Abstract
This paper draws on my experience of organising a photovoice project with asylum seekers to outline the ethical dilemmas and rewards of planning and facilitating a participatory, creative research project with a hard-to-reach, potentially vulnerable population. It offers lessons learnt and useful insights for others considering a similar approach to data collection. The photo project was utilised to explore the impact of involvement with community-based social protection on the self-reported wellbeing of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. It was also designed to test the efficacy of the photovoice research methodology to produce simple, impactful findings useful for researcher, research participant and policymaker, empowering those who have often had little voice in community development to inform policy discussions. The paper is written from the author’s perspective, adopting a layered approach that utilises fieldnotes, quotes from project participants, and exhibition attendee feedback to provide a rounded description of the project. It pays particular attention to ethical dilemmas concerning project access, recruitment and communication and the complexity of juggling academic ethical rigour with a community-led approach across cultural and linguistic borders. It highlights how power dynamics can be experienced in the research environment entangled with issues of co-researcher dignity, ownership, and vulnerability. It also details the positive outcomes of the photovoice project in relation to collaborative knowledge creation, empathetic understanding, and advocacy opportunities. The author concludes by offering a summary of the key lessons learnt through the project and their implications for future research.
Keywords
Introduction
In this paper I draw on my experience of organising a photovoice project with asylum seekers to outline some of the ethical challenges and rewards of planning and facilitating participative, creative research projects with hard-to-reach, potentially vulnerable populations. I also offer lessons learnt, and useful insights for others considering a similar approach to data collection.
The photovoice project formed part of my PhD. It’s objectives were, firstly, to explore the impact of involvement with community-based social protection 1 on the self-reported wellbeing of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. And, secondly, to test the efficacy of photovoice to produce simple, impactful findings useful for researcher, research participant and policymaker, empowering those who have often had little voice in community development to inform policy discussions. My research focused specifically on asylum seekers, rather than immigrants or refugees in general, as the UK’s deterrence-based formal social protection for this group has been heavily criticised as insufficient, leading to destitution, poor wellbeing, and a reliance on community-level welfare provision.
The desire to follow an anti-oppressive approach to data collection steered me towards photovoice, a collaborative visual research tool often recommended when working with marginalised and vulnerable groups (Glaw et al., 2017; Sutton-Brown, 2014) where language may represent a barrier to communication. It also prioritised on-going critical reflection concerning participant interaction, handling of research outputs, and accountability relationships. I hoped photovoice would produce positive outcomes for all those involved, as well as yield helpful data for my thesis.
This account is told from the author’s perspective, adopting a layered approach (Olt, 2018; Ronai, 1995) that utilises fieldnotes, participant quotes, and exhibition feedback to provide a rounded commentary of the project. A layered approach seeks to create detailed descriptions of the often privately experienced thoughts and feeling of the author, sharing emotions, reactions, beliefs and opinions through personal vignettes and critical reflection. Participant and organisation names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.
Photovoice Methodology
No matter how familiar the object or situation may be, a photograph is a restatement of reality; it presents life around us in new, objective, and arresting dimensions, and can stimulate the informant to discuss the world about him as if observing it for the first time. (Collier, 1957, p. 859)
In the last three decades, the use of photography as a data collection tool in anthropological study has broadened to include a wide range of co-production and action research-based visual methodologies (Catalani & Minkler, 2010; Fountain et al., 2021). These seek to address a growing critique of the elitism of knowledge production by professionals and a scholarly ‘crisis of representation’ in academia (Stewart & Floyd, 2004) by facilitating a greater level of critical consciousness (Freire, 1996), empowerment, and mutual benefit in the creation and application of scientific knowledge. At the same time, universities and academic funding bodies have widened their public engagement mission from basic dissemination of research activities to the participation of ‘various publics’ throughout each stage of research projects (Rogers et al., 2018) and are becoming more open to collaborative, creative methodologies.
Photovoice was originally developed by Wang and Burris (1997) as a participatory needs assessment tool in health promotion. Since this time, it has been adopted by researchers in a wide range of disciplines, but notably by those working with marginalised communities to document the lived experience of culturally and linguistically diverse populations where language competence would otherwise be a barrier to communication (Dumbrill, 2009; Haque & Rosas, 2010; Lenette & Boddy, 2013; Wells, 2011).
In its simplest form, photovoice research involves: defining a research question or theme and considering who holds relevant knowledge to inform it; devising goals, objectives and a timeframe for the project; recruiting photographer participants from the target population; designing and conducting project planning and/or training with participants in photographic methods and research ethics; a period of data collection by the photographers; one or more follow-up workshops to allow participants to describe and discuss their photographs; a dissemination event to share the data with a wider audience.
