن را انجام می دهند. اقدام پژوهي شامل دو کلمه – "اقدام یا عمل" و "پژوهیدن یا پژوهش"- است و این دو به موارد مختلف اشاره دارند:
• "اقدام یا عمل" به آنچه که در بافت های مختلف خود انجام می دهید، از جمله بافت های شخصی، اجتماعی، سازمانی و سیاسی شما، اشاره می کند.
• "پژوهیدن یا پژوهش" اشاره به این دارد که شما چگونه آنچه که در بافت های مختلف خود انجام می دهید را پیدا می کنید، و چگونه راه هایی برای انجام بهتر آن می یابید.

INTRODUCTION Adolescent pregnancy remains a difficult problem in developing countries, including Indonesia. Pregnancy at an early age is a risk factor for maternal and infant mortality. A recent report indicates that adolescent pregnancy is even higher in rural areas. Therefore, this study aims to identify factors associated with adolescent pregnancy in rural Indonesia and formulate intervention actions to reduce the teenage pregnancy rate. METHODS Participatory action research (PAR) was conducted in the rural area of Mesuji District, Lampung Province, Indonesia. Six meetings, including four focus group discussions (FGDs), were held. The FGDs were audio-recorded and transcribed for inductive analysis. Themes emergent from the data were discussed with the local collaborators to achieve agreement. RESULTS Five factors were identified as determinants of adolescent pregnancy. They were low uptake of reproductive health services, low educational attainment, juvenile delinquency, poverty,...

The Reclaiming Diversity and Citizenship Series seeks to encourage debate outside mainstream policy and conceptual frameworks on the future of food, farming, land use and human well-being. The opportunities and constraints to regenerating local food systems and economies based on social and ecological diversity, justice, human rights, inclusive democracy, and active forms of citizenship are explored in this Series. Contributors to the Reclaiming Diversity and Citizenship Series are encouraged to reflect deeply on their ways of working and outcomes of their research, highlighting implications for policy, knowledge, organisations, and practice.

Modern Western society assumes that nonhuman animals do not possess an episteme comparable to humans; this presumption is used to exclude nonhuman species from knowledge-making and practices that intimately affect animal lives. For example, conservation policy that appropriates wildlife lands and reshapes animal societies through deportation (translocation) and genocide (culls and harvesting) is imposed without animal consent or consultation. Now, however, science has eliminated the conceptual foundation that sanctions modern humanity's monopoly on epistemic authority. By illustrating trans-species science in the making, ape-human participatory action research (PAR) at the Great Ape Trust, Iowa, dispels the myth that language and science are the unique property and privilege of Homo sapiens. This and other scientific research reveals animal objectification as a purely political strategy to maintain modern human hegemony. To refute the error of anthropocentrism, ecocriticism needs to consider current scientific work on animal agency and embrace new modes of communication and models of knowledge that bring other species into dialogue and authority as equal partners.

Performance and digitality constitute an onto-historical apparatus or dispositif reshaping cultures globally, yet our engagement with these performative circuits remains out-of-sync and ineffective, especially at the levels of knowledge and power, thought and action. Within higher education, modern disciplinary methods, arborescent institutional structures, and logocentric literacies inhibit the critico-creative syntheses needed to engage and resist neoliberal modes of performativity. In contemporary societies of control, universities around the world face daunting economic and political pressures to transform and innovate, while tradi- tional forms of academic research and education struggle to contend with young people’s attachments to mobile technologies, social media, and consumer-driven design practices. StudioLab is a critical design pedagogy that seeks to democratize emerging forms and processes of digitality by supplementing seminar-based critical thinking with studio-based design thinking and lab-based tactical media-making. In StudioLab, students roleplay as critical design teams to research and create conceptually-rich projects that address contemporary social challenges through a variety of media forms and events. Critical design teams combine cultural, organizational, and technological performances and learn ways to introduce values of cultural efficacy into structures dominated by organizational efficiency and technological effectiveness, thereby generating creative and potentially transformative micro-transvaluations in themselves and others. This performative matrix of valorizations helps to situate StudioLab’s practices of democratizing digitality and suggests new figurations of thought and action, new experiential architectures.

