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Participatory video (PV) can raise new levels of self-perception and can contribute to forming, transforming and reconstructing the identity and visions of those involved. Although this aspect is often underlined in the PV literature, reflection on the emotional process underpinning these changes is lacking, particularly from the perspective of community researchers facilitating the PV process. Why and how does facilitating PV contribute to changing attitudes, roles and perceptions of community researchers? This paper explores these aspects by drawing on empirical material (interviews, informal conversations, participant observation, email exchanges) collected during a three-and-a-half year EU-funded project in South America where the PV process was led by five Guyanese Indigenous community researchers. We found that the community researchers working on the project had to repeatedly deal with a rollercoaster ride of emotions: from fear of failing, dissatisfaction, and social pressure; to pride, satisfaction, commitment, and belonging. The question we ask is: can PV shape emotions and emotional bonds in the community researchers in ways that render their actions more sustainable and effective across space-time? We show how the emotional force of PV practice creates ‘thick places’ where community researchers challenge their specific abilities, capacities and ambitions and develop more autonomous research skills.

Scenarios help build a shared understanding of potential futures and allow us to engage with how interventions or activities may impact on people and the environment. There are many scenario sets that have been developed at the global and regional level, but to a lesser extent at the national and local levels. Yet fewer studies have explicitly linked imagined futures at different social–ecological scales. In this paper, we discuss how scenario analysis was used with indigenous communities and national level stakeholders in Guyana, South America, to explore context specific futures in relation to linked social-ecological systems. These futures were then analysed against published regional (Amazonian) and international scenarios using a qualitative coding approach and supported by quantitative factorial analysis. This allowed us to develop a matrix of multi-scalar scenarios, showing how scenarios at all scales interact. From this, we were able to identify virtuous and vicious cycles amongst the different scales where developments produced feedbacks to make situations worse, better or counteract change at other levels. Our results show that there is considerable mismatch between the different scales of analysis, with the national scale playing a key role as mediator. In addition, we highlight the importance of focusing on the root causes shaping futures as well as participatory forms of scenario development in order to provide better policy and decision support, and stimulate engagement at all levels of organisation in the process of change.

There is increasing advocacy for inclusive community-based approaches to environmental management, and growing evidence that involving communities improves the sustainability of social-ecological systems. Most community-based approaches rely on partnerships and knowledge exchange between communities, civil society organizations, and professionals such as practitioners and/or scientists. However, few models have actively integrated more horizontal knowledge exchange from community to community. We reflect on the transferability of community owned solutions between indigenous communities by exploring challenges and achievements of community peer-to-peer knowledge exchange as a way of empowering communities to face up to local environmental and social challenges. Using participatory visual methods, indigenous communities of the North Rupununi (Guyana) identified and documented their community owned solutions through films and photostories. Indigenous researchers from this community then shared their solutions with six other communities that faced similar challenges within Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Colombia, French Guiana, and Brazil. They were supported by in-country civil society organizations and academics. We analyzed the impact of the knowledge exchange through interviews, field reports, and observations. Our results show that indigenous community members were significantly more receptive to solutions emerging from, and communicated by, other indigenous peoples, and that this approach was a significant motivating force for galvanizing communities to make changes in their community. We identified a range of enabling factors, such as building capacity for a shared conceptual and technical understanding, that strengthens the exchange between communities and contributes to a lasting impact. With national and international policy-makers mobilizing significant financial resources for biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, we argue that the promotion of community owned solutions through community peer-to-peer exchange may deliver more long-lasting, socially and ecologically integrated, and investment-effective strategies compared to top-down, expert led, and/or foreign-led initiatives.

Policies and actions that come from higher scale structures, such as international bodies and national governments, are not always compatible with the realities and perspectives of smaller scale units including indigenous communities. Yet, it is at this local social-ecological scale that mechanisms and solutions for dealing with unpredictability and change can be increasingly seen emerging from across the world. Although there is a large body of knowledge specifying the conditions necessary to promote local governance of natural resources, there is a parallel need to develop practical methods for operationalizing the evaluation of local social-ecological systems. In this paper, we report on a systemic, participatory, and visual approach for engaging local communities in an exploration of their own social-ecological system. Working with indigenous communities of the North Rupununi, Guyana, this involved using participatory video and photography within a system viability framework to enable local participants to analyze their own situation by defining indicators of successful strategies that were meaningful to them. Participatory multicriteria analysis was then used to arrive at a short list of best practice strategies. We present six best practices and show how they are intimately linked through the themes of indigenous knowledge, local governance and values, and partnerships and networks. We highlight how developing shared narratives of community owned solutions can help communities to plan governance and management of land and resource systems, while reinforcing sustainable practices by discussing and showcasing them within communities, and by engendering a sense of pride in local solutions.

