Photovoice Project Research Articles

The world through my eyes: A photovoice project with youth experiencing homelessness

Youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) are infrequently included in the development, organization, and provision of homelessness-related services. This lack of youth voice and services tailored for their expressed needs can lead to underutilization of services, dissatisfaction, and poor outcomes. Photovoice, a participatory research method, has been used to empower persons from marginalized populations and to provide a platform for them to share their voices. This photovoice project partnered with six YEH (18-20 years old). Participants worked together, with the support of two group facilitators, to take photographs, identify themes, write narratives that best represented their lived experience, and share their concerns and ideas for the community. Photos and narratives were shared with decisionmakers at community-based showings. Attendees of the showings anecdotally reported having an increased awareness of YEH issues. The showings served as a catalyst in the community to address the challenges of YEH. Recommendations for research and practice are provided.

Shifting the Focus: A Photovoice exploration of the benefits and barriers of having a pet while experiencing homelessness.

While experiencing homelessness with a pet can present unique challenges, it can also provide physical health, mental health, and social benefits. A Photovoice project with adolescents and adults experiencing homelessness with a pet was conducted in Seattle, Washington, USA in 2018-2019 to explore the experience of homelessness with a pet, the impact of the human-animal bond on the health of each, and to drive policy changes to help support people experiencing homelessness (PEH) with pets. Twenty-five people spanning a range of age groups, genders, and living situations were recruited primarily through homeless-services providers, 19 of whom completed the study and created over 900 images. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant to review printed photos. A key theme emerging from the interviews and photos was the importance and strength of the human-animal bond, providing mental and physical health benefits, and motivation for daily activities or making/maintaining positive changes. Challenges related to homelessness with a pet included barriers to access services, housing, and employment. Participants provided policy recommendations to improve support for PEH with pets. Multiple public exhibitions of images from all participants were held, reaching service providers, policy makers, and the general public. Visitor feedback included statements of positive change in attitudes towards PEH with pets among housed individuals. Collectively, the images, stories and themes deepen our understanding of homelessness with pets, leading to increased empathy and potential for policies that benefit the health of PEH and their pets.

Extending the ethnographic toolbox: photovoice and everyday experiences of marginalised groups

This paper explores how photovoice can be used to understand the everyday life experiences of marginalised groups. We ask what kind of knowledge photovoice elicits and how this contributes to other ethnographic methods to enhance our understanding of subjective experiences. Based on two photovoice projects in Ghana/Burkina Faso and Thailand we show that participants generate aesthetic accounts of their everyday life that are both poetic and emotional. Drawing on feminist approaches to agency, we argue that the aesthetic construction of photos and stories permits us a different insight into how participants reflect on their conditions, perceive power dynamics within social structures and, in doing so construct (political) messages. Without overlooking the oppressive structures that they navigate, their accounts highlight their constrained agency and contrast victimising accounts. As such, we extend the use of photovoice beyond a tool for empowerment to reflect on its contributions as a visual method to methodological and theoretical debates around everyday, emotional experiences and how these, as argued within feminist geography, are constituted on different scales.

Opele Revisited: How Oceanic Blackness Impacts Student Belonging and Success

The Opele Report of 1992 provided a window into the concerns surrounding educational opportunities and quality of education for underrepresented Black students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) (Takara, 1992, p. 4). By providing a comprehensive analysis, the “Opele Report” suggested multiple ways to improve Black student and faculty retention, recruitment, and well-being. Thirty years later, what has changed? How has Black student life and well-being improved, and how supported do they feel? How do they envision their belonging in an oceanic educational space where they are traditionally underrepresented? How might their experiences provide a space to rethink Blackness in oceanic settings? This article revisits the “Opele Report” by providing a window into the contemporary experiences of the 1.8% Black student population on campus by highlighting how they cultivate belonging while navigating their intersectional identities on the University of Hawaʻi at Mānoa campus. I focus on six former and current students affiliated with the Black Student Association as they engage in storytelling surrounding Blackness and belonging on campus and in Hawaiʻi as an expansion of a previous photo voice project and current documentary project. Each student’s response to a series of prompts reveals how Black hypervisibility and invisibility impact their on-campus experiences with belonging while gesturing to how it helps them expand conceptions of Blackness in an oceanic setting. Their dialogue highlights the need to honestly address diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice work on university campuses, including those beyond the continental United States. From experiencing tokenism from colleagues and throughout campus to racism from peers, these students’ experiences highlight the intricacies of finding belonging in the face of anti-Blackness that remains pervasive on campus and statewide.

