Paper Title
Filming the Story with Displaced Indigenous People from Little Saskatchewan First Nation and Lake St. Martin First Nation
Abstract
Research objectives - Engage flood-impacted communities in each phase of participatory video and measure the videos’ knowledge mobilization.
Research methodology – Two films were assessed for process and product outcomes considering nineindicators of participation with flood-impacted community members in each aspect of the film process and sixindicators regarding the film’s outreach and impact.
Key findings - Two First Nations over five years of displacement,due to flooding,weredocumented throughtwo short roughly 20 to 30 minute videos. Each filmhad more than 10people sharingtheir personal stories of the flood and displacement, which were similar across the two communities.Elderssuffering and harsh treatment was made visible to the public, including policy-makers,to cause people to question the rationale of the province for targeting First Nation communities with diverted water without needed supports for them. Community members engaged actively with all aspects of film set-up, production and post-production but avoided the hands-on aspects of filming and editing. The films were downloaded many thousands of times versus a few hundred for paperson the same topic and gained a wide audience through being shown at film festivals, meetings, conferences and community workshops.The YouTube films were quicker to publish than papers and appeared at least a year prior to academic papers despite sharing the same interview data. Policy implications: To effectively mobilize knowledge and influence policy, film seems to bemore effective than journal papers. Being easier to publish than peer-reviewed papers means that important messages can be timely, while reaching a large, diverse audience, to change the conversation and policy around an issue.
Recommendations for future research: More research on the impact of academic research videos should be undertaken to determine how to effectively mobilize academic knowledge for different audiences and subject areas.