NEWEST DRADT HARKIS

[Allahkarim33]

condence this text:
Participatory documentary is appropriate because the project is not only asking what participants say about memory and belonging. It is asking how they make representational decisions. Film can register pacing, hesitation, gesture, tone, domestic space, objects, photographs, code-switching, avoidance and refusal in ways that transcripts alone may flatten (MacDougall, 2006; Pink, 2013; Rose, 2016).
At the same time, film cannot transparently reveal inner truth. It always involves framing, selection, editing and interpretation. The thesis will therefore treat documentary-making as a negotiated knowledge practice, not as direct access to participants’ private memory.
These phases reflect participatory research principles by involving participants not only as sources of testimony, but as contributors to decisions about scenes, objects, locations, language, anonymity, subtitles and circulation.

[Allahkarim33]

evaluate the outline against the Panel review recommendations:

Outline: Integrated Final Review Response and Revised Proposal
Proposed title
Articulating Memory and Belonging: Participatory Documentary with Third-Generation Harki Descendants in France

1. Rationale and Contribution
   This practice-based PhD examines how third-generation Harki descendants in contemporary France inherit, negotiate, rework or distance themselves from a contested family and public past. The project emerges from my previous BBC documentary work with first-generation Harkis in 2018. I was raised and educated in Algeria, where Harkis were often framed through a dominant public language of betrayal and treason. However, filming first-generation Harkis complicated that inherited framing by bringing me into contact with accounts of coercion, abandonment, displacement, camp life, stigma, survival and uneven recognition.
   The PhD, therefore, begins from a filmmaker-researcher problem: how can a morally and politically charged history be researched without reproducing inherited stereotypes, exposing participants to harm, or treating the film merely as illustration?
   In this study, the Harki case is not treated here as a general migrant identity case or a simple family-history topic. It is a specific Franco-Algerian postcolonial memory field shaped by the consequences of the Algerian War, the post-1962 displacement of Harki families to France, camps and segregated settlements, delayed French state recognition, and the persistence of stigma in both French and Algerian public narratives (Crapanzano, 2011; Eldridge, 2016; Moumen, 2011).
   Participatory methods have been demonstrated to be particularly appropriate for this kind of projects because the research concerns a sensitive and historically stigmatised community whose memories cannot simply be extracted through conventional interviews. Scher et al. (2023) emphasise that participatory research requires attention to trust, power, ethical relationships, participant involvement and the conditions under which knowledge is produced. In this project, this means that participants’ decisions about what to narrate, film, hide, translate, anonymise, review or remove are not only ethical safeguards, but also central research data.
   The project asks how these inherited memories shape belonging. Belonging here is not treated as a fixed identity or as a test of whether someone “identifies as Harki.” It is treated as a negotiated practice: how participants claim, question, protect or refuse their place within family, community, France and the wider Franco-Algerian memory field.
   The contribution is threefold:
2. Empirical: it offers a people-centred account of third-generation Harki descendants’ everyday memory and belonging practices.
3. Conceptual: it examines memory and belonging as postcolonial practices shaped by stigma, silence, recognition and inherited histories.
4. Methodological: it shows how participatory documentary can generate knowledge about what participants choose to narrate, show, mask, subtitle, review or keep off camera.
5. Research Questions
   The main research question is:
   How can participatory documentary generate knowledge about how third-generation Harki descendants in contemporary France negotiate memory and belonging?
   The subsidiary research questions are:
6. How do third-generation Harki descendants engage with, silence, rework or distance themselves from inherited Harki memory?
7. How do these memory practices shape belonging within family, community, France and the wider Franco-Algerian memory field?
8. How can participatory documentary, using trust-building, layered consent and participant review, produce ethically responsible knowledge about memory and belonging in a stigmatised post-conflict community?
   These questions are designed to be answered through the documentary process itself. The project is not only interested in what participants say in interviews. It is also interested in what they choose to film, refuse, revise, anonymise, translate, subtitle or remove.
9. Conceptual Framework: Memory, Belonging and Audio Visual Practice
   This project uses two core concepts: memory and belonging. Other terms, including postmemory, silence, naming, voice, recognition and visibility, are used as supporting analytical terms rather than separate conceptual frameworks.
   Memory
   Memory is understood not as a fixed record of the past, but as a social and cultural practice through which people, families, communities and institutions make the past meaningful in the present. Memory is produced through stories, silences, photographs, objects, commemorations, archives, family habits and public narratives (Assmann, 2011; Erll, 2011; Olick & Robbins, 1998).
