four note friday 2.27 | Take-aways from 'Photovoice Reimagined'

This week I read the book Photovoice Reimagined (Bristol University Press, 2024) by Nicole Brown. This book was featured in the reader reports concerning the second edition of my photovoice book. I hadn't yet read the text and wanted to dive in right away. Quite glad I did! It was an interesting read that got me thinking in a lot of different directions.

First, you should read the book. Brown delivers some provocative ideas worth considering. I enjoyed it very much.

The book opens with a section titled How this book can help, which delivers the purpose of the text. Brown stated:

The book . . . fulfils [sic] a very specific purpose. Photovoice Reimagined presents photovoice as a continuum from 'minimal participation, limited social change' to 'maximum participation, active transformation.' Within that continuum then, photovoice is described as a method (comprising all forms of photo-elicitation work) and as a framework (photovoice in its purest sense). Thus, the original contribution of Photovoice Reimagined lies in the reframing of what constitutes photovoice and photo-elicitation projects. (p. xvii)

I was immediately drawn into the book by this excerpt because—I disagree. And I suppose this makes me a photovoice purist—something I never even thought of before reading this book.

[Sidebar. This (my disagreement) is a good thing. The literature on photovoice has developed to a point where there can be healthy debate and fruitful disagreement about photovoice. This is how ideas grow and new innovative approaches are developed. Again, a good thing!]

As I have written about before, I view photovoice and photo elicitation as very different things.

At the same time, I really appreciate the continuum Brown puts forward. Individual photovoice projects can be seen as existing on this continuum, which can be illuminating for project facilitators to consider.

She also offers many additional interesting ideas within the text. Within this post, I share four take-aways from this book. They are as follows.

Minimal Participation, Limited Social Change to Maximum Participation, Active Transformation

To again emphasize, this continuum is an extremely helpful heuristic for considering the nature of photovoice projects in terms of participation levels and outcomes.

At the same time, the continuum presented in the book is a bit too broad for me, and I have come to realize that the word photovoice is being used to describe research methodologies and methods that stray quite far from Wang and Burris's (1997) original conceptualizations.

As referenced above, what I realized from this book is there is further evidence that photovoice has a "purest sense" (p. xvii) according to Brown. There is canonical photovoice, and there is noncanonical photovoice. However, researchers are conceptualizing canon/noncanon much differently.

For example, see this earlier post. Stewart et al. (2025) disrupt the canon by unraveling an rethreading (canonical) photovoice using an endarkened feminist epistemology. In this example, photovoice is still photovoice. It is not broadly redefined to encompass approaches bearing no resemblance to Wang and Burris's (1997) original work whatsoever.

Ironically, we need more words for photovoice.

Three Broad Categories of Photovoice

On page 35 of the text, Brown wrote "[o]n the one hand, photovoice continues in its original intentions as a framework with a clear philosophical stance for carrying out research; on the other hand, photovoice nowadays includes, extends to, and overlaps with photo elicitation."

While I agree with her, I also believe the latter is a mistake—a case of methodological drift. Clearer writing about methodologies and methods could address this issue, which I see as a reading problem. Especially within qualitative research, we need to read and review the methodological literature in just the same we review the literature related to the topic of study. Details, language, and naming matter a lot.

Building from page 35, the excerpt that follows is from page 37: "[f]or the purpose of this book, I therefore propose three broader categories, within which I will explore different approaches to data collection: (1) photovoice as a method where researchers supply photographs for interviews, (2) photovoice as a method with participants bringing found or created photographs to interviews, and (3) photovoice as a framework."

Reading this passage helps me understand the reviewer's point I wrote about last week. Within the second edition of my book, I am going to have to make it clear that I am—old school. In other words, I see photovoice as something totally different from photo elicitation. To me, photovoice is a research methodology or approach that is nestled under the category of critical participatory action research and leverages photo elicitation as a method. Indeed, according to Brown (2024), I am a photovoice purist and need to make that known as part of my positionality as a writer.

Post-Project Problems

Photovoice researchers are often critiqued for not taking more seriously the A in CPAR—action. Brown (2024) noted that "the emancipatory effects of photovoice are most often not met." (p. 19). And this is correct.

However, most of what we know about photovoice comes from the scholarly literature. And journal articles are written to advance knowledge but also to advance the careers of academics. We have to keep this in mind when making the assumption that all that was written up was all that happened. Not likely so.

Even though the aims of photovoice are lofty and difficult to meet, they are still valuable to building the spine of the project. Photovoice projects that fail to meet emancipatory aims are still photovoice projects because those aims highlight the project's pathway and shape the decisions made by the facilitator and group.

How do we know when participation in a photovoice project stops impacting a participant? Stops the seeds of critical consciousness from growing? I don't think this is knowable.

And so the timing of the publication matters, as the scholarly outputs from a project can be many and span quite a long time.

Photographic Metadata

In chapter 5 of the book, titled Photovoice and Dissemination, Brown (2024) discusses photographic metadata. She noted that "unless the photographers, researchers, or web teams edit the embedded metadata, the privacy of the individuals involved in the project is in no way guaranteed" (p. 93).

This is important. And it helps me see one of many potential ways to address the feedback provided by one of the reviewers about addressing the intersection of technology and ethics within contemporary photovoice work.

Concern about photographic metadata is only relevant within projects using digital images in contexts where those images are shared with various publics. Think websites and social media. Those deploying analog photovoice—which is rare these days, but I still think has some interesting value—have very different technology-ethics concerns.

Metadata is relevant to more than just participant-generated digital photographs. Metadata can be embedded in screenshots, found digital images, and AI-generated images.

In her book, Brown (2024) closes each chapter with a set of tasks for readers to carry out. At the close of chapter 5, she recommends readers experiment with https://www.metadata2go.com/. I did just that.

Upon uploading the header image within this post, the following pdf was available to freely download from the site.

And now I have more homework because this report is mostly illegible to me. I could not find anything that appeared identifiable, but I lack the metadata literacy skills to fully understand it.

This topic will certainly be getting some attention in edition two.

Reading work that challenges your frameworks for sense making is vital for broadening your capacity to understand. Even though I disagree with Brown's (2024) conceptualization of photovoice, I still quite enjoyed reading the book and understand her arguments. Pick up the book and see where your thinking stands!

🥹 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