Youth-Led Visual Storytelling as a Qualitative Participatory Approach to Understanding Urban Vulnerability and Resilience in Kariobangi, Nairobi

Abstract

Conventional measures of urban vulnerability, including housing, infrastructure, and poverty, provide important insights into conditions in informal settlements. However, they often overlook how young people experience, interpret, and respond to these realities in everyday life. This paper examines how youth-led visual storytelling reveals lived experiences of urban vulnerability and resilience in Kariobangi, Nairobi. The study adopted a qualitative participatory visual storytelling approach involving 30 young people aged 18–25 years recruited from Kariobangi, neighbouring Eastlands communities, and broader youth engagement platforms. Peer-to-peer engagement activities involving approximately 120 young people further enriched the research process. Participant-generated visual stories served as the primary analytical evidence for interpreting experiences of vulnerability and resilience. The findings reveal vulnerability as a layered experience shaped by economic uncertainty, insecure housing, environmental pressures, emotional wellbeing, political exclusion, and disrupted aspirations, while resilience emerged through rebuilding, shared care, creative expression, collective action, and hope. The study demonstrates that positioning participant-generated visuals as primary research evidence advances design research and strengthens participatory urban design, planning, and community engagement responsive to young people's lived realities and aspirations.