Involving medical students in re-orienting health services: a photovoice study.

Healthcare reorientation aims for health services focused not exclusively on diseases but also on prevention and health promotion. The implementation depends strongly on professionals' willingness to actively participate in the reorientation. An effective strategy to boost reorientation is to reorient education and role definition of future professionals. This paper examines whether photovoice can be a suitable method to i) increase future health professionals' awareness of users' needs and expectations; and ii) enable a process of critical reflection on role definition and health services organisation. One hundred and seventy-two medical students participated in the photovoice project. Participants were asked to produce one photo combined with a caption, responding to a pre-identified question: "What is, in your opinion, the main aspect affecting users' satisfaction/dissatisfaction in a healthcare facility?". Participants discussed their photos in group discussions (n = 16) and participated in data analysis sessions (n = 4). Participants' contributions revolved around how services were delivered (e.g., kindness, accessibility, attention to additional needs) rather than the service provided. The students showed their empathic side and proposed smart and inclusive solutions to improve overall users' experience. This study demonstrated the value of using photovoice to reach medical students and to integrate health promotion into their professional identities. The photovoice process, teamwork, and discussions opened a breach into traditional thinking regarding aspects of healthcare services that are taken for granted or are overlooked. Furthermore, participants' proposals often implied a change in the behaviour of professionals - their future selves - towards patients and low-cost improvements of organisational practices.

Conducting Photovoice With Binational Cancer Survivors to Identify Health Behavior Change Intervention Preferences

Abstract: Background: Culturally adapted behavior interventions are needed to support lifestyle behavior change for survivors of cancer. Objectives: To identify programming preferences of Mexicanorigin female survivors of breast cancer living on the U.S./Mexico border. Methods: We conducted a nine-week photovoice project with survivors of breast cancer in Nogales, Sonora/Arizona exploring viewpoints on food and dietary habits, wellness activities, and preferences for healthy lifestyle intervention programming. Photovoice, a participatory qualitative research technique, provided participants with research skills to document and share their lived experience through photographs. Weekly sessions began with photograph presentations and concluded with group discussion of common themes. Data were analyzed following a thematic content analysis using session notes and written narratives compiled during discussion sessions. Results: Survivors ( n = 6) worked collaboratively with facilitators to identify themes related to diet and physical activity behavior. Connection between food and culture and the importance of enjoying meals with others was emphasized. Primary activity interests included leisure-time recreation that relieved anxiety related to their cancer diagnosis rather than regimented exercise routines. Participants noted the importance of giving and receiving social support and emphasized altruism to support positive mood and self-efficacy during survivorship. Networking and knowledge sharing were considered valuable. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the importance of collaborative research such as photovoice to gain insights for adaptation of evidence-based lifestyle interventions for Mexican-origin survivors of cancer. Key adaptation considerations include culturally relevant dietary preferences and patterns, physical activities with a strong mind-body component, and opportunities for social engagement and experience sharing.

Sovereign at heart: photovoice, food mapping and giving back in Alberni-Clayoquot

ABSTRACT This article reflects on a year-long project that used both photovoice and food asset mapping methods in the Alberni-Clayoquot Region of British Columbia, Canada. Following others who emphasize reciprocation in research and the application of a heart-centered approach, this work had a two-fold purpose: 1) to give back to the community in which the researcher lived and worked, and 2) to create visual material and food policy guidance for the community. The photovoice project involved participants who were growers, processors, harvesters and/or foragers of food and resulted in multiple exhibitions of their work as well as a photobook distributed within the community. Alongside these, two separate food mapping sessions were completed with 42 participants which demonstrated that many residents associated food with human health, regional ecology, localization, production methods, social relations, economics, and spirit (metaphysics). We found these associations with food appear to indicate that many envision increasing regional food production by means of increasing food sovereignty. Our results (1) confirm that the research methods of photovoice and food asset mapping complement each other, (2), demonstrate the worth of giving back and the importance of a heart-centered approach to food systems’ research and change, (3) substantiate claims that the “Seven Pillars of Food Sovereignty” transcend borders and apply within Canada.