Este artigo se propõe a refletir sobre o processo de apropriação das narrativas visuais enquanto mediação de um grupo de mulheres africanas, do noroeste da Guiné-Bissau, de etnia Felupe. O projeto Fotografar é dar Vida, com base na metodologia Photovoice (Wang e Burris, 1997), tem o intuito de oferecer ferramentas que auxiliem no processo de reconhecimento do papel da mulher na sociedade felupe. A pesquisa-ação participativa (Participatory Action Research [PAR]) visual foi realizada em junho de 2016 com 28 mulheres nas comunidades rurais de Varela e Suzana. O projeto passa a ser compreendido como um elemento conector de experiências pessoais e mediações para que essas mulheres compusessem significados visuais acerca da saúde reprodutiva materno- infantil. Durante os 13 encontros, este grupo de mulheres felupes fotografaram seu cotidiano, os trabalhos diários, a comunidade, a família e cerimônias tradicionais. Este artigo apresenta os relatos de campo associados às experiências de se...

Students with intellectual disabilities are taking the lead conducting participatory action research (PAR) to chronicle their college experience as part of a national college access initiative. This research currently involves college students with intellectual disabilities documenting their experiences using multimedia tools. These data are then shared via a digital storytelling website, VoiceThread. This article presents an overview of PAR, digital storytelling, and the methodology used to implement PAR with students with intellectual disabilities. Themes from the students' work highlight their impressions of college, their adjustment to new expectations and responsibilities, and their recommendations to improve this experience. The researcher's findings and conclusions about facilitating research with young adults with intellectual disabilities are described.

Alcohol research in Alaska Native communities has a contentious history. This project has attempted to address a critical need for research to guide alcohol abuse prevention and treatment with Alaska Natives using culturally anchored participatory action research. The process of grounding the research methodology in the culture and community is described, along with its contribution to community psychology's understanding of the importance of cultural factors. Tensions between indigenous values and ways of knowing, and Western research methodologies are delineated, along with how these tensions were resolved. Important issues that arose in doing culturally anchored participatory action research are described. These included the development of a community of inquiry, key methodological decisions, the empowerment of participants as coresearchers, and flexibility in research implementation.

Michelle Van Impe a & Olga Petintseva b a Doctoraal onderzoeker, Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), vakgroep Criminologie, Strafrecht en Sociaal Recht, Universiteit Gent b Postdoctoraal onderzoeker FWO, vakgroep Criminologie, Strafrecht en Sociaal Recht, Universiteit Gent en vakgroep Criminologie, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (corresp.: olga.petintseva@ugent.be)

Ergonomics are rarely addressed directly in the design and re-design of industrial workspaces in Denmark. Often architects, engineers and other actors design the workspaces on the basis of for example spatial, technological or financial considerations, thereby making industrial ergonomics a by-product of the design process. However, by introducing ergonomists in the role of 'workspace designers' early in the design process, ergonomic considerations as well as the involvement of employees, can be integrated in the design process. In this article we demonstrate the use of the workspace design approach in a case study where an industrial manufacturer is undergoing a major technological change: going from labour intensive manual work to a highly automated production. The workspace design team, which included the company's OHS consultant, designed the intervention as a participatory design process by using visually based methods such as workbooks, layout workshops and use scenarios. Employees, management and external design engineers alike took actively part in the design process. The general outcome of the intervention was some very concrete changes in the proposed design layout, an enhanced clarity of the production procedures in the new plant, and an identification of potential future ergonomic problems. This case study indicates that workspace design can be a new approach for OHS consultants.

The contributions of Canadian community psychologists to ethics, theory, methodology, research, and practise are highlighted in this article. Important debates about ethical issues in psychological research and practise have been advanced by Canadian community psychologists. Canadian community psychologists have also introduced theoretical perspectives (e.g., cognitive community psychology) that have provided an impetus for research and practise, and they have broadened the focus of research in community settings with contributions to participatory action research, program evaluation, and qualitative methods. A variety of substantive contributions have been made to the research literature, especially in the areas of community mental health, prevention, and social inclusion. Finally, Canadian community psychologists have contributed to practise in terms of policy, programs, and social interventions. The article concludes with a discussion of future potential areas of contribution for Canadian community psychology.

