Participatory photography supporting the social inclusion of migrant youth

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2015, more people than usual claimed asylum in Finland, inspiring many artists to organise photography workshops with refugees and migrants. This article examines in what respects participatory photography can promote social inclusion for migrant youth and what aspects need more attention. It is based on a Finnish research project titled Young People in the Limelight, which investigated ways to support social inclusion, participation and multiliteracies by vulnerable youth through youth work. The action study included five participatory photography workshops with mixed groups of migrants and Finns, most of them between the ages of 15 and 22. The data consist mainly of observation diaries and interviews. In participatory photography, social inclusion is usually understood as ‘having a voice’. Besides this, it was also discovered that participatory photography can facilitate social inclusion by providing experiences of informal, interpersonal acceptance, by increasing perception of the photographer as a skilful person, by solidifying a sense of belonging to a group and society and by facilitating familiarisation with new spaces and local culture. The study suggests that experimenting with and analysing participatory photography as a facilitator of social inclusion from the perspectives of listening, transcultural interaction and spatiality should occur more in the future.