Building Feminist Participatory Methodologies for Just Climate Futures
Last week, the IMBRACE team gathered for a 3-day retreat in the peaceful surroundings of Nyam Nyam’s creative space in Mieres, Catalonia with the goal of deepening our collective understanding of feminist participatory methods and co-developing protocols that will shape our upcoming research activities across cities and communities.
The retreat served as both a grounding moment and a dynamic laboratory. We tested, discussed, questioned, and reimagined the tools we plan to use—always centering the needs, realities, and agency of those most affected by climate change and migration.
Why Feminist Methods?
The IMBRACE project’s commitment to feminist participatory approaches stems from a recognition that research must go beyond documentation—it must empower, challenge hierarchies, and create space for co-production of knowledge. We are working at the intersections of climate change, migration, and social justice, and our methods must reflect that complexity with care, humility, and rigor.
Across the retreat, we focused on six main methodological tools: Photovoice, Body Maps, Walk-Alongs, Postcards from the Future, Climate Relief Maps, and the Arena participatory workshops. Below, we share key insights and collective reflections that emerged through engaging with each of these.
Photovoice: Visualizing Vulnerability and Resistance
Our retreat began with a deep dive into Photovoice—a participatory method that allows people to use photography to capture their everyday experiences, focusing on how climate change challenges aspects of their everyday lives. Drawing from past experiences in the Raval Resilient and Good Food projects, we explored the power and challenges of this method.
During this discussion, we tackled practical and ethical dimensions: how to select participants equitably, ensure technological access and provide training, address group dynamics (e.g., potential need for gender-separated sessions), and handle compensation with transparency.
One key learning was the importance of preparing both researchers and participants—technically, emotionally, and ethically. We discussed including training on high-quality photo-taking, digital tools, and data privacy, as well as providing participants with official certificates as co-researchers to ensure their commitment is recognized. Ensuring clarity around outputs—what participants will receive, how their work will be shared, and how their pictures will receive credit in the long term—was also a major theme.
Body Maps: Tracing Emotional Geographies
Next, we explored Body Mapping—an artistic method based on the cuerpo-territorio feminist and decolonial methodological concept, that invites participants to trace their bodily experiences of displacement, environmental change, and memory. We here switched from researchers to participants, with the guidance of research-based artist Dennis Dizon. This method brought up strong emotions, both in the practice and in our reflections.
Concerns arose about how to facilitate this sensitive process of unearthing memory, and potentially trauma, and how to navigate a group dynamic where participants might not feel comfortable sharing what they felt or what they produced graphically as an outcome of their reflections. What is the level of permanence of what participants commit to paper? Could drawings be erased or modified? Should we allow time to reflect before drawing? We discussed layering prompts (e.g., past/present/future or migration vs. climate) and creating space for participants to choose their own focus and navigate this emotional process, treating their experiences with care and not merely as “data.”
Facilitators must be especially attentive to participants’ comfort—offering quiet exits, controlling auditory stimuli, and clearly explaining the process to avoid surprises. We questioned whether the session might be less intimidating if participants led parts of the process themselves.
Ultimately, we recognized the body map not just as a method but as an unfolding conversation—multistage, flexible, and participant-centered.
Walk-Alongs: Researching on the Move
The Walk-Along method sparked animated discussion, especially regarding its flexibility and its potential to be used in combination with other methods. This approach invites participants to lead researchers through spaces that hold meaning for them, generating insights that a sit-down interview could never surface.
Yet, the method is not without risks: some participants may feel unsafe walking through public spaces, or physically be unable to join. We talked about offering alternatives, such as walking indoors, as well as using digital tools like clip-on microphones to reduce note-taking burdens.
A powerful takeaway was that the walk-along is not just a data collection method—it’s a relational experience that can reveal the emotional textures of place, alienation, and belonging. However, we must be ready to relinquish control and follow the participant’s lead, both literally and methodologically.
Postcards from the Future: Imagination as Resistance
Postcards from the Future allowed us to flex our imaginative muscles. We, again acting as participants, envisioned ourselves in different places and times, reflecting on personal futures shaped by climate adaptation, policy, or migration.
We saw the method’s potential to surface collective imaginaries, intergenerational memory, and aspirations. Participants drew scenes that were deeply personal—memories of floods in the Philippines, desires for energy justice in Liverpool—and yet globally resonant.
This method sparked ideas about trans-city sharing, where participants’ postcards could be exchanged or displayed, creating networks of solidarity. But we also acknowledged that prompts and facilitation must be carefully designed to avoid re-traumatization or assumptions about linear futures.
Climate Relief Maps: From Heat to Healing
Climate Relief Maps—adapted from Relief Maps methodology—proved both technically rich and ethically demanding. The method invites participants to map physical and emotional responses to climate conditions, in specific spaces in the city and of their everyday lives, and through the lens of intersectionality, layering sensory and symbolic data.
Discussing a pilot application that some team members have led in Berlin and for the case of heatwaves, we appreciated the method’s ability to anonymize sensitive input, giving participants autonomy over their level of disclosure. Still, significant barriers exist: language accessibility, recruitment without gatekeeping by NGOs, and the challenge of translating abstract concepts like intersectionality into intuitive visual tools.
As always, “giving back” was central. Ideas included distributing comfort maps, policy briefs, or even guides on navigating local services in times of climate distress or emergency.
One suggestion was especially resonant for this as well as for other methods: co-producing a list of resources tailored to migrants, including their rights relating to different uses of spaces in the city, a list of organizations that help with legal issues and overall support for migrants in each city, and resources related to healthcare access, as well as practical communication tools such as forums and discussion boards or social media accounts that can offer useful information and support.
The Arena: Building Participatory Knowledge
The final method we discussed was the Arena—a deliberative workshop model the IMBRACE project will be applying, in its first transdisciplinary gathering this June 2025, that will focus on the drivers of climate-related health vulnerability. Here, the conversation turned to facilitation dynamics, interactive exhibition planning, and ensuring the process is as participatory as the content.
We explored ways to flip traditional hierarchies, allowing participants to shape the agenda, lead parts of the discussion, and co-curate outputs. These workshops are envisioned as spaces not just for reflection but for action, advocacy, and community-building.
Ethical Grounding: Beyond Formal Consent
No feminist methodology is complete without a robust ethical framework. A dedicated session tackled consent, anonymity, and participant vulnerability in depth.
We agreed that informed consent must be a process, not a form—ongoing, dialogical, and multilingual. With asylum seekers or undocumented participants, traditional anonymity may not be enough. Composite narratives, rather than direct quotes, can protect identities while preserving voice.
We also emphasized sharing results and authorship: co-writing with participants where possible, presenting findings back to them, and inviting feedback at every stage. Compensation is necessary, but it’s not enough—we need to give back through training, exhibitions, certificates, and real community value.
As a continuation of this process, we will host an online event with expert researchers working on questions of migration, epistemic justice, and political ecology, in July 2025.
All photos by Eva Camus.
