Participatory digital learning with fishing communities: Malawi-Scotland stories

By applying participatory digital methods with young people of fishing communities in Malawi, the project explores lived experiences with water bodies shaping environments and livelihoods. The novelty is interdisciplinary and participatory in nature enabling storytelling through arts and augmented realities. Centring young people, who are often marginalized, this project links the present through local perspectives, to the future by learning best practices from indigenous strategies. Findings will benefit Malawi-Scotland knowledge exchange about human-water relations, sustainability, climate change, aquatic ecology, and more.

The study will draw from 10 young people (12-21 years) from two Lake Chilwa communities by collecting data through arts, digital exploration, and participatory workshops. Arts-informed data will be translated into augmented reality tools co-designed with young Malawians and disseminated in Scotland. This achieves a decolonial dissemination agenda by shifting the power of knowledge sharing from the traditional approaches of Global North ‘teaching’ Global South.