Photovoice
Photovoice Researchers and Partners
Morgan Poteet, Juan Carlos Jimenez, Giovanni Carranza, Veronica Escobar, Luis Carrillos, Duberlis Ramos, Jocelyn Torres, Adriana Alas, Giada Ferrucci, Hispanic Development Council, Centro Arte Para La Paz.
Overview
Photovoice is a community-based approach to research and a form of community engagement that is designed to foster critical dialogue around community concerns (Kia-Keating, Santacrose, and Lui, 2017), rather than looking to outside experts to conduct needs assessment. It provides a chance for participants to tell stories through pictures and words about what is important and meaningful to them. It is designed to self-empower members of a group and to work together to identify, represent, and enhance their community in ways they see as important. It is typically adopted by non-dominant or marginalized communities, and is tailored to the specific goals, culture and priorities as identified by community members (Wang and Burris, 1997). It challenges deficit approaches by emphasizing community assets and strengths, to raise awareness about and respond to issues that are identified by the community (Ibid, 378). As an arts-based method, Photovoice uses photography and writing to express ideas in creative ways. No specialized skills are needed, it is an accessible form of expression that anyone can participate in. It approaches topics from the intersection of the personal with the social. It begins with a dialogue among participants facilitated by the organizers about what is important to them. It asks participants to reflect about themselves (personally) and about their community (collectively) and to think about both together.
Our Research
The focus of our research is the life experiences specifically of the “second generation,” that is, the (now adult) children born in Canada to refugees from El Salvador, because there is a growing awareness in the community that their voices need to be heard. Having grown up in Canada within families that had experienced and fled from the war in El Salvador, they occupy a unique position in Canada with unique perspectives on the postwar context for the Salvadorian diaspora. Our research also prioritizes the 1.5 generation of Salvadorian immigrants, that is, children and adolescent immigrants who have memories of the war, migration, and both initial and more long-term settlement experiences in Canada, and so their unique perspectives are also captured in the data and our preliminary inductive analysis. We were interested initially in understanding the different forms of trauma experienced by members of the Salvadorian community in Toronto within the wider historical and colonial context. We used a consensus model for decision making among the members of the research team and grounded the project through ongoing consultation with the community. We reflected on our own individual and social positioning to be aware of how we were approaching the work, the intersubjectivity of our engagement, and possible influences on the project. We discovered that an ongoing willingness to engage in this manner was more important than ‘getting it right’.
The Photovoice workshops began by focusing on a set of themes that emerged from twenty-one exploratory in-depth open-ended interviews we conducted with the (now adult) children of primarily refugee immigrants from El Salvador in collaboration with the Hispanic Development Council (HDC). We wanted to retain the stories of our participants in the analysis and so adopted a narrative arts-based storytelling approach. Before conducting the Photovoice workshops, we trained ourselves in the method and produced individual personal Photovoice projects. During this process we experienced first-hand the transformative potential of Photovoice to offer personal and collective insights, and to facilitate the expression of ideas and emotions which could not be elicited through conventional interview methods. As we began to use the Photovoice method we witnessed the strength of Photovoice particularly in facilitating dialogue among the participants and the broader community we were working with.
The Photovoice project has grown wider to include the voices of Salvadorians in other parts of Canada, and to Salvadorians (primarily youth) in El Salvador, and intergenerationally both within Canada and in the wider diaspora. Notwithstanding this wider focus, the project has retained an interest and remains rooted in the experiences and perspectives of youth, broadly speaking, and of the subsequent generations of Salvadorians coming of age in the postwar context. The experiences and stories of those who lived through the civil war in El Salvador from 1980 – 1992 live on in the subsequent generations as they grapple with the legacy of the war, carry on the traditions and memories of their extended families, form new unions and start their own families in Canada and elsewhere, and adapt to new environments and realities.
Themes explored individually and collectively by participants in the Photovoice projects include: identity, community, belonging, intergenerational dialogues, the environment, social organization, historical memory and memory, mental health, women, and family. We expect that our ongoing engagement with Salvadorian communities using Photovoice and other arts-based methods will continue to turn up new themes, generating an evolving narrative of the Salvadorian diaspora and beyond. While some of the narratives that have emerged in the Photovoice projects are familiar and others are new and surprising, all are inspiring. Intergenerational trauma is only one among many overarching themes that emerge from the Photovoice narratives. Each voice comes through the projects in ways that add to and build a complex, collective, and evolving narrative about the lives of Salvadorians in the postwar context. Collectively, they offer a commentary and a social and political critique about the evolving story of El Salvador and Salvadorians, and a call to action to Salvadorians and their allies on social, political, and environmental issues that should concern us all.
This research was supported by two SSHRC Partnership Engage Grants and an ongoing SSHRC Partnership Grant.
References
Kia-Keating, Maryam, Diana Santacrose, and Sabrina Liu (2017). “Photography and Social Media Use in Community-Based Participatory Research with Youth: Ethical Considerations,” American Journal of Community Psychology, Vl. 60: 375-384.
Wang, Caroline and Mary Ann Burris (1997). “Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment,” Health Education and Behavior, Vl. 24 (3): 369-387.
Additional Resources Consulted:
Castledon, heather, Theresa Garvin, and Huu-ay-aht First Nation (2008). “Modifying Photovoice for community-based participatory Indigenous research,” Social Science & Medicine, Vl. 66: 1393-1405.
Capous-Desyllas, Moshoula and Nicole F. Bromfield (2018). “Using an Arts-Informed Eclectic Approach to Photovoice Data Analysis,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Vl. 17: 1-14.
Latz, Amanda O. and Thalia M. Mulvihill (2017). “4 (Participatory) Data Analysis” in Photovoice research in education and beyond, Routledge.
Nykiforuk, Candace I. J., Helen Vallianatos, and Laura M. Nieuwendyk (2011). “Photovoice as a Method for Revealing Community Perceptions of the Built and Social Environment,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Vl. 10 (2): 103-124.
Palibroda, Beverly, with Bridgette Krieg, Lisa Murdoch, and Joanne Havelock (2009). “A Practical Guide to Photovoice: Sharing Pictures, Telling Stories, and Changing Communities,” project # 157 of the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Tsang, Kwok Kuen (2020). “Photovoice Data Analysis: Critical Approach, Phenomenological Approach, and Beyond,” Beijing International Review of Education, Vl. 2, 136-152.