   For this project, Harki memory is therefore not simply a set of historical facts about the Algerian War. It is made and remade through family talk, avoided conversations, altered names, photographs, commemorative events, association work, state ceremonies, media debates and decisions about visibility. A family’s refusal to speak may be as meaningful as a public testimony because both shape how the past is carried into the present.
   From a postcolonial perspective, memory is shaped by power because not all versions of the past are equally heard, preserved or legitimised. Trouillot (1995) argues that silences enter the production of history at different stages, including the making of sources, archives, narratives and public recognition. This means that memory is never neutral: it is shaped by who has authority to speak, whose testimony is believed, whose suffering is recognised, and whose past is dismissed or stigmatised.
   This is particularly important in the Harki case because their memory has been produced within competing Franco-Franco and Franco-Algerian narratives. In France, Harkis have often been framed through military loyalty, abandonment, delayed recognition and integration into the Republic, yet, they are frown upon by the non-Harki members of the Algerian diaspora in France (Sims, 2015; Enjelvin & Korac-Kakabadse, 2012) In Algeria, they have often been associated with betrayal of the nationalist struggle. It gets more entangled for the Harkis, however, for their past may be remembered differently within families: through coercion, poverty, survival, silence, shame, pride, grief or protection. Eldridge (2009) shows that Harki memory has often been shaped by external narratives from governments, veterans, pieds-noirs and other actors who claimed to speak on behalf of Harkis, while Harki children later sought recognition of their parents’ sacrifices and suffering.
   For this project, this means that a third-generation descendant’s memory cannot be treated simply as a personal recollection. It is shaped by wider struggles over recognition, stigma and legitimacy. For example, if a participant avoids the word “Harki,” refuses to show a family name, or asks for a scene to be removed, this may not mean that memory is absent. It may show how postcolonial power still affects what can be safely spoken, filmed, translated or publicly acknowledged.
   In terms of Postmemory is used here as part of memory, not as a separate framework. Hirsch (2012) uses the term to explain how later generations can be shaped by events they did not directly experience, through stories, images, behaviours, objects and emotional transmission. In this project, postmemory helps explain how third-generation Harki descendants may inherit the effects of war, exile, camp life or stigma without having lived through those events themselves.
   For example, a participant may never have visited a Harki camp, but may know that their grandparent lived there. They may not possess a complete family narrative, but may have grown up with fragments: a missing photograph, a grandmother’s silence, a father’s anger, a changed name, or a family rule not to discuss Algeria. These fragments are not treated as gaps in memory. They are part of how memory is transmitted.
   Silence is therefore treated as a memory practice, not as an absence of data. Connerton’s (2008) work on “humiliated silence” shows that silence can be linked to shame and social injury, while Trouillot (1995) argues that silences are produced through power and historical narration. Kidron’s (2009) ethnography of descendants of Holocaust survivors is also useful because it shows how the past can be transmitted through tacit, non-verbal and everyday practices. In the Harki context, silence may protect relatives, avoid stigma, signal pain, maintain family peace, or resist being forced to perform a public identity (Crapanzano, 2011; Eldridge, 2009).
   The filming process can show forms of memory that may not appear in a conventional interview transcript because film records embodied, sensory and relational details: pauses, tone, gesture, facial expression, spatial arrangement, objects, sound, language and editing decisions. MacDougall (2006) argues that ethnographic film works through embodied and sensory knowledge, while Heath et al. (2010) show that video in qualitative research, especially in social dealings, allows close analysis of interaction and everyday conduct. Casetti (2009) is also useful because he defines ‘filmic experience’ as more than reception: film affects the senses while also producing recognition and understanding. In this project, a pause before saying “Harki,” a refusal to film a family member, a decision to keep Franch/Arabic /Darja /Kabyle untranslated, or a request to remove a sentence during rough-cut review are therefore not secondary details. They are part of the research data because they show how memory is negotiated through body, voice, image, language and control over representation.
   Belonging
