Participatory Photography as a Tool to Spark Youth Participation, Empowerment and Active Citizenship

Abstract

From October 18-26, 2022, Vienna-based civil society organisation Cercle Libre - Association for Social Aesthetics implemented ‘Participatory Photography for Youth’, a non-formal learning mobility project funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ program. Under the guidance of a professional photographer, a group of 20 young people from capitals or larger cities in Austria, Armenia, Belarus, Jordan, Ukraine and Turkey gathered in Austria for a week to explore and co-create visual content inspired by the 11 European Youth Goals. The project was designed according to the principles of non-formal education such as learner-centeredness, emphasis on peer-to-peer learning, and critical thinking. It simultaneously served as a case study accompanied by ethnographic research, documenting the creative process of doing participatory photography. The aim of this paper is to put the project in a larger context of urban creativity, participation and active citizenship in order to examine how photography can be used as a tool for young urban global citizens to define and co-create spaces of participation, citizenship and empowerment. Research shows that young people participating in the project have a high motivation to shape their lives and lifeworlds and to strive to increase their level of participation in society. Participatory Photography is a useful medium of empowerment and social learning to raise young people’s awareness on their unique vantage points in order  to highlight potentials for social critique and active citizenship.