Visual methods and voice in disabled childhoods research: troubling narrative authenticity

Janice Mclaughlin,Edmund Coleman-Fountain

doi:10.1177/1468794118760705

Janice Mclaughlin, Edmund Coleman-Fountain

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794118760705

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Abstract

Visual methods are a popular way of engaging children and young people in research. Their growth comes out of a desire to make research practice more appropriate and meaningful to them. The auteur approach emphasises the need to explore with young participants why they produce the images they do, so that adult researchers do not impose their own readings. This article, while recognising the value of such visual techniques, argues that their benefit is not that they are more age appropriate, or that they are more authentic. Instead it lies in their capacity to display the social influences on how participants, of any age, represent themselves. The article does so through discussion of an Economic and Social Research Council research project, which made use of visual and other creative methods, undertaken in the UK with disabled young people. The research involved narrative and photo elicitation interviews, the production of photo journals, and creative practice workshops aimed at making representational artefacts. Through analysing the photography, the journals and interviews the article examines what it was research participants sought to capture and also what influenced the types of photographs they gathered and the type of person they wanted to represent. We argue that they aimed to counter negative representations of disability by presenting themselves as happy, active and independent, in doing so they drew from broader visual iconography that values certain kinds of disabled subject, while disvaluing others.

Highlights

Creative methods are a burgeoning area within social science research, this is seen in research involving young people (Harrison, 2002; Sweetman, 2009; Sociological Research Online, 2012; Rich and Chalfen, 1999)
Even if the visual narratives the participants created can be thought of as compromised by being embedded in contemporary celebrations of individual independence, there is still a political expansion in the imaginaries they opened up
Disability was present in their displays and how they wanted to be seen (Kate did not mind if people saw past leaning as a photographic pose to instead recognise her as disabled: ‘because that’s me you know’)

Summary

Introduction

Creative methods are a burgeoning area within social science research, this is seen in research involving young people (Harrison, 2002; Sweetman, 2009; Sociological Research Online, 2012; Rich and Chalfen, 1999). Mark’s intent is to present himself as active, in control, a member of a successful team, to do so he makes use of gendered associations of masculinity with aggression to produce a figure that others should be able to recognise He works with existing scopic regimes and social norms around youthful masculinity to associate himself – and his teammates - with value. Mark, when reflecting on why he had prioritised photographs of his participation in sport, acknowledged that he wanted to be recognised as accomplished He thought that people could look at his images and see someone else, in particular the stigmatised disabled figure to feel charitable towards: it depends on who is looking . Exploring how such narratives influence what people say of themselves and others, is an important rationale for drawing creative visual approaches in to the research toolkit

Concluding remarks

ESRC Grant ‘Embodied Selves in Transition