   Yuval-Davis distinguishes between belonging as a lived emotional attachment and the politics of belonging as a struggle over boundaries, membership and power. Belonging means feeling “at home” and “safe”, but it becomes politically visible when that sense of belonging is threatened. She argues that belonging must be studied on three connected levels: social location, meaning where people are placed within structures such as class, gender, race, religion, nationality or legal status; identification and emotional attachment, meaning the personal and collective stories through which people define who they are; and ethical and political values, meaning the moral judgements used to decide who is seen as legitimate, loyal, civilized, dangerous or foreign. The politics of belonging is therefore not only symbolic; it also affects citizenship, status, rights, welfare, protection and participation. Political projects construct belonging by selecting certain markers, including origin, blood, place of birth, language, culture, religion, values or loyalty, and turning them into tests of membership. This is especially useful for analysing media and geopolitics, because newspapers, states and television channels often help define who appears as “one of us” and who is framed as a threat, burden, victim, outsider or suspect. For example, migrants, Muslims, Palestinians or postcolonial communities may legally belong to a society, yet still be represented as culturally or politically outside it. In simple terms, belonging is the feeling of being part of a home; the politics of belonging is the struggle over who has the power to decide who may call that home theirs.
   This distinction is important for third-generation Harki descendants because belonging may be felt differently across members of this group, family, community, France and Algeria. A participant may feel fully French in everyday life, but still feel uneasy when the Harki past is mentioned. Another may feel culturally connected to Algeria, but unable to claim that connection openly because the Harki label remains politically charged. Belonging is therefore not treated as a stable identity, but as something negotiated through name, language, family history, silence, stigma and public recognition.
   From a postcolonial perspective, belonging is shaped by colonial groupings and their afterlives. Harki descendants may be legally French and born in France, yet inherit a family history marked by colonial war, accusation, displacement and uneven recognition. Hall (1990) is useful here because he understands identity not as fixed essence, but as something produced through history, representation and difference. Bhabha (1994) also helps frame belonging as ambivalent, especially where colonial histories disturb simple national categories. In the Harki case, this means descendants may live between French public belonging, Algerian family memory, and the inherited stigma attached to the Harki name.
   This project will study belonging through concrete practices rather than abstract identity claims. These practices may include whether participants use or avoid the word “Harki,” whether they disclose the family history to friends, whether they attend national Harki commemorations, whether they speak French, Arabic/Darja or Kabyle, whether they keep a family name visible, and whether they want to appear on camera. For example, a participant may reject the label “Harki” not because the past is irrelevant, but because they do not want their belonging reduced to inherited accusation, or they do not understand it properly.
   The participatory documentary method allows belonging to be studied as something performed, protected (by rights) and negotiated. Interviews may reveal what participants say about belonging, but film can also show how belonging appears through space, language, gesture, hesitation, objects and visibility. A participant who chooses to be filmed in a family kitchen rather than at a public memorial may be showing that belonging is felt more strongly in intimate family space than in official recognition. A participant who speaks French on camera but switches into Arabic/Darja/Kabyle with an older relative may show belonging as layered and situational.
   This matters for the thesis contribution because it moves the study beyond asking whether descendants “identify as Harki.” Instead, it examines how belonging is made, refused, hidden, claimed or revised in practice. The project can therefore show how third-generation Harki descendants negotiate belonging within a postcolonial memory field where legal citizenship, family history, public stigma and emotional attachment do not always align.
   Visual Practice as a Conceptual and Epistemological Framework
   In this thesis, visual practice refers to the idea that documentary filmmaking is not only a method of recording participants’ accounts, but also a way of producing knowledge through image, sound, gesture, silence, space, editing, translation and participant review. It is therefore both a conceptual and an epistemological framework. Conceptually, it helps define what counts as meaningful material in the study. Epistemologically, visual practice explains how documentary filmmaking produces knowledge rather than merely records it. In this project, knowledge is generated through the interactions, negotiations and decisions that occur during filming, editing, translation and participant review. Epistemologically, visual practice shows that knowledge is produced through the documentary process itself. Filming, editing, subtitling and participant review do not simply represent memory and belonging; they reveal how participants convey what can be spoken, shown, hidden, translated or withheld. For example, a participant may choose to film a walk through their neighbourhood while describing feeling “ordinary” and French, but later ask for a street sign or building entrance to be removed because it could identify their family. This request is not just an ethical adjustment; it becomes research evidence. It shows how belonging can be publicly lived while Harki memory remains carefully protected.

