Visual Research, Digital Archives, and Focus Groups

Visual research methods like photography and digital storytelling are increasingly used in health and social sciences research as participatory approaches that benefit participants, researchers, and audiences. Visual methods involve a number of additional ethical considerations such as using identifiable content and ownership of creative outputs. As such, ethics committees should use different assessment frameworks to consider research protocols with visual methods. Here, we outline the limitations of ethics committees in assessing projects with a visual focus and highlight the sparse knowledge on how researchers respond when they encounter ethical challenges in the practice of visual research. We propose a situated approach in relation to visual methodologies that encompasses a negotiated, flexible approach, given that ethical issues usually emerge in relation to the specific contexts of individual research projects. Drawing on available literature and two case studies, we identify and reflect on nuanced ethical implications in visual research, like tensions between aesthetics and research validity. The case studies highlight strategies developed in-situ to address the challenges two researchers encountered when using visual research methods, illustrating that some practice implications are not necessarily addressed using established ethical clearance procedures. A situated approach can ensure that visual research remains ethical, engaging, and rigorous.

Identifying environmental health priorities in underserved populations: a study of rural versus urban communities

Visual research methods are increasingly popular within psychology and the social sciences. However, psychology has yet to develop its own specific ethics guidelines for visual research methods. Currently, psychologists undertaking visual and arts-based research draw on ethics guidelines developed by and for allied disciplines that have a more established tradition of visual research, such as visual anthropology and visual sociology. While many of the principles of existing ethics guidelines from allied disciplines are applicable to psychological projects, psychological research has a distinct focus and potential applications, which would benefit from the generation of a set of bespoke guidelines. These should reflect our discipline’s long standing commitment to ethical research practice, and critical stance towards the limitations of inflexible formalistic principles. This article reviews existing guidelines for visual research and provides recommendations for visual research ethics guidelines for psychology, including the importance of ‘staged’ consent, anonymity versus identification, and an expanded field of consideration which may include participants as image producers and owners; the individuals captured in the images taken by participants or researchers and the impact of the research on the eventual audiences for these images.

The Value of Participatory Visual Methods in Young Masculinity Research

An Introduction to Visual Research Methods in Tourism, is the first book to present, discuss and promote the use of a range of visual methods, including still images (such as photographs, postcards, drawings) and moving images (such as video) within the context of tourism research. The book focuses on key issues important for students, researchers and academics actively doing visual tourism research or those who are contemplating using these methods. These range from the questions surrounding philosophical approaches, (inter)disciplinary location, range and choice of methods, implementation and data analysis techniques to provide an essential guide to using visual methods in tourism research. While recognising that visual methods are predominantly employed within qualitative research, this text will discuss various philosophical approaches and academic disciplines indicating how these influence a particular choice of visual method, mode of implementation and type of analysis. In this regard this book will incorporate perspectives from a range of disciplines including anthropology, geography and sociology, demonstrating how these might be applied within the context of studies in tourism. The discussions surrounding these key issues are supplemented with international case studies from existing research to show how these methods are used in practice. In addition to this practical tip boxes are included to help avoid some of the pitfalls associated with visual research.

The partnerships, especially university–community partnerships, that sustain globally networked learning environments often face challenges in mobilizing research to empower local communities to effect change. This article examines these challenges by describing a university–community partnership involving researchers and graduate students in Canada and South Africa, working with a rural community in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa in order to develop a participatory digital archive of more than 3000 photographs and videos collected from various visual methodology research projects related to HIV and AIDS education. The main purpose of the digital archive was to place community members as active participants at the centre of data analysis, as opposed to recipients of findings, and to give voice to teachers, learners, health-care workers and parents in identifying the key issues and challenges affecting their lives in the context of HIV/AIDS and their impact on their communities. The article outlines the technical and conceptual issues in developing the partnership as well as the digital archive, such as developing a scanning protocol, producing a metadata schema, choosing the digital archive software and, most importantly, involving community members, in particular teachers, in the processes of coding the visual data and using the archive for HIV and AIDS education and community change.

Visual research is a fast-growing interdisciplinary field. The flexibility and diversity of visual research methods are seen as strengths by their adherents, yet adoption of such approaches often requires researchers to negotiate complex ethical terrain. The digital technological explosion has also provided visual researchers with access to an increasingly diverse array of visual methodologies and tools that, far from being ethically neutral, require careful deliberation and planning for use. To explore these issues, the Symposium on Exploring Ethical Frontiers of Visual Methods was held at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on 4 March 2014. The symposium was hosted by the Visual Research Collaboratory, a consortium of Australian and Canadian visual researchers, with support from Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne. The symposium represented the culmination of a process to develop a resource outlining principles of ethical practice for visual researchers and ethics committee members, the Guidelines for Ethical Visual Research Methods, which were launched at the event. The Guidelines present a framework for considering ethical matters in visual research, distinguishing six groups of issues united by an overarching theme: confidentiality; minimizing harm; consent; fuzzy boundaries; authorship and ownership; and representation and audiences.

