Transcript Participatory Action Research approaches (PAR)

Photovoice training
Council Bluffs, June 4th 2011
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This project is:
Involving New
Immigrants and
Minorities in
Local Food
Systems
January 2011- January
2012
“Start your own Diversified Farm” class—
Marshalltown, IA, Spring 2009
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Involving New Immigrants and
Minorities in Local Food Systems
• Incorporate immigrants and other minority
members into the food chain as participating
members of the Value Chain Partnerships.
• This should “increase access to healthy, nutritious,
affordable local food that is produced using
principles of sustainable agriculture… [by and] for
families coping with economic hardship” –
particularly immigrant and minority farmers and
gardeners themselves.
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Participatory Action Research
approaches (PAR)
Photovoice
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4
??
Why are you participating in this
project?
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Outline
Participatory Action Research approaches (PAR)
What are the goals of PAR?
What are key components of PAR?
Why is it important to conduct PAR?
Photovoice
What is it?
How can it be used?
Why are we deciding to use it?
Voices that we want to start hearing
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PAR
It is a process of “investigating reality
in order to change it”
It is research with, rather that
research on or for.
It is rooted in resistant values such as
mutual aid, care, communalism,
intentionality, and reflective action.
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Key features of PAR
Participants examine their own knowledge and
understanding
The research is self-directed rather than otherdirected
Practical
Collaborative
Critical
Emancipatory
Reflexive
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Co-researcher
• A member of a group who shares
responsibility for planning and carrying
out a research project. In photovoice,
community members are coresearchers along with a photovoice
facilitator.
• Together, they make decisions about
the focus of the project, collect and
analyze data, create new knowledge
and share findings with others.
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The role of the co-researchers
Shifting the role of marginalized youth
from simply giving voice to one of
becoming change agents through
educational research.
People directly affected by a problem
under investigation engage as coresearchers in the research process,
which includes action, or intervention,
into the problem.
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Why did we decided to work with
youth?
“young people have unique perspectives on
learning, teaching, and schooling; that their
insights warrant not only the attention but
also the responses of adults; and that they
should be afforded opportunities to actively
shape their education.”
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Transformative and activist
Youth have well-articulated critiques of
school and society, but they often lack
opportunities to share their ideas and
concerns.
Helping young people develop the
knowledge, leadership skills, and
sociopolitical power needed to redress
mounting educational and social injustices.
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Conclusion
You’re a co-researcher, you
are one of the experts.
RFWGs want to learn from
you!
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Photovoice
• Community members are empowered
to share their words and photographs
as a way to reach decision-makers
and implement positive change in
their home communities.
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Photovoice
A participatory action research method that employs
photography and group dialogue as a means for
marginalized individuals to deepen their understanding
of a community issue or concern.
The visual images and accompanying stories are the tools
used to reach policy- and decision-makers.
The aim of this research method is to improve conditions
by making changes at the community level.
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• Photovoice equips individuals with
cameras so they can create
photographic evidence and symbolic
representations to help others see the
world through their eyes
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• As a photovoice participant, individuals share
ideas and concerns about their experiences
and their community.
• They also take on the role of photographer
where they have the responsibility of capturing
photographic evidence. Additionally,
participants assume the role of co-researcher
• Responsibilities around setting research goals,
data collection, data analysis and sharing
research findings.
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Identify and record their community
strengths and struggles;
Explain their experiences through
critical reflection and group dialogue;
and
Inform decision-makers and influence
policy (Wang and Burris 1997).
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Five key concepts
1. Images Teach
2. Pictures can influence policy
3. Community members ought to
participate in shaping public policy
4. Influential policy-makers must be
audience to the perspectives of
community members
5. Photovoice emphasizes individual and
community action
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Images Teach
Images captured through photovoice
tell stories that identify concerns,
depict struggles or show a particular
view of a community.
Through photographs, marginalized
individuals offer insight and teach
others about their experiences.
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Pictures can influence policy
Photographs force the viewer to see an
experience from the standpoint of another
person.
Photographs offer powerful concrete
evidence of a reality in a way that words
simply cannot capture.
Photographs can capture the attention of
policy-makers and influence their awareness
and understanding of a specific issue or of a
reality that is quite different from their own.
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Community members ought to
participate in shaping public policy
As photographers, individuals must question
how they have represented and defined their
communities and experiences.
This process can aid community members in
understanding that they have a right to have
a say in shaping the public policies that
influence their health and the health of their
family and friends.