This is important for a practice-based PhD because the film is not simply an illustration of written findings. Candy (2006) argues that practice-based research produces “new knowledge partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice” (p. 3). The film is therefore not a secondary output. It is part of the research evidence and part of the original contribution. Candy also stresses that in practice-based doctoral research, the written thesis must contextualise the creative work so that the contribution is accessible and auditable to scholarly peers (Candy, 2006). This is directly relevant because the thesis must explain how the documentary produces knowledge about Harki memory and belonging, rather than assuming that the film “speaks for itself.”
Visual practice also matters because inherited memory and belonging may not always appear as clear verbal testimony. Baumann et al. (2020) describe collaborative filmmaking as an embodied, participatory and visual research method that can provide insight into practices, relationships and spaces that are difficult to capture through conventional methods. For this project, that means a pause before saying “Harki,” a refusal to film a family member, a request to blur a face, a choice to film a family object rather than speak directly, or a decision to keep French/Arabic/Darja/Kabyle untranslated are not minor production details. They are forms of data because they show how participants manage memory, risk, visibility and belonging.
Film can produce knowledge through what is embodied, affective, spatial and relational. MacDougall (2006) is useful here because his work on ethnographic film shows how images can carry sensory, bodily and social meanings that written accounts may not fully capture. Austin’s (2024) article uses filmed interviews with survivors of Algeria’s 1990s civil war to show that memories of political violence are expressed not only through words but also through gesture, body language and affect, shaping what the author calls “conflict imaginaries”: shared, emotionally charged ways of making sense of violence and its legacy in the present.
In this thesis, that matters because Harki community has been stigmitised for too long and members of it of the third generations may consciously or unconsciously communicate its/their memory through hesitation, tone, gesture, domestic space, family photographs, silences and visual absence, not only through direct speech.
4. Research Design and Methodology
The research is qualitative, interpretative and practice-based. Participatory documentary is the central method, supported by conversational interviews, workshops, fieldnotes, filming logs, translation notes, editing notes and participant review sessions. These are not separate methods added together. They are stages of one documentary research process.
The project will begin with approximately 8–12 potential participants, recruited through trusted community routes, including existing Harki individuals and association contacts which the researcher kept since the BBC documentary and new ones established for the purpose of this PhD. From this wider group, 3–5 focal participants will be selected for deeper filmed collaboration.
Following Scher et al. (2023), participation is understood as a staged and relational process rather than a one-off act of data collection. Trust-building, participant involvement, ethical flexibility and attention to power will therefore shape recruitment, workshop design, filming, review sessions and dissemination.
The fieldwork will unfold in five linked phases.
Phase 1: Ethics preparation, access-building and pilot work
This phase prepares formal ethics approval and safeguards before recruitment or filming, then builds access carefully and tests whether the project is clear, safe and feasible.