As an action research methodology, photovoice is designed as “a culturally grounded and contextually situated site” (Sutton-Brown, 2014, pp. 169–170). It encourages self-reflection by participants on their own and their community’s needs, critical dialogue and collaborative knowledge construction through group discussion, and the creation of images and narratives for subsequent advocacy to policymakers. Photovoice “interrogates contextually based meanings from an insider perspective as a means to generate new insights into our socially constructed realities and cultures” (Sutton-Brown, 2014, pp. 169–170).
Proponents of the method suggest that photovoice endeavours to ‘give voice’ to those who are silenced, shifting power from the researcher to the researched by encouraging participants to lead the direction of research through their visual representations and narration (Foster-Fishman et al., 2005; Nelson & Christensen, 2009) and opening an avenue for them to give “value to what was unvalued before” (Harley, 2012, p. 331). Others argue against the power laden language of ‘giving’ voice, suggesting instead that photovoice projects are sites for negotiating meaning, places for ‘listening with intent’ and ‘political listening’ (Dreher, 2012; Fairey, 2018; Lenette, 2019).
As a data collection tool, photovoice has been praised for generating ‘thick’ data (Wang, 2016) – detailed qualitative information about participants’ emotions, reactions, beliefs and opinions – through deep discussions based on photographs and accompanying narratives. As a political tool, pictures may also hold power that words lack, allowing the elucidation of affective factors that struggle to be expressed verbally, particularly where language barriers exist. Photographs can “create an immediate vicarious sense of being there that is stronger than most readers will get from reading an ethnographic description or selected interview transcripts” (Shratz & Walker, 1995, pp. 330–331). Literature also suggests that photo-based discussions can “trigger responses that might lie submerged in verbal interviewing” (Collier, 1957, p. 854), and visual methodologies have seen increased willingness to participate (Beilin, 1998; Stedman, 2005; Van Auken et al., 2010), as images are deemed less threatening than interviews (Collier, 1957; Klitzing, 2004).
The Photovoice Project
My PhD fieldwork was undertaken through a ten-month placement at Frontiers (pseudonym), a refugee and asylum seeker support charity based in Southwest England from September 2021 to July 2022. My placement commenced during the latter stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when the charity’s face-to-face activities were still restricted. In September 2021, Frontiers’ weekly drop-in service was only running once a week on a take-away basis. Each member could enter the building wearing a facemask and collect a hot meal and a bag of prepacked fresh produce. English classes had recommenced two days a week, as had their mentoring project, which was run off site in the community.
To get to know members and member volunteers 2 , I volunteered at the drop-in each Tuesday. From January 2022 onwards, the drop-in service tentatively started to allow members to sit inside the building to eat their hot meals. A social supermarket was launched, allowing members to choose which items of food they would like from a limited selection rather than receiving a prepacked bag, and towards the end of my placement, sleep support sessions, computer access and an art table began to reappear in the centre.
I started recruitment for my photovoice project in February 2022, six months into my placement. I hoped to recruit at least eight co-researchers and intended to run information sessions to inform potential participants about the project. Once recruited, participants would attend a training workshop and then spend ten days taking photos in their own time. They would send me their photographs electronically and these would then be shared at a group discussion workshop. I hoped participants may be interested in organising an exhibition of their work following the project.
The following three sections describe the ethical dilemmas and rewards experienced while running the photovoice project. Firstly, I consider access, recruitment, and communication. Secondly, issues of vulnerability, accountability, and power are discussed and, thirdly, I detail the positive outcomes of the project expressed through themes of knowledge creation, value and meaning. To conclude, the final section of this article sets out the main lessons that I learnt from undertaking the photovoice project and their implications for future research. Though considered through the lens of photovoice and an asylum seeker research population, many of the issues raised are relevant to other forms of participatory research, particularly with vulnerable or hard-to-reach populations.
Access, Recruitment and Communication
Shaghaghi et al. (2011, p. 87) suggest that migrants are one of the world’s most hard-to-reach research populations due to their diffusion among communities, temporality of residence, “cultural separateness or simply because of difficulties an outsider may experience to access the social network of a special migrant group”. In line with their experiences, during the planning and recruitment stages of the photovoice project I experienced a number of ethical dilemmas in recruitment, communication, and the facilitation of participant access to the project.
Accessing Hard-to-Reach Populations
The first ethical dilemma that arose when planning the photovoice project was how best to locate my asylum seeker research population. Frontiers, and the other refugee charities in the city, are open to all people with insecure immigration status, and individuals do not, unfortunately, wear badges displaying their legal status.
