“SOU BAIRRISTA”

CREATION OF VIDEO-NARRATIVES ABOUT AND WITH THE RESIDENTS OF BAIRRO HERCULANO

Abstract

 This article is based on an anthropological research, which mobilized participatory audiovisual methodologies, including photo elicitation and participatory video, as strategies for the production of video-narratives, research and analysis of the social and housing context of the community of Bairro Herculano, located in Porto. The participant group for this research included twenty residents, aged between 25 and 81 years old, living in the neighbourhood for over fifty years. The design of audiovisual narratives was an opportunity for the community of this neighbourhood to produce self-representations, and to generate space and meaning for the voices and experiences of its inhabitants, bringing their stories to other public dimensions (Hancox, 2017). The act of narrating “is also to discourse about meanings, to analyse situations. Conversely, to discourse on meanings and analyse is also a form of narrating” (Barros, 2012, p. 8). Participatory audiovisual methodologies enable the study and understanding of diverse places and social realities (Vailati & Godio, 2016). Therefore, the participation of the residents of Bairro Herculano, in the various stages of development of these methodologies, allowed the formation and aggregation of individual and collective perspectives for the construction of video narratives about their place and community.