In this blogpost Laura Kmoch shares reflections and preliminary results from her first fieldwork for our research unit’s subproject six. Having spent the past months in the project’s study landscapes, she just returned to Kigali – ready to share her experiences with you.
Preliminary results of photovoice research for SP6
The glittering paths of Rwanda
Did you know that Rwanda’s paths and clay houses glitter? Neither did I when approaching Kigali just over five weeks ago. After brief meetings with our colleagues Ping, Verene and William, as well as Beth Kaplin and Venuste Nsengimana from our partner university, Gaelle and I set out to the field in Rwanda’s Western Province. We’d come for data collection in four rural villages that share common traits: Two of them – in Nyabihu District – are lake adjacent, implying wetland access for local residents. The other two – in Rutsiro District – border the Gishwati-Mukura National Park. It is tightly protected and part of a larger UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Research questions and aim
The aim of my fieldwork was to appraise restoration’s contribution to people through the lens of Western Rwanda’s rural residents: How and why do they experience restoration differently, in their everyday lives? Which benefits do they derive from different restoration types? Do detrimental contributions arise, as restoration interventions change their habitual landscapes? And how can restoration’s contributions to people best be classified? These are the questions I’d come to ask.
Laura Kmoch, Jeannette Uwitonze, and Gaelle Ndayizeye during fieldwork in Nyabihu District. Photos: Gaelle Ndayizeye and Honore Bahizi.
Photovoice: Seeing restoration through the lens of rural residents
My strategy of choice was “photovoice” – a participatory research approach, combining photography with semi-structured interviews. I’d never used it before. Fortunately, its implementation proofed to be fun and enriching for everyone involved. Having talked to key informants from each community, my research assistant Jeannette Uwitonze and I settled on the following approach: We met our research participants for initial group discussions, shared our research plans, and distributed tablets that would be used to take photographs. Eight to nine research participants then set out in each village to capture images, illustrating the intersection of restoration with their everyday lives. We met again in the evening to reobtain all tablets, and prepared for two-on-one interviews, through which we engaged with each photographer’s work in subsequent days.
Preliminary results
What about the results of this work, you ask? From a methodological stance, photovoice aims to empower research participants to express their personal concerns and everyday experiences through visual media and accompanying narratives. Shall we see some raw-data examples of what those are?
Title: “Alnus trees preventing soil erosion”
Image explanation:
“You see, this is Alnus trees.”
Beneficial contributions:
“The benefit from this tree – it helps to fix the soil. […] when the rain comes the soil are not falling down.”
“And also, […] it gives me a stick for using [with] the beans.”
“When it grows – becoming bigger – I also get a timber. And that timber [is] used to make furniture, like chairs, table…”
“It is also one to protect the environment. It provides a clean air.”
Evoked feelings:
“I am happy […]. Mostly, when there is much sunny, I [rest] under the trees to relax my mind.”
Title: “Trust”
Image explanation:
“In this picture, you see, there is a cow, a sheep, and me giving grasses. […]. I’m like – a cowboy for others – taking care for their livestock and then they pay me later.”
Detrimental contributions and challenges:
“To find grasses is very difficult.”
Links to restoration:
“There is a connection because this is a planted grasses, and that grasses help to avoid erosion.”
“There is also another connection, because – you see – there is a planted trees around, and that trees help to attract rain.”
“This animals also need rain.”
“Because I don’t have my own land [to] plant this grasses, sometimes I buy it to them […].”
Title: “Nyirakigugu Lake”
Image explanation:
“This is another beauty of this sector – Jenda Sector. […]. I was born in Mukamira, and this lake comes as new. I don’t know where it comes from.”
Beneficial contributions:
“You see that there is many people that are not eating meat. But now […] those who are not eating meat are able to eat fish that are coming from this lake.”
Detrimental contributions:
“There is land – and once this lake grow – all land disappears because of this. It was an agricultural land for people.”
Link to restoration:
“[…] now they have security, because they planted trees around the lake […]. When we didn’t plant that trees – this lake, it will continue to grow.”
Title: “Go up”
Image explanation:
“You see, this is beans. It falls down but the way I used sticks – to pin to the soil – and that beans growing, climbing up.”
Beneficial contributions:
“Even in my life beans […] helps in body building, body protection.”
“When I harvest these beans, I sell it to the market. […]. When I got that money, it helps me with my family. In my family we need to buy clothes. That is the important benefit I get from that bean.”
Links to restoration:
“You see, I use this bamboo as a stick for beans and I planted bamboo at the field too – it is not around my house.”
“I have a land. I make a terracing. And I planted bamboo around the terracing. Around the terrace.”
Reflecting on the photovoice approach
Compared to interview methods that do without visual probes, I thoroughly enjoyed co-generating data for this photovoice project. Similar to walking interviews on community land or farmers’ fields this technique enabled research participants to show – and not just tell us – what they wished to share. For instance, explanations about places we couldn’t reach during one-hour interviews, and restoration practices on land that our interviewees did not own.
Dissipating early-stage fieldwork concerns, all photography equipment was returned to us timely and in good condition, with a sufficient number of images captured by each participant. Older photographers, who’d never before used a smartphone camera, quickly acquired the necessary skills and confidence to take photos on their own. Often following enthusiastic instructions from their young, tech-savvy relatives.
Most research participants also expressed that the captured images evoking feelings of happiness and pride about own land-use achievements, as we reflected upon them. This likely explains interviewees’ eagerness to take all printed images that we prepared for them to their respective homes.
Newly build road (left) and glittering paths (right) in our study area. Photos: Laura Kmoch.
Next steps
With the first fieldwork in Rwanda completed, I’m looking forward to analyzing the co-generated data on interviewees’ perceptions of restoration, and restoration’s contributions to rural life and livelihoods in Western Rwanda.
Ooh, wait! You still want to know about those glittering paths? I haven’t found a satisfying explanation yet. They certainly arise from shiny, thin mineral flakes that are common in the region’s soil environments. But what type of mineral are they? And is their ubiquitous presence linked to volcanic processes in the region?
If you know – or share my interest in restoration benefits and photo-based research, please get in touch. You can reach me by email: laura.kmoch[at]uni-goettingen.de or via X: https://x.com/laurakmoch.
Read more about photovoice and our subproject six activities here:
Huber, J., Bieling, C., Garcia-Martin, M., Plieninger, T., and Torralba, M. (2023). Photovoice: Participatory research methods for sustainability – toolkit #8. GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, Volume 32, Number 4, pp. 386-388(3). https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.32.4.10
Ndayizeye, G. (2024). Plural Values, Rules, and Knowledge in Rural Landscape Restoration: Insights from Rwanda. People, Nature, Landscapes Blog. Medium. https://t.co/DbSSFhpGYV
Vögele, S., Bohn, S., Ndayizeye, G., and Kmoch, L., (2024). Appraising livelihoods, food security, and nature’s contributions to people from restoration landscapes in Western Rwanda. agrar aktuell. Newsletter der Fakultät für Agrarwissenschaften, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. pp. 22-23. https://t1p.de/umyor