Through the Survivor’s Lens: A Photovoice Inquiry and Grounded Theory of Child Sex Trafficking

ABSTRACT Survivors of child sex trafficking are at increased risk for negative physical and mental health outcomes. However, there is a paucity of systematic research examining the lived experiences of commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC). Notably absent from the discourse are the voices of CSEC. This study explored the experiences of CSEC using a participatory, qualitative, and arts-based methodology. Fifteen survivors of domestic child sex trafficking, located in the southern continental United States, participated in a Photovoice project to establish a comprehensive understanding of their life experiences before, during, and after exploitation. These themes were included in a larger grounded theory analysis to produce The CSEC Model of Exploitation, a substantive theory of recovery from childhood commercial sexual exploitation, co-created by survivors of child sex trafficking, that describes risk and resiliency factors. This study provides information that is relevant to the prevention of child sexual exploitation, the clinical treatment of survivors, and advocacy initiatives.

Student Perspectives on Campus Tobacco Policy: A Photovoice Study

Objectives: Despite substantial progress in reducing the burden of tobacco use in the United States (US), it remains the leading cause of preventable disease in the US. University campuses can play a pivotal role by implementing high quality tobacco-free campus policies. Methods: In preparation for updating the tobacco policy at a Midwestern university we carried out a photovoice project to incorporate student voices into the policy revision process. Participants (N=17) used disposable cameras to collect photographs and engaged in discussion groups about their experiences. Researchers analyzed focus group transcripts using a constant comparative approach. Results: Overall, 24 participants attended at least one photovoice session. They were mostly female (N=21) and mostly non-Hispanic white (N=12). Themes from the focus group discussion included effects of tobacco use on campus, negative opinions about current tobacco policy, concerns about how tobacco use affects the university, and tensions between nonsmokers and smokers. Photovoice images and captions created by participants were displayed on campus and presented to decision-makers. Conclusions: Despite limited knowledge about tobacco products and policy, many participants expressed strong opinions about the effects of policy on their student experience. Involving students in the policy process is an important step to improve implementation of tobacco policy changes.

A Case Study on the Use of the Photovoice Method for the Empathy Education of College Students : Focusing on the class ‘Exploring Human Relations and Emotions in the AI Era’ at D University

The purpose of this study was to apply the photovoice method, a participatory action research method, to an actual class in order to expand empathy education for college students. To this end, the study examined where students developed an ability to empathize and then to provide implications. Photovoice enables students to develop a balanced growth of personal and social empathy by sharing personal experiences and by exploring social action through photos provided by research participants. A project utilizing the photovoice method was presented in the course ‘Exploring Human Relations and Emotions in the AI Era’, a liberal arts class at D University located in Seoul. The class was attended by 30 students and digital tools were used mainly in offline classes. The instructor introduced the main topic of the photovoice project, ‘Loneliness of Youth in the AI Era’ and the students carried out photovoice activities in teams. As a result of the activities, students stated that they developed their ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others in the areas of personal empathy and in their ability to communicate empathetically. Also, in the process of sharing the results of photovoice, the social empathy capacity of students to solve social problems and seek policy alternatives improved. Through the results of this study, practical guidelines will be put forth so that the photovoice method can be used in a wider variety of college classes.

Political participation of refugee and host community youths: epistemic resistance through artistic and participatory spaces

ABSTRACT The political participation of youth is growing in importance with the proliferation of youth parliaments, councils, and online campaigning. Yet, these sites are not accessible to all youth, especially those from minority, or refugee communities. Activism by these types of youth is often denounced or reduced to dehumanising narratives of their experiences. This paper aims to explore alternative spaces for and political participation of refugees through participatory art and exhibition spaces, which are critical for devising policies for pre-emptive peacebuilding and challenging potential intercommunal conflict. In this paper, we draw on a Photovoice project in Istanbul, Johannesburg and a refugee settlement in South-West Uganda (Oruchinga) that brought youth from FDPs and host communities together to reflect on their everyday experiences. All these sites are marked by increasing anti-refugee sentiments and xenophobia, where the voices of refugees are often denied and misinterpreted, making them compelling cases to elaborate on alternative participation methods and spaces for the political participation of refugees. The paper engages with the idea of epistemic (in)justice and resistance as an overarching condition to explore how the youth developed collective political voices.

