Blog post #15 Participatory Photography Training

• This blog post starts with a personal photo and reflective poem from Jen.
• We outline what participatory photography is and how the term ‘photovoice’ has been used.
• We report our experience of the comprehensive participatory photography course provided by the organisation PhotoVoice.
• We reflect on the implications for our work in the Narrative Explorations stream of Cripping Breath.

Dis/connect

I want to be told a story.

I want the comfort of a reassuring podcast.

I want some idea of what’s going on in the world.

I want an opinion.

I want history.

I want culture.

I want classical music to help me focus, and indie pop to dance to.

I want to be entertained, motivated, inspired.

To hear from other people.

To be introduced to something new.

I want to multi-task, take advantage of snippets of time, make the housework fun.

I want to connect to a wider world.

Shopping trips are more interesting.

Work is more possible.

I’m taking time, being me, self-caring.

I’m shutting out a voice I don’t want to hear.

Silencing thoughts.

Filling my mind with someone else’s words.

Two little ear buds matter to me.

But I’m blocking out stimuli, closing myself off.

I’m distracted, agitated, unaware.

I’m in my own world, not a world with others.

I’m elsewhere and elsewhen.

Missing moments.

Foregoing opportunities.

Mindless not mindful.

I’m not engaging, not self-reflecting, taking the easy way out.

Escaping what’s difficult.

And that little voice comes back.

I’m being rude, selfish, absent.

Guilty of not being present.

Guilty of not being in the moment.

Guilty of not listening.

Guilty of bad mothering.

Guilty of disconnecting.

I (Jen) took this photo as a response to a prompt as part of a training course in participatory photography, and then wrote this poem. I wanted a photo of something that mattered, and initially considered more obvious subjects (namely my children!) However, my ear buds, which I’m constantly looking for, and which I like to have with me, alongside an explanation or ‘caption’, offered the potential to surprise others, and an opportunity for me to reflect. The act of responding to a prompt, deciding what to photograph and how to explain it to the other participants on the course, made me think, and made me want to respond in a more detailed way, thinking through my ambivalent feelings about this seemingly straightforward piece of technology. At the beginning of the week, I didn’t expect to be writing such a personal piece, but that’s where the participatory photography approach developed by PhotoVoice led me.

Participatory photography is often described as ‘photovoice’. This term was included in an academic paper by Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris (1997), which set out three tenets of photovoice: (1) to enable people to record and reflect their community's strengths and concerns, (2) to promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs, and (3) to reach policymakers (p.370). However, the term is now trademarked by the organisation PhotoVoice, a non-profit organisation that promotes ethical photography and community engagement for social change. PhotoVoice has over the last 25 years developed its own unique approach to participatory photography.

As we learnt from this course, participatory photography emphasises participants having the agency to document and share what they choose, and runs counter to more extractive approaches that involve asking people to take photos in ways that simply serve the interests of researchers, partner organisations and funders. Before taking part in this course, I (Jen) had already written reflectively for myself about the use of ‘photovoice’ as a term when a more generic ‘photo elicitation’ would seem more appropriate, and this week strengthened my sense that some approaches labelled ‘photovoice’ can be tokenistic and don’t work to affect change as originally intended in the work of Wang and Burris, and as promoted by PhotoVoice. Nevertheless, this comprehensive participatory photography training encouraged further critical reflection on the work we want to do.

We attended to gain a greater understanding of participatory photography so we could feel more prepared to use this approach in the Narrative Explorations Stream. We were interested to think about both our planned research involving a ‘creative photo-taking activity’ and the opportunities for community researchers to work together on a project that could more accurately be characterised as participatory photography. We completed some pre-engagement tasks, and joined a small online group for a week of online sessions and independent activities. We took photos, watched videos, read and talked, learning from each other and from our excellent facilitator Tom, who brought humour, care and thoughtful insights to each of our sessions.

Throughout the week, we were challenged to think critically about how we envisioned participatory photography, reflecting on our ethical approach with complex real-world scenarios and thought-provoking questions. We discussed how to plan and facilitate workshops, talked about camera practicalities and considered how to write effective prompts. We had open, often moving conversations, and experienced first-hand what truly participatory photography can offer.

For us, taking part in this training has led us to rethink what we’re planning for the Narrative Stream of Cripping Breath. We questioned how much time we had allocated for people to spend online in small groups before being asked to take photos, what other activities might be needed, the wording of the prompts we had proposed, our approach to outputs, and ethical issues around longer term ownership of people’s photos.

We left the training with a lot to think about and discuss, and a genuine enthusiasm to work in partnership with the community researchers to facilitate a meaningful, participatory photography project.

References

Wang, C. and Burris, M.A. (1997) ‘Photovoice: concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment’, Health Education & Behaviour, 24(3), 369-387.