Flood is a common disaster globally with devastating impact. Community flood disaster preparedness is neglected in developing countries, Nigeria inclusive, especially in the rural areas. This study assessed and compared the level of community flood disaster preparedness in flood-prone rural and urban communities in Kaduna State. A mixed method comparative cross-sectional study design and multistage sampling technique and data obtained from 202 household heads in each study group (rural and urban communities) using pretested structured questionnaires, focus group discussions (FGDs), key informant interviews (KIIs) and observational checklist. Multistage sampling technique was used to select the household heads for the quantitative study. Purposive sampling was used to select the community members for the FGDs, the community leaders and staff of Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) for the KIIs. The quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 23.0. The qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. Majority of both the rural (99.0%) and urban (86.1%) communities were not prepared for flood disaster; 34% and 10% of the rural and urban communities respectively had flood disaster plans. Only 19.3% in the urban communities compared with 1% in the rural communities had early warning systems. There was statistically significant difference on community flood disaster preparedness between the urban and rural communities (p =0.001). Overall, the flood preparedness in both rural and urban communities was very poor, though slightly better in the urban communities. There is need for training of the communities by the relevant stakeholder such as SEMA on flood disaster preparedness.

This paper discusses six categories of key ethical issues that are important to consider when using visual methods in social research. The categories were identified during workshop discussions with researchers working across disciplines and using a range of visual methods. They have been used to inform guidelines for the ethical conduct of research using visual methods. The categories represent both familiar and emerging ethical challenges. They include widely accepted strategies for meeting ethical obligations to ensure participants’ informed consent, to maintain confidentiality, and to design and conduct research that minimises harm. Three further categories represent more novel ethical issues that are particularly prominent in visual methods: managing fuzzy boundaries around the multiple purposes that visual research may serve, addressing questions of authorship and ownership of visual products generated during research, and dealing with representation and audiences when disseminating research findings. In this paper we reflect on the tensions and challenges these issues raise for researchers working with visual methods, and consider potential strategies to address these challenges. By identifying and critiquing ethical issues that are prominent in visual methods, this paper contributes to a growing body of work that aims to ensure the ethical conduct of visual research.

This article explores the use of visual research methodologies for understanding the everyday political desires and behavior of individuals. Its goal is to extend conversations in geography about the use of visual methods for interpreting the relationships between society and space, specifically the ways in which photovoice techniques can help geographers better understand the ways in which intergenerational emplaced memories motivate and shape contemporary political action. Using an urban community in Costa Rica built through hybrid housing–antiviolence movements in the 1980s and 1990s as a case study, this article illustrates the material and metaphorical pathways that participants trace between historical social movements and contemporary social issues through their photo essays. Participant images are made in tandem with practices and movement in the present but recall and represent family histories and narratives of historical struggle in the past. Significantly, as savvy users embedded in visual worlds, participants use these moments of intersection between past and present to mobilize political arguments about value and justice in their community. In this way, visual methods reveal the political mundane: how individuals shape their political opinions through conversation between contemporary embodiment and experiences with social issues and family histories of social movement participation. Key Words: photovoice, urban social movements, visual research methods.

Filmmaking is a visual method that provides a unique opportunity for generating knowledge, but few studies have applied filmmaking in public health research. In this article, we introduce Collaborative Filmmaking as a public health research method, including a description of the six steps for implementation and an illustrative example from Nepal. Collaborative Filmmaking is an embodied, participatory, and visual research method in which participants are trained to create, analyze, and screen films to answer a research question. The method is useful for exploring sensitive health topics and providing nuanced insight into practices, relationships, and spaces that are difficult to capture using existing methods; however, its use requires close attention to ethical considerations. Building upon the trajectory of other visual and community-based research methods, Collaborative Filmmaking is valuable for gathering granular details and sensory data, co-analyzing data in partnership with participants, and producing participant-generated films that serve as powerful and authentic advocacy tools.

Clinical trials (CTs) have the potential to provide the most advanced medical treatments and screening options and help medically underserved individuals, including those in rural communities, obtain the medical care they need. Despite the need for access to care, CT participation remains low in rural communities. This study examined what individuals in both rural and urban communities of a Southeastern state know and think about CTs. Nineteen focus groups and eight interviews were conducted statewide with a total of 212 men and women. Discussions assessed participants' beliefs, perceptions, and sources of information about CTs, and their willingness to participate in a CT. Focus group and interview transcripts were analyzed qualitatively for themes. Urban and rural participants expressed similar beliefs about CTs. Common misperceptions were that CTs were intended for people who could not afford care and that completing a survey or participating in a focus group constituted a CT. Rural residents believed that CTs involved deception more often than urban residents, and they were less willing than urban residents to participate in a CT in the future. Urban residents more frequently discussed their distrust of the medical system as a reason for not wanting to participate. Many individuals expressed that their participation would depend on whether their doctor recommended it or whether the trial would benefit a family member's health. Findings have important implications for health communication. Messages should be developed to address misperceptions of rural and urban communities and convey the importance of CT participation to promote and protect the health of their communities.