The main risks are identification through face, voice, name, location or family material; emotional distress; family tension; stigma; unwanted circulation of images; and pressure to disclose more than participants wish.
Staged consent will be guaranteed to all participants, meaning they can make separate decisions about interviews, filming, face, voice, name, family objects, subtitles, masking, circulation, review and withdrawal.
Example: A participant may agree to an interview but not to being filmed, or may allow filming only if their face is hidden and the footage is reviewed before use.
Phase 2: Conversational interviews and introductory workshop
This phase creates a safe (open discussion about concerns and boundaries) space to explore memory, belonging, language and concerns about visibility without requiring participants to commit to filming.
Example: A participant may describe family silence around the word “Harki” while also explaining that they are unsure whether this should appear on camera.
Phase 3: Collaborative development workshop
This phase allows participants to help (contribute with preferences within approved ethics and academic requirements of the PhD) shape the film’s form by discussing possible scenes, objects, locations, languages, names and levels of anonymity.
Example: Participants may decide that a family photograph, a kitchen conversation or a commemorative site is more appropriate than a formal interview.
Phase 4: Participatory filming
This phase records agreed scenes (impractical, unsafe or ethically unsuitable, an alternative academically appropriate and ethically approved option will be used) in which memory and belonging are expressed through speech, objects, places, language, silence or indirect forms of storytelling.
Example: A participant may choose to film a family object or meaningful location rather than speak directly to camera about the Harki past.
Phase 5: Review and re-edit sessions
This phase gives participants the opportunity (but academic requirements and analytical integrity will be respectfully upheld) to review footage, subtitles and rough cuts, making consent ongoing while also revealing how memory and belonging are negotiated after filming.
Example: A participant may ask to remove a name, blur a face or change a subtitle because the material feels too identifiable or emotionally exposed.
Participatory documentary is appropriate because the project is not only asking what participants say about memory and belonging. It is asking how they make representational decisions. Film can register pacing, hesitation, gesture, tone, domestic space, objects, photographs, code-switching, avoidance and refusal in ways that transcripts alone may flatten (MacDougall, 2006; Pink, 2013; Rose, 2016).
At the same time, film cannot transparently reveal inner truth. It always involves framing, selection, editing and interpretation. The thesis will therefore treat documentary-making as a negotiated knowledge practice, not as direct access to participants’ private memory.
These phases reflect participatory research principles by involving participants not only as sources of testimony, but as contributors to decisions about scenes, objects, locations, language, anonymity, subtitles and circulation.
5. Data and Analysis
The research data will include:
• conversational interviews;
• workshop discussions;
• filmed scenes;
• observational fieldnotes;
• production logs;
• participant-led choices of locations, objects and photographs;
• translation and subtitling notes;
• editing decisions;
• rough-cut review sessions;
• participant feedback;
• my reflexive field diary as filmmaker-researcher.
The analysis will combine three linked approaches.