Mercury is known to be a powerful neurotoxin, particularly in its organic form. Amazonian populations living along contaminated rivers are exposed to mercurial contamination through fish consumption, but spatial disparities of contamination have very seldom been explored. The problem was addressed along the river Beni, in the Bolivian Amazon. Fifteen communities have been studied by a multidisciplinary research team, to explore the socio-geographical determinants of contamination by mercury. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, from the community to the regional level, this paper shows how spatial contrasts of mercury contamination are determined by contrasted types of resource management and contrasted social networks from one community to another, and how the places’ and societies’ specificities play an essential role in the determination of the mercurial risk.

Health geography in France has -for nearly a century now -contributed to the understanding of health inequalities in countries of the northern and southern hemispheres. Even though its conceptual structure and methodology were for the most part initially developed through the study of vector-borne diseases, health geography has subsequently extended its scope through focussing on emerging health issues. This presentation will demonstrate how a highly fruitful method, widely applied to the understanding of health inequalities of communicable diseases, has allowed us to engage in a novel health issue, barely explored by geographers so far : the study of the exposure in the long term to low level contamination by pollutants. With the example of mercury contamination disparities in the Bolivian Amazon region, this presentation confirms the efficiency of this method, which constitutes a starting point for the development of future research on the subject of environmental pollution., La géographie de la santé en France contribue depuis près d'un siècle à la compréhension des inégalités de santé dans les pays du Sud comme du Nord. Si son cadre conceptuel s'est forgé pour beaucoup grâce à l'étude des maladies transmissibles, elle s'est également largement renouvelée en se penchant sur les maux de son temps. Cette communication montre comment une démarche fructueuse largement appliquée à la compréhension des inégalités de santé liées aux maladies transmissibles a permis de revisiter et d'apporter un éclairage nouveau sur une thématique sanitaire encore peu explorée par les géographes : la contamination sur le long terme à de faibles doses de polluants. A travers l'étude des disparités de contamination par le mercure en Amazonie bolivienne, cette communication confirme l'efficacité de cette méthode, qui constitue une porte d'entrée pour le développement de futures recherches sur le thème des pollutions environnementales., Tschirhart Céline, Handschumacher Pascal, Laffly Dominique, Piermay Jean-Luc, Blanc Maurice, Luna Selma, Benefice Eric. Inégalités de contamination par le mercure le long du rio Béni (Bolivie) : un marqueur de l'inégale gestion et pratique des espaces par les communautés (Uneven mercury contamination alongside Rio Beni, Bolivia : a marker of uneven management and spatial practices by communities). In: Bulletin de l'Association de géographes français, 89e année, 2012-2. La géographie de la santé en France, sous la direction de Jeanne-Marie Amat-Roze. pp. 337-350.

Participatory research is supposed to involve participants in a collective definition of goals, and the co-production and sharing of research outputs. However, when articulated through an extended period of time involving a range of local, national and international actors, the practicalities of participatory research means that certain groups and individuals become responsible for taking leading roles, with subsequent ethical dilemmas. In the ‘Community-owned solutions for future environmental challenges in the Guiana Shield, South America’ (COBRA) project, the participatory research process involves a group of five Indigenous researchers – “the local team” – in charge of carrying out the research on the ground e.g. defining procedures, carrying out community engagement and supporting the communities in analyzing and disseminating the material. This local team is, in turn, supported by researchers from a national NGO and foreign academics.\ud \ud Considerable responsibility has been given to the local team for achieving project outcomes, and freedom in defining project tasks and activities. This paper analyses the multiple ethical dilemmas arising out of this situation, particularly the role of the local team as intermediaries between the wider community and project partners. We highlight the existence of significant mismatches between research expectations, and the ethical processes in operation at community level which are usually established on long-term, tacit and reciprocal relationships. We discuss how local community researchers are challenged with balancing the tensions between these two ethical polarities, while at the same time producing participatory research outcomes that are acceptable by everyone involved.

Linking and analyzing governance of natural resources at different scales requires the development of a conceptual framework for analyzing social-ecological systems that can be easily applied by a range of stakeholders whose interests lie at different scales, but where the results of the analysis can be compared in a straightforward way. We outline the system viability framework, which allows participants to characterize a range of strategies in response to environment challenges for maintaining the long-term survival of their particular system of interest. Working in the Guiana Shield, South America, and with a range of local, regional, and international stakeholders, our aim was to use system viability to (1) investigate synergies and conflicts between distinct scales of governance, (2) identify scale-related challenges, and (3) test the framework as a conceptual tool for supporting cross-scalar analysis for environmental governance. \ud \ud At the international and national levels, a number of civil society organizations explored system viability indicators that would measure the successful implementation of governance mechanisms relevant to sustainable development and natural resource management. At the local level, we used participatory video and photography within two indigenous territories to enable local participants to identify indicators of viability within community governance systems. A grounded theory approach was then used to identify common themes across the different scales of analysis.\ud \ud Five key themes emerged: land rights, leadership, partnerships, lifestyle, and identity. We found that although most categories of interest were theoretically aligned across scales, all perceived systems of interest were struggling to face up to various cross-scalar challenges undermining different system viability responses. In conclusion, we highlight how the system viability framework can be used with a disparate variety of stakeholders as a practical, participative and “big-picture” approach for facilitating the integrated governance of nested local and regional social-ecological systems.

