four note friday 1.5 | Situating Photovoice in Approach and Theory

Where do we situate photovoice within the larger landscape of the many approaches to inquiry? What are the original theoretical underpinnings of photovoice, and do they still matter today? These very questions have been on my mind for nearly a year. And while they may seem simple to answer, each day my thinking on these topics renders them even bigger and more complex.

While all that thinking is far too much for today's post (you can read some of my thinking on this over on Substack), here I want to log the moving and moveable placement of photovoice in the approach-to-inquiry landscape and overview its original theoretical foundations.

1. 🧭 Situating Photovoice

There is debate within the methodological literature on where photovoice lives in terms of the vast array of approaches to inquiry. At present, my thinking about and uses of photovoice frame it as a form of critical participatory action research (CPAR). In their book Essentials of Critical Participatory Action Research (American Psychological Association, 2021), Michelle Fine and María Elena Torre broke CPAR down in the following ways:

CRITICAL. "The C stands for critical . . . our projects are rooted in a range of social theories focused on questions of power, structural and intimate violence, and inequities and . . . our projects are shaped by a collective anchored by those most impacted by injustice" (p. 6).
PARTICIPATORY. "[T]he P in CPAR stands for rich and deep participation by a collective of researchers, including and centered on those most impacted by the issue being studied" (p. 6).
ACTION. "The A signals that CPAR projects link research with action through a range of forms: scholarship, social policy, teaching, legal reform, organizing, and sometimes theatre, spoken word, graphic arts, comics, digital stories, music, and more" (p. 7).
RESEARCH. "The R [stands for research and] represents a commitment to systematic inquiry" (p. 7).

Well, that checks all my boxes.

Photovoice has long been considered a form of participatory action research (PAR)—with varying levels of participation from co-reseachers or participants (here is one example of a ladder of participation, which can be a helpful mental model). Adding the word critical as a qualifier provides specificity and links into the undergirding theories of the methodology.

So, what of these guiding theories?

2. 💡Guiding Theory 1: Education for Critical Consciousness

Photovoice is grounded in Paulo Friere's notions of education for critical consciousness. Friere was a Brazillian educator and educational philosopher. He critiqued models of education focused on the transmission of information and advocated for a dialogic model focused on empowerment and understanding and critiquing social structures and systems.

Within photovoice projects, information is not expeditiously extracted from human subjects. Instead, participants are co-researchers, partners, collaborators, and integral to the entire inquiry process. Members of the research collective are valued. Being a participant-researcher involved with a photovoice project is to learn, grow, expand, understand, advocate, and make change. This is quite contrary to traditional approaches to human subjects research.

3. 🕯️Guiding Theory 2: Feminisms

Photovoice is also grounded in feminisms, as there are many, many forms of feminism. Photovoice is most consequentially concerned with listening to, making space for, and amplifying to voices of the marginalized. These are often the very voices that go unheard, pushed out, and silenced when information is gathered and policy is made impacting marginalized groups.

4. 📸 Guiding Theory 3: Participatory Documentary Photography

Building upon the works of Wendy Ewald and Jim Hubbard, photovoice draws from the lessons of participatory documentary photography. Who better to document a community than the members of that community? Participants in photovoice projects are not the subjects of photographs; they are the photographers.

❓💭📨 What are your thoughts on situating photovoice within extant research approaches and traditions? Is photovoice a form of CPAR? Something else? What about the theoretical origins of photovoice? Do they still resonate today in the way they did in the mid-1990s? Hit reply and let me know.

🥹 Thanks for spending a moment with me this Friday.
💌 If you’re new here, welcome! I hope this space becomes one you look forward to each week.

📬 Have a question you want me to answer in a future issue? Reach me at photovoicefieldnotes@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for being here.

Warmly,
Mandy
photovoice field notes
photovoicefieldnotes.com