1. Reflexive thematic analysis
   Reflexive thematic analysis will identify recurring patterns across interviews, workshops, fieldnotes and review sessions (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2022). The analysis will focus on themes such as inherited memory, silence, stigma, belonging, disclosure, language, visibility and control over representation.
   For example, if several participants describe avoiding the word “Harki,” this may be analysed as a theme of guarded disclosure. If others speak openly but request anonymity, this may show a tension between voice and risk.

2. Multimodal visual analysis
   Multimodal visual analysis will examine how meaning is produced through framing, setting, gesture, posture, facial expression, objects, photographs, voice, silence, subtitles and editing choices (Rose, 2016). This matters because memory and belonging may appear visually or affectively, not only verbally.
   For example, a participant may say very little about belonging, but choose to be filmed in a family home surrounded by photographs. Another may speak confidently in an interview but become hesitant when asked whether their family name can appear on screen. These visual and embodied moments will be analysed as part of the data.

3. Reflexive practice analysis
   Reflexive practice analysis will examine my role as filmmaker-researcher. This includes decisions about access, camera position, framing, editing, translation, anonymisation, consent and participant review. The aim is not to pretend that power disappears through participation. Instead, the analysis will show how power is negotiated, shared, limited or retained during the filmmaking process.
   For example, if I frame a participant in a certain way and they later ask for the shot to be changed, that negotiation becomes analytically important. It shows how the film is not simply made by me or by them, but through an unequal and negotiated process.
   Together, these three approaches will show how memory and belonging are not only spoken about, but also performed, protected, translated, edited, refused or withheld through documentary practice.

4. Positionality, Power, Language and Ethics of Care
   My position is central to the project. My Algerian background gives me linguistic and cultural knowledge, and my previous BBC work gives me access and film expertise. These are strengths, but they also create risks. I may carry assumptions shaped by Algerian public memory, especially around the framing of Harkis as traitors. My professional filmmaking experience also gives me power over camera position, selection, editing, subtitles and final interpretation.
   The project will address this through reflexive practice. I will keep a field diary and production log, use supervisory debriefs, and document key decisions about access, framing, translation, anonymisation and editing. This will allow the thesis to analyse my role rather than hide it.
   Participation will not mean that participants write the thesis findings or fully control the film. That would overstate co-production and create confusion about academic responsibility. Instead, participants will have meaningful control over identifiable representation. This includes whether they are filmed, whether their face or voice is used, where filming takes place, whether family materials are shown, whether pseudonyms or masking are used, and whether specific material can circulate beyond the research context.
   Ethics of care guides the research. Care means more than a signed consent form. It means attending to vulnerability, pacing, trust, emotional labour, power imbalance and the future circulation of images (An & Witt, 2022; Guillemin & Heggen, 2009; Tronto, 1993).
   Participants will not be required to publicly identify as Harki. Uncertainty, distance, refusal or limited knowledge of family history will be treated as potentially important findings rather than recruitment failures. For example, a participant who says, “I don’t really know much about this history,” may still reveal how memory has been interrupted, avoided or made difficult to access.
   Participants will be offered layered consent. This means separate decisions for interview participation, filming, use of face, use of voice, use of family materials, subtitles, edit review, screening and archiving. Participants may pause, withdraw, request masking, restrict circulation, or ask for identifiable material to be removed before public use.
   Language is also a site of power. Participants may move between French, Arabic/Darja, Kabyle and English. Translation and subtitling will therefore be treated as analytic and ethical decisions, not neutral technical processes. Where possible, key terms, hesitations, code-switching and culturally specific meanings will be discussed during review sessions so subtitles do not erase ambiguity, emotion or participant agency.
   For example, a participant may use a word in Arabic/Darja that has no direct English equivalent. Rather than flattening it into a simple subtitle, the project may retain the original word, use a partial translation, or discuss with the participant how they want it represented. This makes translation part of the research, not just a technical task.
   From a participatory perspective, visual practice is also about power. The camera can expose participants, but it can also give them opportunities to shape how they are represented. Scher et al. (2023) emphasise that participatory research requires attention to trust-building, power, participant involvement, ethical responsiveness and knowledge exchange. In this project, these principles are applied through staged consent, participant-led scene choices, options for anonymity or masking, translation discussions and rough-cut review. These processes do not remove the researcher’s authority, but they make representational power visible and negotiable.
   For third-generation Harki descendants, this framework is especially relevant because the inherited past may be fragmented, sensitive or only partially known. A participant may not have a complete narrative of a grandparent’s Harki past, but may still express its effects through discomfort around a surname, reluctance to appear on camera, attachment to a family photograph, or a decision to speak in one language rather than another. Visual practice allows the thesis to study these moments as meaningful. It shows how memory and belonging are not only narrated, but also shown, withheld, translated, edited, reviewed and sometimes refused.
   The contribution of this framework is that it makes the documentary process itself analytically central. It allows the thesis to examine not only what participants say about Harki memory and belonging, but how they negotiate the conditions under which that memory can become visible. Visual practice therefore supports the originality of the PhD by showing that participatory documentary can generate knowledge about postcolonial memory through image, sound, silence, translation, editing and participant control over representation.