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo presentar los resultados obtenidos durante una investigación realizada entre los años 2005 y 2010, en la Amazonía boliviana. Diversos estudios a lo largo del río Beni han enseñado la presencia de mercurio en el medio ambiente, un potente neurotóxico. Convertido en su forma orgánica (llamado metilmercurio), este metal se acumula a lo largo de la cadena trófica acuática, exponiendo a las poblaciones humanas consumidoras de pescado a un riesgo sanitario. Sin embargo, no todas las poblaciones ribereñas están expuestas de igual manera frente al riesgo. Esto se debe a que el consumo de pescado varía según una serie de factores y determinantes, tanto espaciales como sociales, ligados mayormente a la relación de las personas con los centros urbanos (los municipios). La relación depende de la distancia entre las comunidades (en las cuales se agrupan las familias estudiadas) y el municipio; también depende de la capacidad de las comunidades de tejer redes con actores institucionales y de la coherencia de los territorios en los cuales se inscriben. Estos conocimientos constituyen una base para formular políticas de prevención del riesgo, adaptados al contexto. Le présent article a pour objectif de présenter les résultats des travaux de recherche réalisés entre 2005 et 2010, en Amazonie bolivienne. Le long du Río Beni, différentes études ont montré la présence de mercure dans l’environnement, un puissant neurotoxique. Sous sa forme organique, le méthylmercure, ce métal s’accumule tout au long de la chaîne alimentaire aquatique, exposant ainsi les populations consommatrices de poisson à un risque sanitaire. Toutefois, toutes les populations riveraines ne sont pas exposées au même niveau de risque. En effet, la consommation de poisson varie selon un système de facteurs et de déterminants spatiaux et sociaux, en grande partie liés à la relation que ces populations entretiennent avec les centres urbains (les municipios). Cette relation dépend de la distance entre les communautés (où se regroupent les familles étudiées) et la ville, mais également de la capacité des communautés à tisser des liens avec des acteurs institutionnels et du niveau de cohérence des territoires dans lesquels elles s’inscrivent. Ces connaissances pourront être utiles à la formulation de politiques de prévention du risque, adaptées au contexte. This paper presents the results of a research project carried out between 2005 and 2010 in the Bolivian Amazon. Along the Río Beni, various studies have revealed the presence of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin, in the environment. When transformed into its organic form, methylmercury, the metal accumulates throughout the aquatic food chain, exposing the people whose staple diet includes fish to a health risk. However, all riverside populations are not exposed to the same level of risk. Fish consumption varies according to factors and determinants, spatial and social,that are largely related to the links that these populations have with the local towns (municipios). These links depend on the distance between communities (where the families live) and the town, but also on the ability of communities to build relationships with institutional actors and on the level of coherence of the territories in which they reside. These results provide a basis for formulating risk prevention policies, adapted to the context.

Le terme “résilience” a conquis une place importante dans le discours scientifique, et même à présent dans le langage courant. Or son utilisation reste souvent floue, puisqu’il peut être compris différemment : s’agit-il de résister ? De s’adapter ? De se transformer ? Cet article suggère l’utilisation d’un concept, la System Viability, ou la Viabilité des Systèmes. Ce concept permet d’appréhender six propriétés qui maximisent les chances d'un système de persister dans le temps, qu'il s'agisse d’écosystèmes ou de communautés. Dans cet article, nous appliquons et évaluons ce cadre conceptuel grâce à des méthodes visuelles participatives au sein de trois communautés indigènes du North Rupununi, au Guyana. Cet article tente de montrer que ce cadre conceptuel permet d’évaluer les stratégies de survie des communautés de manière cohérente et théoriquement corroborée, ce qui pourrait susciter l’intérêt de décideurs nationaux et internationaux en matière de résilience et durabilité. 'Resilience' is a term that has achieved significant prominence in scientific circles and now within popular discourse. However, its practical application is often unclear or confused because it can mean different things to different people: To resist? To adapt? To transform? In this paper, we propose a framework - System Viability - able to coherently engage with six distinct properties of all systems, from ecosystems to communities, allowing the identification of trade-offs and synergies for maximising the chances of systems persistence. We apply and evaluate the System Viability framework through participatory visual methods within three indigenous communities in the North Rupununi, Guyana. This paper highlights how the framework allows the measurement of community survival strategies in a consistent and theoretically corroborated way, with implications for national and international policy-makers aiming to promote resilience and sustainability.