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Influential policy-makers must be
audience to the perspectives of
community members
Influential decision-makers need to be
the audience.
They need to listen to the stories and view
the photographs of the photovoice project
so that the ideas and experiences of
community members can inform their
policy decisions.
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Photovoice emphasizes
individual and community action
• It is not enough just to examine
community problems and struggles;
there must be energy put toward
identifying community solutions and
doing what is needed to implement
those solutions.
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Some challenges
Close examination of an issue of
concern can cause negative feelings.
Participants continuously make choices
about what they select as subject
matter for their photographs. They also
make choices about what is not
included in their photographs. These
choices obviously influence the
research findings.
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A Quick Glance at the Steps in
Photovoice
1. Connecting and Consulting with the Community
2. Planning a Photovoice Project
3. Recruiting Photovoice Participants and Target
audience Members
4. Beginning the Photovoice Project
5. Photovoice Group Meetings
6. Data Collection
7. Data Analysis
8. Preparing and Sharing the Photovoice Exhibit
9. Social Action and Policy Change
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Timeline
20 mins
– What to do and when? (timeline in excel)
• Take pictures of food events and issues,
analyze and describe them
• From June 7th until *August 14th
– How?
– Results
– Who is going to monitor all the
activities?
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Results
1. Quality photos and descriptions
2. Critical thinking and analysis about
agriculture and food issues in participants
communities or surrounding areas.
3. Students will write a final report about their
experience when participating in this project
along with their picasaweb portafolio.
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•
Who is going to monitor all the
activities?
Jan L. Flora
[email protected]
Extension Community and
Agricultural Sociologist and
Professor of Sociology.
Iowa State University
Graduate Research
Assistants, Iowa State
University:
• Claudia Marcela Prado
[email protected]
• Diego Thompson
[email protected]
• Saul Abarca Orozco
[email protected]
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Photovoice in action
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How?
• Students will take photographs of food events meals,
gardens, and other agriculture and food issues in the
Latino communities where they live or surrounding
areas (example: food stands at soccer fields).
• Students will gather information about why food and
agriculture are important for the Latino/as, and will
share the photos with people of their communities.
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For example:
In many ways Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen in
Berkeley — just a few doors down the street
from Chez Panisse, the grande dame of the slowfood movement in the Bay Area — is the
quintessential farm-to-table restaurant. It features
local food, organic produce and a seasonal menu.
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Some examples:
"Mom's favorite"
• This photograph was taken and selected by Lola; she
named this photograph "Mom's favorite“ because she
likes asparagus ("I ate most of it") and made it for her
family. As Lola described, "I put some on their plate,
but they, they afraid to try it, but they just tasted one
and..." Even though she knows her children might not
like asparagus at first, she wanted them to try the
vegetable. This practice of providing vegetables and
teaching her children to eat vegetables was learned
from her mother. Interview 2009.
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"Grandma's
treats".
• This photograph was taken in Pat's home. Researchers
selected this photograph to discuss, but Pat provided
the title. Throughout Pat's interview, she described
frustration with her mother, especially in how her mother
"feeds" her children. Pat recalled, "And I had made 'em
like a big breakfast- sausage, eggs and potatoes and all
that stuff. And then she came over, my mom came over
and she brought donuts. And they just sat there and sat
there cuz they weren't hungry..." This photograph of
three iced donuts illustrates grandmother undermining
Pat's control over her children's food choices-Pat,
Interview 2009.
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Photovoice in action
40 mins
• Examples of previous photovoice
projects
– How are the photos described?
– Possible outcomes
• Is it possible to create social change using
photovoice?
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Examples of other
photovoice projects
International Projects:
http://www.photovoice.org/projects
– Images of What is Ours - Paraguay (2009-2010)
Location: Paraguay
Young Lives, Save the Children - Ethiopia (2008)
Location: Ethiopia Keywords: Health Project
Background Addis, Ethiopia, 2005. Sirba and Goditz,
Debrezeit region and Megara, Awassa Region 2008
Partner organizations: Save the Children UK
All rights reserved. Copyrighted Webpage.
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Possible outcomes: Is it possible to
create social change using photovoice?
• Time is a significant constraint for the
ambitiousness of the social action projects
and for photovoice itself. However, youth will
discover that scarce time forces a
compromise in the time allocated to
photography, Photovoice captions, critical
dialogue, and conducting the social action
project.
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Possible outcomes: Is it possible to
create social change using photovoice?
