Mediating Traditional Ecological Knowledge Through Participatory Documentary: Emerging Educational Strategies for Sustainability in Southern Mexico

Abstract

This article reports the development and use of video materials for the mediating of learning in relation to indigenous knowledge practices in southern Veracruz, Mexico. The case study describes the production of a video on traditional livelihood practices with youth and how sharing the video took participants back to cultural experiences and environmental meaning-making. The dialogical work with video enabled in depth insights that exemplified the knowledge within the context of fishing practices in local wetlands, a practice done mainly by women that had receded and was being lost in modern times. The study found that it was the animated representations and dialogic education processes (discussions) amongst learners in Mother Tongue that surfaced much of the rich detail that then articulated into the local environment context and indigenous sustainability practices to enhance human wellbeing.