Seeking approval first: Mental health care utilization and engagements among MENA adolescents in the United States

Like most adolescents, those from the Middle East and North African (MENA) region face a host of stressors that threaten their mental health. However, evidence suggests that this population may encounter specific barriers to access that inhibit or preclude help-seeking and engagement with mental health services. To better understand how these barriers limit MENA adolescents’ engagement with mental health services, we conducted interviews with 27 school-based service providers for MENA students in three U.S. cities and analyzed four focus group discussions from a Photovoice project with seven Arab adolescents in Detroit, MI. Our findings identified four key themes around barriers to service access and utilization: (1) the importance of reputation and adhering to familial and societal expectations, (2) student-parent communication around mental health and psychological distress, (3) the role of gender in seeking and engaging with mental health services, and (4) the quality and cultural appropriateness of mental health services. Strategies and recommendations for future research, policy, and practice to overcome these barriers are discussed.

What is an inclusive city? Reconfiguring participation in planning with geospatial photovoice to unpack experiences of urban belonging among marginalised communities

Visual research has historically been productive in foregrounding marginalised voices through photovoice as alternative to the written and oral forms of participation that dominate public participation. Photovoice projects have however been slow to leverage digital and spatial technologies for reworking the method in ways that enable geospatial analysis and collect structured metadata that can be used in workshops to bring different groups together around unpacking urban problems. The Urban Belonging project contributes to this by testing a new application, UB App, in an empirical study of how participants from seven marginalised communities in Copenhagen experience the city, including ethnic minorities, deaf, homeless, physically disabled, mentally vulnerable, LGBTQ+, and expats in Denmark. From a dataset of 1459 geolocated photos, co-interpreted by participants, the project first unpacks community-specific patterns in how the city creates experiences of belonging for different groups. Second, it examines how participants experience places differently, producing multilayered representations of conflicting viewpoints on belonging. The project hereby brings GIS and digital methods capabilities into photovoice and opens new epistemological flexibilities in the method, making it possible to move between; qualitative and quantitative analysis; bottom-up and top-down lenses on data; and demographic and post-demographic ways or organising participation.

Using photovoice to generate policy recommendations to improve the alcohol urban environment: A participatory action research project

The place where we live, work and play may influence our alcohol drinking behaviours. This study aimed to present local policy recommendations on urban determinants for alcohol consumption prevention in a low-income and a high-income area of Madrid (Spain) using a participatory action research method, with photovoice and nominal group techniques. Participants (n = 26) engaged in a photovoice project initiated a process of critical reflection by discussing and analysing their alcohol environment based on photographs they took themselves. At the end of six week group discussion sessions, participants identified 33 themes related to their alcohol environment. They later met to translate the final categories into urban policy recommendations using a logical framework approach. Then, with a nominal group, they prioritized these recommendations based on time, impact, feasibility, and cost. Finally, participants produced a total of 61 policy recommendations for the improvement of the alcohol environment, highlighting the need for researcher-community collaborations when designing public health interventions.

“Our community needs to heal”: Using Photovoice to Explore Intergenerational Memories of Civil War with Young Central Americans in Toronto

In 2020, our research collective facilitated a photovoice project titled “Picturing Our Realities: Arts-based Reflections with Central American Youth in Canada,” which brought together young, second-generation, and one-and-a-half-generation (born in another country and moved at a young age) Central American identifying people in Toronto to talk about their experiences growing up as children of immigrants. This photovoice project reveals the ways the civil war and migration process is a haunting presence in the lives of second and 1.5 generation Central American Canadians as they grow up and carve their paths as adults. We can see how unresolved social conflict emerges and shapes family memory, sense of self, understandings of community, and means of engaging in community activism and community work. We argue that this act of remembering and paying homage to previous generations is a means of confronting and resisting past injustices and forming ways of healing from the afterlives of violence. This recognition of the afterlives of mass violence, and the calls of action that this recognition entails, may form a powerful catalyst for community organizing and creating community spaces to respond to historical hauntings and structural violence.

Ethical Dilemmas, Rewards, and Lessons for the Future: Conducting Participatory Photographic Research With Asylum Seekers

This paper draws on my experience of organising a photovoice project with asylum seekers to outline the ethical dilemmas and rewards of planning and facilitating a participatory, creative research project with a hard-to-reach, potentially vulnerable population. It offers lessons learnt and useful insights for others considering a similar approach to data collection. The photo project was utilised to explore the impact of involvement with community-based social protection on the self-reported wellbeing of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. It was also designed to test the efficacy of the photovoice research methodology to produce simple, impactful findings useful for researcher, research participant and policymaker, empowering those who have often had little voice in community development to inform policy discussions. The paper is written from the author’s perspective, adopting a layered approach that utilises fieldnotes, quotes from project participants, and exhibition attendee feedback to provide a rounded description of the project. It pays particular attention to ethical dilemmas concerning project access, recruitment and communication and the complexity of juggling academic ethical rigour with a community-led approach across cultural and linguistic borders. It highlights how power dynamics can be experienced in the research environment entangled with issues of co-researcher dignity, ownership, and vulnerability. It also details the positive outcomes of the photovoice project in relation to collaborative knowledge creation, empathetic understanding, and advocacy opportunities. The author concludes by offering a summary of the key lessons learnt through the project and their implications for future research.