• Photography is an incentive for participation
and a vehicle for Photovoice. Participants
need to spend an equal amount of time
taking pictures, and expressing their ideas in
free writing, at the same time facilitators will
engage participants in critical dialogue about
pictures or to assist reluctant writers in
expressing their ideas.
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Sharing our
Work with others
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If we are researching, what
is our data?
•
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Data: all of the information gained through the
research process. The photographs, taken by
community members, and their own words describing
and explaining the photographs, are the main data
collected in photovoice.
Data Collection: the process of gathering information
through a variety of activities and events. Taking
photographs, participating in group meetings,
recording discussions, guided dialogue, journaling,
exhibition feedback and debriefing are all opportunities
for data collection in photovoice. Data collection is
ongoing in photovoice because information is gained
right from the beginning until the end.
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Data Analysis is…
• the process of carefully exploring,
examining and comparing the data
collected. In photovoice, data analysis
develops a better understanding of the
issue of concern being addressed by
photovoice. By analyzing the data, coresearchers can determine general themes
and patterns, and identify how individual
issues relate to the experiences of others.
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Sharing our work with others
• Using picasa to share our work with
others,
– You need a gmail account
• If you do not have one, please take five mins to create
one.
• Click on photos, it will take you directly to picasa
• Create two albums,
– Name of the community, your name_Everything
– Name of the community, your name_Selected
» Ames, Prado-Meza, Claudia M._Everything
• Please share the two albums through a link, and send
them in an email to [email protected],
[email protected] and [email protected]
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The albums
– Everything: In this album you will upload all
the pictures that you have been taking.
– Selected: Each week you will select 3 to 5
pictures from all the pictures that you have
been taking and upload them in this
albums, these pics have to have the
following.43
About the ‘SELECTED’ album
• All the pictures in this album should be titled
• To describe the photos, please answer (most) the following
questions:
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–
–
–
–
–
–
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–
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what do you see in this picture;
what does this picture mean to you?
what's happening in this picture;
why did you take this picture;
what is missing from this picture;
When was this picture taken;
what was special about this picture;
what does the picture symbolize;
how does this picture make you feel;
did you set-up this picture and why; and,
what were you doing when this picture was taken?
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Describing the photos
In Photovoice, participants will have to represent their
world with photographs that they then analyze to
surface their meaning. Also, respond to the following
questions:
• Why food and agriculture are important for
Latino/as?
• What do we see in this picture?
• What’s really happening***? How these could
integrate…about the training part.
• How does this relate to your lives?
• Why does it exist?
• What can we do about it? (Shaffer, 1983).
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Describing the photos
• How would you like to get your food in the
future?
– To prepare for this intellectual work, the group
first will do preliminary activities to learn how
to take documentary pictures and to write
about images, leading to group critical
dialogue to generate a social action project.
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Selecting Photographs
• Participants choose photographs they
think reflect their community strengths
and struggles.
• Choose the photographs you want to
have included as photovoice evidence
and photographs you feel are
representative of your experiences.
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How to organize your albums
• Please upload your pictures as often as
possible, if you have internet
restrictions, you’ll have to upload them
on:
– Date1, date2, date3
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About the shared photos
• Is there a limit to the number of photos
you share?
– No
• How are the other participants going to
participate in the process?
– All the other participants should look at all
their colleagues’ selected albums and
make comments or questions about the
pictures uploaded
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• Participants offer ideas and insight,
while the facilitator uses open-ended
questions to elicit discussion of the
photographs
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State - Compilation
• These pictures will be printed in 16 x
20“ or 20 x 30" depending the picture
and will be shown in the state event
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The google document
• Open your gmail account
– Go to documents
• Create a new document
– Save the document with your name, and what community you
are from, ex
» Ames, Prado-Meza, Claudia
– Share this document with, [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
– Please describe your experience with the
photography activity
• What did I learn from this activity?
• Why is this project important?
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Cont..
• Write a 3 to 5 pages essay in which you
explain your selected album, and the
message that you want others to hear,
and the changes that you would like to
see in the near future
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The google document, Contd.
• Demographic data to include:
–
–
–
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Name
Age
Education (highest completed)
Car ownership
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What else do you need to
consider?
How will you ensure your research is
ethical?
What practices do you want to adopt
and implement to hold yourself
accountable during the research
process?
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Ethical Guidelines
All research is governed by strict ethical
considerations and guidelines.
Researchers are expected to do no
harm through research activities. The
ethical principles ensure that
photovoice participants and other
individuals or groups are not harmed as
a result of photovoice activities.
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