Rethinking Photovoice as a Methodological Strategy for Participatory Social Research from a Feminist Perspective

Abstract

In the context of a growing presence of visual methods in social research, photovoice is positioned as a participatory methodological strategy combining photography production and community action, with an explicit influence of the feminist perspective. However, the links between the photovoice methodology and feminist thought have not been sufficiently elaborated and have been mostly limited to the task of identifying community needs for women and other subjects considered marginalized. In this paper we propose a re-reading of the photovoice methodology in the light of conceptual tools coming from the post-structuralist feminism framed in the third wave. We argue that such redefinition allows updating the links between photovoice and its feminist imprint and broadening its methodological scope. To illustrate this, we present a study conducted with photovoice methodology in a Mexican province, whose objective was to explore the relationship between gender and social action in the experience of activist women. In contrast with its traditional definition, we argue that photovoice can be conceived as a methodological strategy that allows: a) emphasizing the agency of participants; b) diversifying and expanding the social actors to which the methodology is directed; c) critically examining politics of representations and intervene in the cultural and symbolic order; d) privileging the emergence of “situated knowledge” and the connections between different perspectives; and e) implementing in the methodological level the feminist principle according to which ‘the personal is political’. We conclude by proposing that this particular re-reading of photovoice allows to enrich its methodological potentialities as it enables a renewed articulation between feminist epistemologies, participatory perspectives, exploration of subjectivity and action-oriented research.