Reflection - Visualisation

Challenge and selection

On a recent project, I was asked to work with a community who lived in a significantly biodiverse area  in South Africa. It was assumed that the community would be happy to take on the mantle of custodian  of the environment, and take measures to protect and conserve it. However, it soon became apparent  that this was not the approach being taken by the community, and the area was under severe  environmental threat. The local municipality sought to engage with community members, in such a  way that members would see the benefit of becoming agents of natural resource management, and  conservation.

Although an anthropologist by profession, it is my background as a graphic designer that has enabled  me to help communities visualise their way into a new way of living. Using various visualisation  techniques has helped me on many occasions to breach the language barrier that is so prevalent in  South Africa, which has 11 official languages. By using visualisation techniques, such as Photovoice,  we are able to better understand the current context of participants, their thoughts and opinions, as  well as their hopes for the future, in a way that pure dialogue would never enable.  Due to the  education system in rural South Africa, many people are not encouraged to think critically, and are  certainly not encouraged to be creative. Visualisation helps them to access creativity, and use parts of  the brain that have grown dormant.

Application

Two visualisation tools were chosen for this project. The first was Photovoice. Volunteers were  selected from the community, and attended an orientation, which described the purpose and  intention of the project. Volunteers then attended a basic photography workshop, and were given  disposable cameras to take home with them. They were asked to take photos that specifically  demonstrated how their environment was under threat, and could include issues such as soil erosion,  waste disposal, water wastage, etc. After two weeks, cameras were collected, photos printed and a  workshop held with volunteers. It was during this phase that challenges arose. Firstly, some cameras  were not returned; being the first and only device of its kind in the household, meant that it grew legs  and went off with the wrong person (never to return). Secondly, some volunteers were threatened as  they were perceived to be “spying on” or invading the privacy of others. Due to recent xenophobic  attacks in the area, people had become understandably sensitive.

During the workshop process, each volunteer took their photos and wrote a short narrative about why  they thought each photo demonstrated environmental degradation. The volunteers presented their  photos to the group and stuck the photos on a large whiteboard. Once all the photos were up, the  participants were asked to group the photos into themes, and then rank the groupings from mild to  severe. This synthesis of information helped to weed out the least problematic issues, and focus on  the main challenges.

The second visualisation tool was the creation of a vision board. The group was given a stack of  magazines and asked to create a vision board of the type of community they aspired to live in, using  pictures from the magazines. Two posters were then created, one of the current situation (what is),  and one of their aspiration community (what if), and this was shared in a community workshop to  develop a community action plan, that the majority agreed upon.

Insight

As always, the findings of the project were a surprise to both the implementers and the participants.  On the one hand, community members shared that a lack of service delivery by the municipality in the  area, encouraged the degradation of the environment. Rubbish was not collected regularly, and  clearance of septic tanks were often left too long. On the other hand, overgrazing of cattle had led to  soil erosion, and vandalism of school properties (such as science labs) had adversely affected school  children. Community members, through the visual process, were able to identify their own actions  that led to degradation, but had also found a way to demonstrate to the municipality that lack of  municipal planning and delivery, had also contributed to the problem. Thus, an opportunity for  dialogue between the two was opened up, in their now mutual aspirations to improve the area.

Approach

In hindsight, more time would have been spent considering the socio-economic factors that might  have arisen and impacted negatively on the project. Issues such as distrust within the community, and  “borrowing” of goods perceived as now belonging to the family, certainly meant less data being  gathered. Other issues, such as the patriarchal hierarchy within the community, meant less women  spoke out in front of men, and perhaps next time, these two groups would be separated, to obtain a  more representative viewpoint.

