Photovoice Research Methodology

Photovoice is a qualitative research methodology that empowers diverse populations to share their experiences and perspectives through photography. Developed in 1997 by Professor Caroline Wang and Dr. Mary Ann Burris, this approach aims to engage underrepresented communities, such as women, children, and those facing language barriers, in documenting their daily lives and the challenges they encounter. By encouraging participants to take photographs that reflect their realities, photovoice fosters a sense of agency and allows individuals to convey their narratives in a culturally relevant way.

This method is particularly valuable in addressing the limitations of traditional research techniques, which often overlook marginalized voices. Researchers utilize photovoice to facilitate discussions within communities, viewing and interpreting the collected images together, which can lead to enhanced understanding and policy recommendations. While providing a creative outlet for participants, photovoice also poses ethical challenges, particularly regarding consent and the representation of vulnerable populations. Despite these complexities, photovoice has been successfully applied across various fields, contributing to a deeper understanding of social issues and informing community-based initiatives.

Published in: 2021

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Subject Terms

Photovoice Research Methodology

Abstract

Photovoice is a qualitative research methodology used to enable diverse populations to engage, reflect, and advance knowledge about their own communities and experiences. This research method is used throughout the social and natural sciences as a way to reach communities commonly overlooked by researchers, such as illiterate, young, old, and/or language learning communities. Often times, members of these underserved populations are uncomfortable talking to researchers. This research method is designed to put participants at ease, and encourage them to record and reflect on their daily lives.

Overview

Photovoice emerged as a research method in 1997 during a partnership between Professor Caroline Wang of the University of Michigan and Dr. Mary Ann Burris of the Ford Foundation in Beijing (Wang & Burris 1997). These professors were working to design a research project that would encourage rural Chinese women to record and reflect on their daily lives and the barriers that they faced in accessing reproductive health programs. Wang and Burris argued that photovoice was a necessary and useful research method that allowed female participants to overcome barriers produced by male-dominated rural communities. This was not the first time that photography had been used in community-based research, though previous projects had used the term "photo novella."

Photovoice is a necessary adaptation of traditional, closed research methods in which researchers relied on interviews, observations, and archival documents. While those research methods were still acceptable, scholars and policy makers were worried that their projects were ignoring the perspectives of underrepresented and underserved demographic groups. This included groups that had been excluded from research because of their gender, race, class, religion, age, economic group, language and/or disability. For example, indigenous communities have a long and troubled history of engagement with researchers. Photovoice is one method both researchers and communities are turning to as a way to overcome past research problems and produce meaningful research that represents community needs and knowledge (Tremblay et al., 2018).

Research participants are encouraged, through photovoice, to record and interpret their needs, concerns, and questions for researchers. This is a creative research method, which researchers often adapt to meet the needs, experiences, and expectations of their target populations. When a project begins, researchers must first identify the demographic group that they wish to study, and consider what experiences they have with photography and how they will respond to the request that they photograph their daily lives.

Researchers must also consider how technology will be used and distributed. Will they use disposable cameras, or will digital cameras be used? Do participants have access to smartphones that can take and transmit images, or will this be their first time using a camera of any type? The answer to these questions will affect the amount of training and equipment purchasing required by the project.

After the community is identified and the technology chosen, researchers must begin to introduce their project to the community and decide on an easy to understand prompt for the image collection. For example, some researchers distribute disposable cameras to community members and ask them to take pictures of their daily lives, or pictures that address a specific issue, such as "pollution in my community" or "signs of progress at my school." After the prompt has been explained, researchers must be sure that participants understand how to use the selected technology and that all participants have discussed the ethics of taking photographs. Because community members are being asked to take pictures in their homes or communities, this often includes a discussion of the ethics of taking photos of children, pictures inside of the home, and how to ask permission before taking a photo. After these discussions, participants are asked to take photos and return to meet with the researchers.

Upon return, the researchers and community participants organize a viewing session. During this session, the collected photographs are printed and the community participants narrate the story of why they took a specific picture, what it means to them, and how the photo informs their hopes for change or progress in the community. In some research designs, these presentations occur in a community setting with many research participants present. In other research designs, the discussion occurs one-on-one between the researcher and community member.

Following the viewing and discussion of the collected photos, researchers begin the process of data analysis. In some research designs, this analysis is completed by both researchers and community members. In other research designs, it is only researchers who work on the analysis. Because of this variability, it is critical that researchers are clear when designing their method about who will participate in each stage of research and analysis.

University researchers must receive ethical approval from their Institutional Review Boards (IRB). This approval requires that the entire research design be explained and approved before the project begins. Therefore, researchers must begin a project by brainstorming a list of everyone that they would like to participate in the project before it begins. It is often very difficult to add additional research methods or participants to a project after it has been approved by the IRB.