When recruiting members from vulnerable or hidden 3 populations, building trust and becoming a familiar face with gatekeepers and potential participants through regular interaction is crucial (Block, Riggs, & Haslam, 2013; Francis Cain & Trussell, 2019; Sulaiman-Hill & Thompson, 2011; Turner & Almack, 2017). However, COVID-19 restrictions meant that many local support services had shut down or greatly reduced face-to-face activities. Frontiers’s drop-in service was restricted to one day a week and, though I volunteered every Tuesday for six months prior to project commencement, I did not feel there had been sufficient time to build trusting relationships with many members where issues such as immigration status could be discussed. In addition, relationship building was hampered by language, culture and gender differences, and my interaction with staff members and, potentially, my whiteness led some members to defer to me as a proxy-staff member which could have resulted in relational distancing. Finally, compulsory facemask wearing in the lead up to recruitment may have interfered with verbal and non-verbal cues, essential for empathic communication, particularly where language is already limited, impacting on the development of trusting relationships (Mehta et al., 2020; Tremblay et al., 2021).
Given all the aforementioned barriers to communication, and my reticence to invade individuals’ privacy by asking directly about their legal status, I made the decision to simply watch and wait until this information was freely offered or became apparent through general conversation. I also made it clear on all recruitment materials that the project was intended for asylum seekers specifically. Despite this, a small number of refugees requested access to the project. Alongside the requirement for PhD data collection, the positive impact of project participation was an important consideration in my choice of research methodology and, as such, I decided it was important to allow these individuals to take part. Given that the refugees in question had experienced the UK asylum process in recent years, I felt their insights were still relevant. However, I ensured my analysis took account of their change of status when reflecting on their data.
Participant Recruitment and Creative Ethical Compliance
An important ethical dilemma for all researchers is the issue of informed consent; how to ensure research participants understand what they are agreeing to take part in and how their data will be used. As a PhD researcher, this dilemma is formalised through the requirement to submit detailed project documentation, including sample participant information sheets and consent forms, and receive approval for all research activities by a university ethics committee before the commencement of fieldwork. As such, my initial project design and informed consent procedures were based predominantly on advice and precedent from relevant literature which suggested asylum seekers may be reticent to sign formal documentation, given potentially poor experiences of institutional power, corruption and bureaucracy (Crawley et al., 2011, p. 31). For this reason, I hoped to gain the committee’s permission for pared down information and consent protocols.
To support my ethics application, I included evidence from similar studies (Crawley et al., 2011; Rogers et al., 2018) and recommendations from the European Commission and European Social Research Council on gaining informed consent from asylum seekers and refugees (European Commission, 2020; Waite, 2013). Ultimately, this led to my project gaining a favourable ethical opinion
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, but the process was challenging, involving several revised submissions, and I was concerned that the information and consent procedures finally approved may still prove unwieldy in the field. The volume of information that needed to be imparted to ensure informed consent was substantial, particularly given the limited English spoken by those who I hoped to recruit. I also needed to give potential participants an extended period to consider their involvement which was challenging as the below vignette explains. I am standing in the middle of a busy drop-in centre, trying to work up the courage to speak to people about the photo project and wondering how best to start the conversation. When I do, it is very stilted and it is hard to make them understand what it is they will be doing, when the photovoice meetings are and how many meetings they must attend. It’s unrealistic to go through such a long, detailed information sheet with them and give them a week or two to consider their involvement before commencing the project. I might see them one week briefly while they collect their food and then never see them again, or they might take my leaflet but not be able to read it. Some will think the workshop is happening today, and you have to say no, it is in April. And then they agree to take part and you aren’t really sure if they understand what they are saying yes to. (Author field note, March 2022)
Participant access and recruitment challenges led to the adoption of a range of project advertising techniques. Firstly, I put up large posters and flyers around the Frontiers’ building and asked a staff member to introduce me via email to several local organisations I hoped to visit to recruit asylum seekers as co-researchers in the photovoice project. Unfortunately, I did not hear back from any of them. I did send out posters and flyers to organisations where I had a personal contact but, ultimately, these also borne no fruit. Another recruitment technique was to hold information sessions at Frontiers, but it quickly became clear that I was unlikely to get individuals to come to the centre especially for this purpose. Consequently, I displayed hard copies of the presentation slides at the drop-in service for two weeks instead, but these also failed to draw any obvious interest. Members either didn’t notice them or felt uncomfortable approaching them (or me) to investigate.