Published in Dacoromania Litteraria, no. 3, 2016: 10-44 http://www.dacoromanialitteraria.inst-puscariu.ro/ro/nr3.php

The article examines the concept of contemporary community as commoning, at the intersection of action, performance or participatory art, place, site-specific, and (post)digital poetry. This involves a brief review of traditional avant-gardes, 20th century engaged art, and recent political-art movements.  In the process of this analysis, the participatory emerges as a subtler, more nuanced, and less predictable phenomenon than usually accepted. Also, performative subjectivity is traced as either the source of anticommunal community (in French theory), or mere Christian-capitalist construct (in communist philosophy). Agamben’s theory of the coming community is therefore examined as possible response to both these stances, with its relevance to contemporary movements, including post-Occupy. Commoning—paralleled to placing in poetry—turns out to be of critical importance in present-day community especially with correlatives such as displacement and undecidablility. Place, space, and map(ping) are therefore radically redefined in the context, and contemporary poetry appears to be indissolubly related to the process: the poem of place is the place, and poetry becomes the site of the com(mon)ing community. Site (and discourse)-specificity in poetry occasions a shift in focus to digital space, its sonic economy, and the communities and floating locations/sites thereof. Site and discourse fluidity have brought about a paradigm in which the poem and its related apps tend to expand and turn into digital space itself, while in more recent postdigital evolutions, a new political concern for the ‘real’ reshape community, site, and performance/participatory art or poetry in a continuous interactivity and interdependence.

Keywords: community, commoning, participatory art, performance studies, poetry of place, site-specificity, digital space, digital humanities, e-literature, the postdigital, GSI, NLP.

The Homeless Heritage project took place across two English cities (Bristol and York) between 2010 and 2014. The project sought to use a range of participatory heritage practices to engage contemporary homeless people in documenting their perspectives on each city. Drawing on data gathered over three and a half years this paper reflects on how collaborative cultural heritage practices can be useful in recording diverse stakeholder perspectives which can become catalysts for social change. It is further argued that two interactive exhibitions that resulted from the Homeless Heritage project contributed to the democratisation of knowledge, aiding negotiation of the complicated politics of contemporary homelessness in valuable ways.

Abstract This chapter aims to explore ways of addressing the goals of ‘university
social responsibility’ through research activities. It develops the argument that
research can play a dual role in producing findings which are beneficial to society
but which also empower individuals and local communities through their direct
involvement in the research process. The chapter starts with setting out how the
University of Manchester defines and approaches ‘social responsibility’. Second, it
presents a research project which illustrates this approach. The study has been
identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a best practice example of
involving older people as co-investigators in researching and developing what it
terms ‘age-friendly’ cities. The chapter then discusses the objectives of the study,
the process of involving and training older people to become co-researchers, the
research outcomes, and the impact of the research. Finally, the chapter concludes
with a discussion of the lessons learned from the project, and suggests ways forward
for (re-) connecting research with the goal of social responsibility.

This article describes a research study that aims to better understand the life-worlds of
undocumented migrant youth in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. The program
design combines critical place inquiry with Youth Participatory Action Research (yPAR)
and photovoice to understand how experiences of setting and place shape how youth who
are facing the dilemma of precarious legal status while living in rural areas envision and
plan for their futures. With guidance from Indigenous theorizations of refusal, the project
explores the potential of embedding refusal into image-based methodologies to involve
participants more deliberately in the collection, generation and sharing of data.

Introduction
This paper examines the role of tourism and development in the lives of the local Bedouin community of south Sinai by re-visiting the author’s 2006 collaborative research film Sinai Sun: Traditional Tourists and Modern Bedouin (34 mins). The short film funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) was made with Dr Alexa Firat (Temple Philadelphia) and members of the Bedouin community.

The film was planned as means to explore the relationship between the tourist industry and the local Bedouin community. Over a period of six weeks we filmed in a range of locations in the south Sinai and interviewed members of the Bedouin community in addition to Egyptian and European residents. During this research phase, we found a complex and contradictory asymmetry. While the tourist industry marketing was clearly dependant on a (stereotypical) notion of Bedouin life and society it was also actively cutting them out of the wealth generated by the boom in tourism development. In addition the pressure from the tourist industry for Bedouin to maintain a romantic tourist imaginary of tradition and timelessness, contrasted heavily against the pressures most Bedouin were under to work within a modern industry like tourism.

Popular discourses claim tourism is a form of development that leads to empowerment of local communities. This belief has been particularly prevalent in the Middle East region where global organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund tie loans to requirements that governments invest in large scale tourist projects as the key to economic development and peace (Hazbun 2008). This film sets out to counter this assertion. It does this without an overarching narrative voice as such but uses montage techniques (including match cuts and sound edits) and other filmmaking processes of juxtaposition to create sequences that highlight the contradictions within such claims.