Analysis of collected photos and photovoice may occur in many ways. Some researchers like to cluster the collected photos by theme or topics, and then argue that specific concepts are of most importance to the community. Others like to focus on the anomalies that emerge from the photographs. For example, they might point out that from a collection of family images in household settings, only a few images include books or other reading material. This could point to the need for more reading materials to accompany a literacy program. Some researchers will move forward to publication at this time, while others will return to the community and ensure that their findings and interpretations are inline with the community's findings and interpretations. This step of returning to the community is particularly important when the researcher is working in an international or different cultural setting where they may not understand the nuances visible in the collected images or narrated during the viewing and discussion stage.

Further Insights

Photovoice has been used in a diversity of fields, program planning sessions, and classrooms. Many students are trained in the use of photovoice as a research methodology, and some are given an opportunity to conduct their own research using the method. This is particularly common for students who are participating in a field trip or are studying abroad. For some projects, students document their own experiences, and in others they are encouraged to work with local communities to collect photographs (Kortegast & Boisfontaine, 2015).

By using photovoice, students are encouraged to engage with local communities, and while they might be visiting tourist locations or engaging in the same activities as tourists, this research method causes them to focus and analyze their experiences at a deeper level. This methodology can work well for short-term studies as well as understanding the ways that international exchange students are integrating into new school systems and learning styles (Wang, Leen & Hannes, 2017).

In the field of public health and sociology, health researchers seek to understand the ways that disenfranchised or overlooked communities view particular issues, go about daily activities, and/or engage in their communities. For example, researchers have used photovoice to understand how violence might be considered a public health issue (Chonody, Ferman, Amitrani-Welsh & Martin, 2013). Other researchers have used photovoice to understand the ways that children see the world. For example, researchers have studied the causes and effects of rural childhood obesity. The images collected for this research project served a dual purpose. They were able to inform future policy makers. The photos were also made available for a community awareness campaign that encouraged parents and community members to think differently about and become engaged in issues surrounding childhood obesity (Choi, 2012).

Other examples of successfully using photovoice to reach disenfranchised communities include work that has focused on homelessness. For example, researchers in Toronto, Canada, have worked with young mothers who have experienced some form of homelessness. These mothers were asked to produce photo blogs that demonstrated their living experiences, struggles, and things that they were most proud of. From the production of these blogs, researchers were better able to understand how young mothers view themselves. Their analysis was published in academic journals, and the young mothers were encouraged to write about their experiences, which encouraged them to reflect on their experiences and highlight their successes (Fortin et al., 2015).

Western researchers have also turned to photovoice as a way to engage in the study of developing and underdeveloped nations. Building on Wang & Burris' early success in rural China, contemporary researchers have looked to photovoice as a way to work with rural, disenfranchised communities. Participants in these studies are frequently women and girls who might not otherwise have a voice in community decision making. For example, photovoice has been used in Gujarat, India, to understand the ways that young girls are educated (Shah, 2014).

In Guatemala, researchers also used photovoice to understand the lives and needs of community members facing violent environments, including intimate partner violence. Participants were asked to take photos of their neighborhoods, friends, places of employment, and places that they travel. The resulting analysis included some of the participants' photos, their verbal reflections on the project, and the researchers own analysis (Duffy, 2017). These research methods, which combine the work of both international researchers and local community members, move closer to producing an equal power dynamic that produces accurate representations of developing communities. However, critics note that the final decision making power, and therefore the power of analysis and interpretation, is in the hands of international researchers.

Issues

Photovoice has the ability to engage diverse communities in the research process. Additionally, because these community members are engaged in research and resulting policy proposals, it is hoped that photovoice will result in superior policy decisions and programs. Researchers enjoy the adaptability of this method, which can be changed to meet the needs and experiences of each community.

However, this flexibility can also create problems when comparing different research projects, or making comparisons between different communities. Other research methods, such as surveys, can control the questions that are asked and then make a comparison between those questions. For example, policy makers could make a comparison between the ways that two communities value access to fresh water pumps. When using photovoice, however, it may be difficult to ensure that all participants choose to focus on water pumps, or that they focus on water pumps in a way that could be compared between communities or would be understandable by policy makers.

Additionally, scholars note that there has not been much comparative research between photovoice and other research methods. This means that while researchers like using photovoice, it has not been proven that photovoice produces better analysis or policy decisions than other research methods. Oftentimes researchers are empowered to choose the research method with which they feel most comfortable; this freedom encourages good research, but sometimes prevents comparisons between research methods.

