Edinburgh Napier University

  This paper explores women’s participation in the filmmaking process in participatory community based media production in the Govan area of Glasgow. In this paper I will discuss my ongoing work with older women and in particular discuss the production process of You Play Your Part, a collaborative documentary production about campaigning women on Clydeside. The film and the process of its making, challenges not only representations of older women in film and television but their participation, agency and knowledge and raises questions about practice and processes and techniques of production.

The paper asks ‘How can participatory and collaborative media production techniques enhance the participation and representation of older women?’

I will focus on two aspects the production process and examine ways in which participatory techniques engage and contribute to alternative representations of older women. The first is the use of screenings – during development, production and as a means of distribution and ongoing engagement. Screenings encourage participation by creating dialogic spaces and social situations that provoke and contest memory, reflection and discussion.

The second production technique is a broader approach to production that recognizes and uses networks of relations in which the production process is embedded. The paper emphasizes the networked and ongoing processes of community based media, and the ways in which these relations engage older women, as participants and audiences.

Paper presented at Doing Women’s Film & Television History, Norwich University. Based on research in participatory production and filmmaking with women and older women in Govan, Glasgow