The aim of this paper is to support critical and scholarly debates that relate to the increasing role of visual research in education, youth studies, sociology, and studies of mental health. Researching in fields where young people are central exposes many struggles, not least issues of how to represent students who end up on the margins. School disaffection intersects with curriculum practices. When threading together visual research methods and matters of curriculum studies, seduction can set in, and unintentionally curriculum research can become indifferent to difference, the counterpoint often sought by researchers. Some scholars may argue that this debate has been well rehearsed in the curriculum field; I, however, take the opposite view. The constraints of curriculum studies, issues of student disaffection and the exclusions of schooling - when analysed through the perspectives of visual research - trouble our research designs and understandings of data and therefore require more, not less, interrogation. Rethinking the intersection points between visual research methods (VRM) and visuality, a concept that is critical to cultural and visual studies, opens out new spaces in the field of curriculum studies and reframes the methodological decisionmaking process for researching issues that pertain to student disaffection.

P. Reavey, Back to Experience: Psychology and the Visual. Part 1: Static Media: The Use of Photography in Qualitative Research A. Radley, Image and Imagination. R. Gill, Bend it Like Beckham: The Challenges of Reading Gender and Visual Culture. L. Del Busso, Using Photographs to explore the Embodiment of Pleasure in Everyday life. H. Frith, Narrating Biographical Disruption and Repair: Exploring the Place of Absent Images in Women's Experiences of Cancer and Chemotherapy. A. Majumdar, Using Photographs of Places, Spaces and Objects to explore South Asian Women's Experiences of Close Relationships and Marriage. Part 2: Moveable Features: Using Facebook and Video in Qualitative Research L. Goodings & S. D. Brown, Textuality and Visuality in MySpace Communication. J. Motzkau, Picturing the Truth in Video? Seeing and Speaking in Research and Legal Practice. M. Forrester, The Video Camera as a Cultural Object: The Presence of (an)Other. M. Pini & V. Walkerdine, Girls on Film: Video Diaries as 'Autoethniographies'. H. Lomax, Visual Identities: Choreographies of Gaze, Body Movement and Speech in Video Based Mother-Midwife Interaction. Part 3: Community Visions: Action Based Projects and the Use of Visual Methods K. Johnson, Visualising Mental Health with an LGBT Community Group: Method, Process, Theory. S. Riley, R. Brown, C. Griffin & Y. Morey, Tribal Gatherings: Using Art to Disseminate Research on Club Culture. A. Cassidy & J. Maule, Risk Communication and Participatory Research: 'Fuzzy Felt', Visual Games and Group Discussion of Complex Issues. J. Haaken, Social Action Research, Psychoanalytic Theory and Documentary Filmaking. C. Howarth, Towards a Visual Social Psychology of Identity and Representation: Photographing the Self, Weaving the Family in a Multicultural British Community. H. Bowes-Catton, M. Barker & C. Richards, 'I didn't know that I could feel so relaxed in my Body': Using Visual Methods to Research Bisexual People's Embodied Experiences of Identity and Space. A. Iantaffi, Travelling along 'Rivers of Experience': Personal Construct Psychology and Visual Metaphors in Reseach. A. Bridger, Psychogeography and the Study of Social Environments: Extending Visual Methodological Research in Psychology. Part 4: Ethical and Methodological Reflections on Visual Research D. Hodgetts, K. Chamberlain & S. Groot, Reflections on the Visual in Comunity Research and Action. K. Gleeson, Polytextual Thematic Analysis for Visual Data - Pinning Down the Analytic. K. Henwood, F. Shirani & M. Finn, Methodological and Analytical Reflections on Visual (photo-elicitation) Methods used in the Men-as-Fathers Study. I. Mountian, R. Lawthorn, A. Kellock, K. Duggan, J. Sixsmith, C. Kagan, J. Hawkins, J. Haworth, A. Siddiquee, C. Worley, D. Brown, J. Griffiths, C. Purcell, On Utilising a Visual Methodology: Shared Reflections and Tensions.

The third goal of sustainable development is the well-being of society. Government actions to achieve this goal is by increasing built capital (e.g., infrastructure and housing) in urban and rural areas. Other forms of capital that can improve well-being include strengthening community bonds in the community (social capital). This study aims to explore the level of social capital (bonding, bridging, and linking) in rural and urban communities and the correlation between social capital and well-being. The data used is the Indonesian Family Life Survey 5 (IFLS5). The sample consists of 12,872 rural communities and 18,532 urban communities. T-test analysis was used to determine differences in levels of social capital, while a pairwise correlation was used to determine the correlation between social capital and well-being. The results showed that the majority of urban and rural communities had moderate levels of bonding and bridging, while linking is at a low level. In addition, there are significant differences in bonding, bridging, and linking social capital between urban and rural communities, in which rural communities have higher scores than urban communities. It was also found that there was a positive relationship between the bridging and bonding of urban and rural communities and well-being.