Finally, there are questions regarding the ethics of photovoice, specifically surrounding the collection of photographs that may be taken without the subject's knowledge or consent. Frequently, university IRB boards require that academic researchers get written or vocal confirmation that their research subjects agree to participate in a study. However, when the data is being collected by someone else, in this case community participants, it can at times be unclear how or if consent has been confirmed. For example, it can be hard for a researcher to know if a young child consented to a picture in which she appears, or if members of a church or political group knew the extent to which their photographs would be used and published. Because children, religious, and political group members are often considered to be vulnerable groups by IRB research boards, researchers must be prepared to defend their research methodology and explain how they ensured that these participants understood how their photos would be used and published.

When ethical constraints are attended to, and community members fully understand the extent to which their photos will be used, photovoice can be a revolutionary research methodology. As Wang and Burris' early work in China demonstrated, this research methodology can be a tool through which community members are able to explain their lives, and researchers can better understand the developing world.

Terms & Concepts

Built Environment: Elements of the landscape that are created by humans, such as parks, buildings, and roads. Photovoice often records the ways that the built environment effects day-to-day activities of research participants, and produces policy proposals to improve the built environment of those participants.

Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR): A research design technique in which community members, individuals, and researchers are equal partners in designing, implementing, and assessing a research project. This research design aims to better understand issues in community settings, as well as produce research that will inform policy makers about the lived experiences of diverse communities.

Documentary Photography: A type of photography that is designed to catalog, document, and record important events and day-to-day life. The difference between documentary photography and photovoice is that documentary photography is designed as a specific, inclusive project. The photograph is the end result of the project, though it might later be used by researchers to understand key concepts or historical events. Photovoice includes photographs that might also inform historic researchers, but their primary purpose is to enable to understanding, explanation, and analysis of specific phenomena and/or communities.

Institutional Review Board (IRB): These ethical oversight committees approve each research project carried out by university researchers and/or students. The IRB board ensures that research projects will not harm human or animal subjects. If there is a risk of harm, human participants must be informed of all possible risks and consent to participate in the project despite those risks.

Photo Novella: A precursor to photovoice, this research method encouraged community members to collect photographs that would help to represent and explain their community. The inclusion of the term "novella" in describing this research method indicates that participants are being asked to tell a story, often the story of their lives or communities.

Qualitative Methods: A type of research used to understand the activities, motivations, experiences, and opinions of an individual or group. This research method relies on interviews, observation, explanation, and new techniques such as photovoice to collect data.

Bibliography

Chonody, J., Ferman, B., Amitrani‐Welsh, J., & Martin, T. (2013). Violence through the eyes of youth: A photovoice exploration. Journal of Community Psychology, 41(1), 84–101. Retrieved January 1, 2018 from EBSCO Online Database Sociology Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=84306821&site=ehost-live

Jin Young, C. (2012). A portrait of rural health in America. Journal of Rural Social Sciences, 27(3), 1–16. Retrieved January 1, 2018 from EBSCO Online Database Sociology Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=88842060&site=ehost-live

Duffy, L. (2017, June 6). Viewing gendered violence in Guatemala through photovoice. Violence against Women.

Fortin, R., Jackson, S. F., Maher, J., & Moravac, C. (2015). I was here: Young mothers who have experienced homelessness use Photovoice and participatory qualitative analysis to demonstrate strengths and assets. Global Health Promotion, 22(1), 8–20.

Kortegast, C. A., & Boisfontaine, M. T. (2015). Beyond "It was good": Students' post-study abroad practices for negotiating meaning. Journal of College Student Development, 56(8), 812–828.

Nykiforuk, C. I., Vallianatos, H., & Nieuwendyk, L. M. (2011). Photovoice as a method for revealing community perceptions of the built and social environment. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 10(2), 103–124.

Shah, P. (2014). Spaces to speak: Photovoice and the reimagination of girls' education in India. Comparative Education Review, 59(1), 50–74.

Tremblay, M., Baydala, L., Littlechild, R., Chiu, E., & Janzen, T. (2018, January 11). Promoting the strengths and resilience of an Indigenous community through photovoice. Pediatrics & Child Health.

Wang, Q., Leen, S., & Hannes, K. (2017). How do South American international students experience student life in Flanders? A photo elicitation project. Journal of International Students, 8(2), 1–22.

Wang, C., & Burris, M. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24(3), 369–387. Retrieved January 1, 2018 from EBSCO Online Database Sociology Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=9710051431&site=ehost-live

Photovoice Research Methodology

On this Page

Subject Terms

Photovoice Research Methodology

Abstract

Overview

Further Insights

Issues

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

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