Develop an understanding of what visual qualitative research methods are.
Understand the different types and approaches to visual research.
Learn the “Four ‘Rs’ of visual research”.
Consider when to use visual methods in research.
Learn how to democratize the method (and why).
Understand how images fit as part of a broader methodological mix (e.g., interviewing).
Consider how images can be useful for formulating policy responses.
Photo-Voice vs. Photo-Elicitation
Photo-Voice Origins
Theoretical background attributed to Caroline Wang’s early ‘photo-voice’ research.
Photo-voice is informed by:
Confucian philosophy & values.
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s notion of “critical consciousness” & liberation theology:
A deep understanding of how the world works and how society, politics, and power relationships affect one’s own situation.
Photo novella, or the use of photos and drawings to tell a story and educate.
(Confucian) Feminist theory, which emphasizes the importance of ‘voice’/lived experience of participants.
Documentary photography, which is often used to help bring about social change.
Later became known as photo-elicitation as borrowed more theories & concepts from the arts.
Intersections with Confucianism & Liberation Theology
Wang and Burris (1992)
Wang and Burris (1992) gave cameras to a group of rural village women in Yunnan Province in China, who documented their lives and environment for an entire year.
They conducted this study to address the lack of voice among rural women in China concerning their health needs and living conditions.
Groups of women gathered at regular intervals to view and discuss the pictures they took.
Traditional research and policymaking often excluded these women from participating in identifying problems or shaping solutions.
At the end of the project, the group hosted an exhibition of their photographs and used it to raise the consciousness of the general public and of policymakers about their needs.
Naïve Assertions of Voice?
Critiques of ‘Voice’ in Research
Voice Is Not Neutral or Unmediated.
"Giving Voice" Assumes Participants Were Voiceless.
Voice Can Be Co-opted or Misrepresented.
Voice Doesn’t Guarantee Change.
Multiplicity and Contradiction in Voice.
Naïve assertions of voice risk oversimplifying power dynamics, romanticizing authenticity, and obscuring the researcher’s role.
A more critical practice must remain reflexive, recognize voice as constructed and contingent, and be accountable to those whose stories are being shared.
American Indian Movement
Rejecting the Colonial Gaze
Indigenous Practices of Photography
We have been popular photographic subjects/objects.
A vast number of photographs produced in a flourishing traffic of colonial natural history ‘specimens’ (Lydon&Wanhalla2018)
Creative transformations of photographs produced by Indigenous peoples have become tools for establishing a ‘photographic sovereignty’ (Ellis&Robertson2018).
Charles Frederick Goldie (1870–1947) portraits of Māori, reviled & celebrated.
Hamley & Colleagues (2021)
Hamley & colleagues (2021). “You’re the one that was on Uncle’s wall!”: Identity, whanaungatanga and connection for takatāpui (LGBTQ+ Māori) -Waimirirangi
5 Key Concepts for Photo-Elicitation (Wang, 1999)
Images teach.
Pictures can influence policy.
Community members ought to participate in creating and defining the images that shape healthful public policy.
The process requires that from the outset planners bring policymakers and other influential people to the table to serve as an audience.
Photovoice emphasizes individual and community action.
Who Should Use Photo-Elicitation?
EVERYONE AND ANYONE!!
But it’s particularly useful when working with minoritized communities, including:
Children and young people in difficult circumstances.
Homeless people and families.
People with visible and invisible disabilities.
People with chronic health or medical conditions.
Members of communities who experience racism, classism, religious intolerance, cissexism, heterosexism etc.
People whose way of life is threatened.
People who are discriminated against because of class, caste, way of life, or poverty.
Rural or geographically isolated communities.
People who live in difficult or unacceptable conditions and want to change them.
Who Should Use Photo-Elicitation? (Organizations)
Some types of organizations that might benefit by using photo-elicitation with participants:
Schools and other organizations that work with children and young people.
Homeless organizations.
Organizations that work with people whose needs and humanity are commonly ignored.
Community health centers and similar health providers.
Disability support and mental health services.
Advocacy organizations or health and human service organizations that include advocacy in their mission.
International aid and refugee organizations.
When Might You Use Photo-Elicitation?
When photo-elicitation can change people’s opinions about themselves and their environment.
When a group’s situation needs to be publicized.
When a problem needs to be publicized.
When change is necessary, and photo-elicitation can help sway policymakers.
When a community assessment is needed or in progress.
When you need to document the process of or gather data for an evaluation of an intervention or program.
When you need to document a site, an event, or a way of life that is threatened or about to disappear.
When you need depth, not breadth.
Proximal approach (subjective) vs. distal approach (objective).
How Do You Use Photo-Elicitation?
General guidelines:
It should be a participatory, collaborative process from beginning to end and beyond.
Plan the project with the community or group you’re working with.
Accountability is forever, act like it.
Participants and researchers might need training & support.
Training in ethical and safe image making in various situations.
Get out and take pictures.
Work regularly in small groups to discuss and reflect on the experience and the pictures, and to consider each participant’s stories through photographs or video sequences.
Outcomes? The project should result in some action.
What Can You Do With It?
Approach applied at personal, service & structural levels:
(1) Personal case workshops with service providers to inform their work with clients.
(2) Embedding humane cultural responses by supporting housing & social services development, including a marae gardening initiative. Involves working through moments of openness & communing.
(3) City Councils, Judges & policy forums. Initiatives to promote understanding and more dynamic and person-centered responses.
What Now?
What am I using these images for?
What trends or patterns can you see in and across images?
How will I bring coherence to these images?
Has the participant offered coherence for me?
Is there an overall narrative?
How do these images fit with those of other participants?
Am I analyzing the images or interview/textual material?
How do I bring the images and talk together in my analysis?