Caroline Wang’s work 30 years ago set a high bar for both relevance and impact of social research to inform advocacy and policy change. In spite of the many challenges in participatory visual research that so many of us have grappled with over the years, we are left with Wang’s legacy of ‘let’s do more!’ as we work with participants as authors and co-producers of knowledge. One aspect of photovoice where we can ‘do more’ is around the idea and practice of visual data analysis fully driven and owned by participants. In this keynote address I offer what I hope will be compelling arguments for increasingly engaging participants in interpretation and analysis of photovoice data. My talk will view this topic through youth-focused examples in Canada, India, and South Africa and argue for why it is more urgent than ever that we ‘step up’ ways of ensuring that photovoice data interpretation and analysis be participant-led and owned.

BIO

Claudia Mitchell is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University and an Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. At McGill she is the Director of the Institute for Human Development and Well-being and the founder and director of the Participatory Cultures Lab, a research and training unit in the Faculty of Education funded through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI).  

Her research focuses on participatory visual and arts-based approaches to working with young people and communities to address critical social issues such as gender equality and gender-based violence and in a wide range of country contexts in West Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and East Asia Pacific. Claudia also leads several funded projects working with Indigenous youth and focusing on arts-based approaches to address sexual violence. She is currently heading up a project funded the Ministry of Health and Security (MSSS) on Canadian Youth Talking about Pandemic Experiences (CYTAPE). 

Despite significant scholarship on war photography and images of violence and suffering, the relationship between photography and peace is underexplored.  A new agenda for visual peace research has posed the question: what might a photography of peace consist of?  How might photography contribute to or anticipate peace?  This talk will discuss how photovoice and participatory forms of image-making work as peace photography.  Through Imaging Peace, a 3-year Leverhulme Fellowship project, I have been working with practitioners based in countries with recent and ongoing histories of conflict, violence and genocide to explore how photovoice, community driven and participatory photography are being used to catalyse dialogue, to support healing, to re-build relationships and inspire peace imaginaries.  Taking an expansive view of photovoice and participatory photography, I will discuss the intentional, adaptive and careful methods and strategies being used by practitioners and communities and critically consider the peace potentialities of photovoice and participatory image-making. 

BIO

Tiffany Fairey is a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Co-Founder and former director of the UK charity PhotoVoice, she has 20+ years’ specialist experience working with photovoice and participatory visual methods in the UK and internationally.  She completed her PhD in Visual Sociology (Goldsmiths College) with research into community photography histories and participatory photography ethics and impact.  Her current research, Imaging Peace, focuses on the role of images and community engaged image-making in building peace and dialogue.  Collaborating with partners in Colombia, Nepal, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and BiH, Fairey is conducting the first multi-country empirical study of community engaged peace photography.  Her work has been recognised with various awards including the Royal Photographic Society’s Hood Medal for outstanding advance in photography for public service (2010) and King’s College SSPP Impact Award (2022).