This is a Participatory Action Research project in Aoufous, Morocco that seeks to use co-produced creative strategies to understand gender issues in Morocco and the Indigenous Amazigh culture, specifically in terms of the management of the impact of climate change.
Seeing Change was awarded the Emerald Publishing 'Real Impact Interdisciplinary Research Fund Award' the grant exists to find an innovative project that promotes action towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, through collaboration of disciplines, methodology and research in order to deliver real world impact.
The research team is made up of:
Tom Martin, a Humanitarian photographer and lecturer at the University of Lincoln; Michelle Walsh, senior lecturer and photovoice practitioner at the University of Lincoln; Dr Kaya Davies Hayon, a lecturer in Francophone Maghrebi Culture at the Open University; Dr Fadma Aït-Mous, an assistant professor of sociology at the University Hassan II, Morocco and UK mentor, Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, a distinguished professor at University of Lincoln.
The judges said of the winning submission “We were able to see clearly how the project addresses key challenges in gender equality and political participation, and how collaboration between different disciplines shaped its methods and outputs. We were impressed that the project sets out to work with a hard-to-reach group, using creative participatory visual methods to make their voices heard. The team’s partnership with local NGO ECEP suggested the potential for real change resulting from this project. Importantly, we felt the award could make a significant difference to this project and the dissemination of its findings, helping it to achieve real impact”.
Using creative, performative and narrative modes, the local Amazigh women created images that visualise how they live and experience the desertification of their land, with emphasis placed on the far-reaching consequences of climate change on their daily lives.
In particular, the images highlight the impact of the events of the “burning day” in August 2020 when extensive wildfires destroyed 15 kilometres of palm date groves in the Ziz Valley. The women equate the significance of the “burning day” not just with the immediate loss of extensive date tree groves, but with a wider pattern of climate destruction in the region.
Their images convey narratives about the broader effects of rising temperatures and limited rainfall on their daily existence and livelihoods, encompassed through visual representations of drought (dry riverbanks, arid landscapes), the impossibility of maintaining small herds of goats for milk and meat (crop failures, dwindling livestock), and the challenges associated with accessing water resources and using traditional methods of farming (dry wells, machines no longer in use).
As a solution, the women collectively propose the revival and refurbishment of their village cooperative as a locally grounded, female-led, means to counteract the immediate impacts of climate change in their community.
The images are accompanied by short captions created by the women themselves. These captions bring the women's voices into the conversation and help articulate, in their own words, the issues affecting their community. Through this image-text formulation, the project shows how profoundly climate change is changing traditional ways of living and advocates for support for the women’s solution of a cooperative. More broadly, it constitutes a powerful call for a more sustainable future for all Indigenous peoples (and especially women) through initiatives like the cooperative that foster greater economic sustainability and enhance the resilience of communities in the face of climate change-induced challenges.
Despite contributing the least to human-induced changes in the climate, Indigenous peoples are often the primary victims of climate change (UN, 2008). This is true for the Indigenous Amazigh people of Morocco who often live in remote rural areas and who rely heavily on their relationship with the environment and its resources for survival.
Already disempowered by factors such as their geographical, linguistic and economic marginalisation, Amazigh people are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change, including extreme temperatures, droughts and adverse weather events such as the recent 6.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Morocco in September 2023. Amazigh women often find themselves at the forefront of debates around climate disasters.
Whereas Amazigh men are often more able to move to urban centres in Morocco (or even further afield) for employment, women often remain tied to the land, in part because of gendered and cultural beliefs around women’s role in Amazigh communities, in part because of a deep and historic connection with the land, and in part because the older generation in particular struggles with high levels of illiteracy (Sadiqi 2012).
Drawing on the creative photographic output of a group of Indigenous Amazigh women from rural Morocco, the project seeks to intervene into debates on gender, climate change, social justice and Indigenous peoples. It presents a compelling visual analysis of the deterioration of natural resources and environments so critical to the survival of Amazigh women and their communities, in the process advocating for local, community-led, and women-centred solutions to climate disasters.
This project is directly linked to the sustainable development goals around gender equality (5), sustainable communities (11) and climate action (13), and will be highly relevant to a number of international discussion forums including COP 2024.
While defining the aims of the project, the women were invited to choose any topic or issue of personal significance to them. Participants unanimously decided the project should focus on the far-reaching consequences of climate change on their daily lives.
In particular, they wanted to focus on the events of the “burning day” in August 2020, when extensive wildfires destroyed 15 kilometres of palm date groves in the Ziz Valley. The significance of the “burning day” extends beyond the immediate loss of these extensive date tree groves. It resonates deeply because it marked the second such catastrophic fire within a span of two years.
In July 2019 wildfires in the same location had destroyed more than 2,540 palm trees and more than 1,500 olive trees. In addition to the significant loss of their primary agricultural crop on the “burning day”, the women wished to convey narratives about the broader effects of rising temperatures on their daily existence and livelihoods. These encompassed issues such as drought, the practical impossibility of maintaining small herds of goats or other livestock for milk and meat due to crop failures, and challenges associated with accessing water resources.
The images made by the participants are accompanied by short captions created by the women themselves. These captions bring the women’s voices into the conversation and help articulate, in the women’s own words, the issues affecting their community.
The next phase of this project is to create an image-led photo book aimed primarily at policymakers and international development audiences that examines the impact of climate change on Indigenous Amazigh women in rural Morocco. Following this an academic article will be produced that reviews the effectiveness of the approach, and its impact.
Chapter 1- Village Life Before The Burning
Gate to village, this is the entrance to the village. You enter the village and see the dryness.
Woman carrying water. She is performing before when she used to bring water from the river. But it is just performing, it is not possible any more. (I loved doing this because it brought back memories for us)
Woman tending to crops. Before the dryness life was beautiful. We looked for areas there is still green and the pictures are set there. This is showing us it was beautiful, it was green before.
Zara with her goats, on the burning day everyone ran from the fire and fled the mountain and took only phones and basic things but I could not leave my goat. ‘I will burn with my goats’
Women carrying sacks on back. Because there is no water we used to bring the food for the animals but here we just pick some very small things
We are performing, she is on the road to her co-op. This is the original door to the village and we close the door at night and open it in morning so everyone is safe inside.
She has come back from collecting dates and now she is at home making bread.
Chapter 2 - The Dryness
Cracked earth. Once upon a time... I want to tell you the story of this valley and the women of this valley
River bed and bridge. This is showing the river completely dried. There is no water anymore.
Fire, it happened in may this year. We tried to shut out the fire, just the women between us, but the men were so late when they came we already had half the work done.
Then the fire. This is a burnt tree. (this is where the burning day started)
This is the dry well. There is no water any more. It is dry just this year, it used to have water in it until this last year.
Branch drooping down, showing the dryness.
Woman on path. Dryness, then the fire.
Chapter 3 - Praying For Rain
Chapter 4 - The Co-operative
This is the door to the co-op. It is her home. We don’t work anymore in this place because it needs to be fixed. We need the co-op even more now (after the burning) but we cannot fix the co-op because we need money to fix it.
Woman with bread on head
Final products. Even with very traditional tools we try to make things. These are our finished products, but if the place is fixed and we have more money we will have more products, more good products.