Healthy Housing in Richardsville: A Photovoice Project on Community Livability for Aging Adults

Aging in place refers to staying in one’s home well into older age. When gentrification occurs, older adults face financial challenges in sustaining affordable housing. Resident displacement results when moderate to high-income home buyers stream into neighborhoods and drive property values to prohibitive levels. Richardsville (pseudonym) is one of many communities in Atlanta’s inner city that has transformed from a blighted, long-derelict area to a hotbed of high rent apartment units, mixed with quarter-million-dollar-plus homes. Richardsville Senior Residences, an affordable rental unit, was built to provide housing for a mix of incomes and ages and retain longtime residents in Atlanta’s neighborhoods. In this community-based research project, we explore the lived experiences of eight older adults in a series of focus groups to discuss photographic images and give meaning to understand how they described aging in place. Common narratives among participants include access to outdoor spaces, smoke-free facilities, health and wellness, access to services, and social connections.

Exploring the Added Value of Inclusive Dementia Research Throughout (and Beyond) the Research Process

The need for the ‘voice’ of people living with dementia to be present in research has been gaining prominence in recent years. This has been realised through the rise of ‘inclusive research’, seeking to redress unequal power dynamics that have long dominated research. However, the impact and merit of inclusive research have been questioned, with questions around what value the involvement of disabled people as co-researchers adds to the research process and impact. With reference to an inclusive photovoice project on dementia post-diagnosis experiences, we address these debates through exploring the arc of the research project in three phases. In Phase 1 project notes and reflective conversations between the research team are drawn on to examine how the lived experience of researchers living with dementia shaped the focus and the methods employed. In Phase 2 conversation analysis is used to examine the interactional delivery of the focus group, showing that the researchers living with dementia used a mix of facilitation techniques to encourage and support talk, drawing on their own expertise by experience as an interactional tool to encourage participants to talk. In Phase 3 thematic analysis of participant follow up interviews is employed to examine experiences of taking part in the research. Participants reported improved positive self-image, benefits from peer support, and increased motivation to engage in future activities because of participation. We argue that the value the researchers with dementia added was not just confined to the focus of the research, but was ‘baked into’ project design delivery, and impact upon participants living with dementia. We show that the ‘added value’ of inclusive research shaped the research methods and delivery to fit participants, supported increased participation and agency from participants during the research, and enabled participants to contest deficit framing(s) of dementia after leaving the research project.

Peacebuilding in Mali through photovoice

ABSTRACT What began in 2004 as a peace education program anchored in the Ciwara community school in the town of Kati just outside the capitol city of Bamako has become a longer-term peacebuilding project now located in camps for internally displaced persons in Mali. This project has been led by students and faculty from the Institut Universitaire pour Technologie of the Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako, in partnership with students and faculty in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities of Michigan State University. Together they have created Cours Collaboratifs Éducation à la Paix whose primary activity thus far has been a peace building project through photovoice. The project in these camps for internally displaced persons is designed to empower Malian university student mentors and their young mentees. Mentors and mentees are assisted by professional Malian photographers, staff from several national and international non-governmental organizations, and Michigan State University students and faculty using a video conferencing software. This essay describes the evolution of the CCÉP photovoice project, some of the ethical and political challenges we have encountered, and its potential for future everyday peacebuilding dialogs.

Safe but stifled: Assessing the impact of space and place on risk and adaptive response among shelter residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed society's interactions with spaces and places. This is especially true for shelter residents who had greater perceived risks of contracting the virus, largely because of communal living. To understand how shelter residents conceptualized their risk and resilience, we implemented a PhotoVoice project with five artists living in a Miami, FL shelter. Although these residents sometimes perceived the shelter as safe, it was often to the detriment of self-determination. Despite profound restrictions, residents still found ways to adapt to their environment. This article helps shelters and scholars alike better understand the ways that residents conceptualize their lived environments and highlights opportunities to empower residents despite challenging circumstances.