Participatory video as protest methodology: Student activists reaffirm the social dimension of sustainability in South African universities

Abstract

In this article, we unpack the motifs of two participatory videos created by 12 African student activists at the University of the Free State, who were co-researchers in the ‘Universities as Sustainable Communities’ project (2021-2023). While one video highlights the importance of activism and collective action, the other underscores the values of togetherness and unity for transforming universities into sustainable communities. Both videos demonstrate what is possible when students are enabled, through participatory research, to exercise their political, epistemic and narrative capabilities and agency freedom in a different way. Importantly, the motifs echo the principles espoused in the African moral philosophy of Ubuntu and the African political philosophy of Ujamaa to reaffirm the importance of the social dimension of sustainability in South African universities.

Keywords: universities, student activists, participatory research, social sustainability