In the end, I adopted more creative means to start conversations with prospective participants at Frontiers and these culinary introductions, alongside snowball recruitment, proved successful. I think having my triple chocolate chip cookies to offer to Frontiers' members helped me strike up more relaxed conversations about the photo project. I have 11 on my list, so fingers crossed at least most of them turn up and they don’t have covid or anything to stop them. (Author field note, March 2022)
Once a cookie was offered and a conversation started, I was, however, fortunate if I managed to show individuals my flyer and explain in two or three sentences the purpose of the project before they said yes or no to taking part. Despite this, I knew I must impart all the project details held in the information sheet to gain informed consent, so I also had to find a creative approach to do this with participants with little English.
Technology proved helpful in this regard. A Frontiers’ member demonstrated how he photographed the project flyer and used Google Translate to convert it into his own language. He then agreed to take part and indicated that I should send him information electronically in future so he could translate it online. Indeed, online translation via WhatsApp became a favoured method of communication throughout the project, allowing participants to translate my messages and documents into multiple languages with the click of a button. I also began the training workshop by talking through all the main ethical points in the information sheet, which I had converted into simple colourful Powerpoint slides. Two group members had agreed to sit alongside those with little English to translate, and I supported informed consent by translating consent forms into the native languages of my participants: Arabic, Farsi, and Spanish.
Recruiting only those I had met through volunteering at Frontiers limited the diversity of my participants. Those who came were established members of the organisation and I was particularly disappointed that no women agreed to take part despite efforts to reach out to them. In particular, I had arranged to attend a local women’s refugee charity to talk to their members about project involvement. However, at the last minute, my contact there had to take unexpected compassionate leave and I was unable to establish another gatekeeper at the organisation so could not visit them as hoped. Only 20% of asylum seekers in the UK are women (ECRE, 2022) and the majority of Frontiers’ member volunteers were men. Research also suggests female asylum seekers have additional barriers to research participation including lower levels of English, juggling multiple responsibilities, poor self-confidence and mental health, and family imposed restrictions on their involvement (Carson, 2016). These issues may have, therefore, played a part in my recruitment process alongside lack of access to the women’s charity.
Participant Reward and Cultural Awareness
Asylum seekers living in community-based government housing receive only £40.85 per week 5 , 53% of the universal credit amount paid to UK citizens. This weekly figure drops to £8 per week if resident in government-appointed hotels. Asylum seekers are also, in general, not permitted to earn money. As such, I wanted to find a way to value their time on the photovoice project without endangering their precarious legal position. Through my experience at Frontiers, I was aware that sharing meals and enjoying good food was important to my co-researchers, particularly those living in hotels where food quality was regularly bemoaned. As such, I decided to provide drinks and homemade cakes at the training session and a meal at the discussion workshop. I also gave each photographer a university certificate detailing their involvement as a co-researcher and travel costs. Following a discussion with some of the co-researchers, it appeared that the certificate may be useful if and when participants were able to seek employment or study.
My plan to convey the importance of participants’ involvement in the project through legally appropriate means was not entirely successful, however, though participants were gracious in their responses to my well-meaning attempts. I had specifically organised the project meetings to coincide with the college Easter holidays so that those who attended English classes were still able to take part. However, I lacked awareness that both my workshops fell, instead, within Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer, complicating my culinary offerings, with at least half the group unable to consume food or drink during daylight hours. In response, I provided containers for cakes to be taken away from the training and discussion workshops and gave participants a £5 supermarket voucher to purchase their own meal to eat after sunset. These lessons provided an important example of cultural and religious differences, and a reminder that “those on the edges or margins and those within the status quo experience different social worlds” (Kirby et al., 2006, p. 175 in Francis Cain & Trussell, 2019).
Barriers to Project Involvement – Technology, Language and External Control
As the photovoice project got underway, three barriers to effective involvement became apparent. Firstly, I grappled with how to ensure equitable project access for all those who wanted to take part in relation to the photographic equipment required for the project. Through research at Frontiers, it was apparent that nearly all asylum seekers owned a smartphone 6 and so it appeared the best tool for taking project photographs. However, one prospective co-researcher did not own one. The most economical option was to provide him with a disposable camera. However, on reflection and discussion with my university supervisor, I decided that to remove potential stigma or embarrassment associated with being the only participant using this type of basic device, I would purchase him a second-hand phone. Following the project, I also allowed the participant to keep the phone, as mobile connectivity has been shown to have myriad benefits for asylum seekers such as information, communication and recreation (Alencar, 2020; Kaufmann, 2020). This gift had the potential to cause tension within the group due to the disparity in research involvement reward it created. However, given the numerous acts of solidarity, empathy, and practical support I witnessed during our meetings I felt fairly confident that the group would have understood the motivation for my action if it had become public knowledge.