5. Revised Timeline
   May–June 2026: Revise proposal, finalise research design, update ethics documents and pilot materials.
   July–December 2026: Access-building, recruitment, pilot interviews and one pilot workshop; refine consent and filming protocols.
   January–August 2027: Core interviews, participatory workshops and collaborative filming with 3–5 focal participants, families or participant groups.
   September–December 2027: Logging, transcription, translation/subtitling memos and first participant review sessions.
   January–August 2028: Reflexive thematic analysis, multimodal visual analysis and reflexive practice analysis; draft methodology and first findings chapters.
   September 2028–May 2029: Complete remaining findings chapters and practice-reflection chapter; rough-cut review and limited ethics-approved screening if appropriate.
   June 2029–February 2030: Full thesis revision, final film decisions, final consent checks, proofreading and submission preparation.

6. Conclusion
   This PhD by Practice examines how third-generation Harki descendants in contemporary France negotiate memory and belonging through participatory documentary. It focuses on descendants who did not directly experience the Algerian War, displacement or camp life, but who may still inherit the effects of this history through stories, silences, names, photographs, emotions and public stigma.
   The project treats memory and belonging as lived, social and postcolonial practices. It asks how participants decide what can be said, shown, translated, anonymised, reviewed or withheld. Participatory documentary is therefore not only a representational output. It is the method through which knowledge is produced.
   The project’s originality lies in bringing together Harki memory, third-generation descendants and participatory documentary practice. It shows that the negotiation of memory and belonging happens not only in speech, but also through silence, gesture, framing, language, subtitles, editing and refusal. AND the Recommendations are: The reviewers are asking you to do the following:

7. Submit a new proposal of 1500–2000 words before the Final Review Meeting.

8. Give a stronger rationale for focusing on third-generation Harkis.
   Do not rely only on “they have not been studied before.” Explain why this community matters now.

9. Clarify your original contribution to academic literature.
   Be clear which field you are contributing to, for example memory activism, postcolonial identity-building, Harki studies, participatory documentary, or postcolonial memory studies.

10. Narrow the project.
    They said the project currently has too many methods: multi-sited ethnography, interviews, participatory film and digital ethnography. They want you to focus mainly on participatory filmmaking.

11. Make participatory filmmaking the central component.
    The reviewers want the participatory film and its critical analysis to be fully explained, not treated as one method among many.

12. Link your research objectives to a focused critical framework and methodology.
    In other words, your concepts, research questions, method and analysis must clearly fit together.

13. Engage more deeply with power relations in co-production.
    You need to explain how power works between you and participants: who controls the camera, editing, visibility, naming, consent and final representation.

14. Take language more seriously.
    They want a critical approach to the languages used in the research process, including translation, subtitles, French, Arabic/Darja, Kabyle and English.

15. Use a more focused theoretical framework.
    They felt the previous version had too many theories/concepts and not enough depth.

16. Reflect more on your positionality.
    Especially your shift from professional filmmaker to academic researcher, using appropriate literature such as Agata Lulkowska’s Filmmaking in Academia.

17. Engage more deeply with ethics of care and visual ethics.
    This includes the use of images, participant vulnerability, under-represented groups, consent, masking, circulation and possible harm.

18. Revise the timeline.
    They said the current timeline is not feasible and must be replaced with a tighter timeline linked to the revised research design.

19. Prepare a short 5-minute presentation for the Final Review Meeting before discussion of the proposal.

In simple terms: focus the PhD around participatory documentary, justify third-generation Harkis clearly, reduce the number of methods/concepts, deepen ethics/power/positionality, and provide a realistic timeline.