Secondly, mitigation of the negative impact of language differences on effective project involvement was an important consideration. Apart from challenges experienced in information sharing and informed consent during a project’s recruitment process, linguistic differences have been found to lead to loss of meaning and miscommunication (Baird et al., 2017), and to a relational distance and lack of rapport between participant-researcher (Block, Warr, et al., 2013) even where translation is used during project activities. One example of this concerned my initial fears that the training workshop had failed to convey the importance of taking confidential
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photographs, as the below vignette demonstrates. J sent me his photos very quickly. I don’t think they were ones he took this week but rather he went through photos he already had and picked some out. All the photos have him in the picture, which goes against what I trained them in, but he had cropped out other people so perhaps that is what he thought was important. S also just sent me his photos. They seem like old photos and mostly have faces in them. I’ve gone back to him asking if the young boy in the photos is him. If so, I can get him to sign a form so we can use them. S phoned me and confirmed he found them on the internet. I’m hoping he sends some better ones after our chat. This is proving tricky, they don’t seem to entirely understand the brief. I’m trying to be positive and enthusiastic with them though as they are willing to take part, it’s just a bit awkward. (Author field note, April 2022)
Despite lengthy discussion at the training workshop about the importance of taking photographs without identifying details, the first three participants to send me images appeared to have either not understood or disregarded the brief. Their photos either came from social media, contained faces or were self-portraits taken prior to the project. I was concerned I had failed to convey the purpose and parameters of the project and that the language barrier was having a detrimental impact. Over the following week, however, the other participants’ photos arrived in my WhatsApp inbox and with each delivery my spirits rose. They had understood the brief and their images were emotive and interesting. Indeed, even most of the images described in the vignette above proved appropriate and impactful as will be described more fully later in the article.
The impact of language was also evident during the group discussion workshop. All participants gave powerful narratives for their images and engaged well in discussion, but it was apparent that those with less English or confidence provided shorter accounts. Following the project, participants agreed to take part in an exhibition of their work at a local university and, during the launch event, I also noted that those with less English were more likely to sit back and watch with reduced involvement in the groups’ happy chatter and photo taking. However, as others did take part despite language limitations, this could also have been the result of other issues such as shyness, poor mental health, or feeling intimidated by the large number of English, mainly academic, exhibition viewers.
Finally, the impact of external forces beyond co-researcher control became a barrier to involvement for one participant who, sadly, missed the exhibition entirely. As an asylum seeker under government restrictions, he was relocated, with only 24 hours’ notice, to housing on the other side of the country against his wishes. The participant concerned had been an active project member and had been looking forward to taking part in the exhibition. I sent him details of the exhibition website, shared photos and film from the launch event, and raised a toast to him at the exhibition’s celebration meal. However, he was missed, and this incident shows the detrimental impact that the government’s policy of moving asylum seekers frequently has on their ability to integrate, develop relationships, and take part in activities that may improve their wellbeing.
Vulnerability, Accountability and Power
As part of my commitment to adopting an anti-oppressive research approach, I grappled with a number of ethical dilemmas concerning my approach to participant vulnerability, who I was accountable to as a PhD researcher undertaking collaborative research, and issues of power, ownership, and dignity in the project group.
Vulnerability and Accountability
Research suggests that trauma, and the resultant psychological and physiological impact, is widespread in the asylum population in the United Kingdom (Canning, 2017; Carswell et al., 2011; Chaplin, 2019) resulting from the negative conditions they have fled, often arduous asylum journeys and the deterrence-based asylum application system in the UK (Bloch & Schuster, 2002; Kissoon, 2010; Qureshi et al., 2020; Scheel & Squire, 2014). As such, this population is classed as vulnerable 8 and it was, therefore, particularly important that my photovoice project was conducted in an ethical and empowering way.
One example of the ethical dilemmas experienced in the project regarding vulnerability entangled with power dynamics, dignity and ownership occurred during the planning of the project photographic exhibition. Throughout the project, I had felt a deep sense of accountability to the photographers to facilitate their agency and ownership in the research process. Following meetings with my university legal team, long and complex copyright and intellectual property forms had been simplified for my participants to sign, and I had translated these with the support of Frontiers’ member volunteers. Each photographer had signed a form indicating that they were happy to be named alongside their images at the exhibition and I wanted to respect their wishes. However, having watched the signing process, where it appeared the forms were not really read properly, and knowing the linguistic challenges in the project, I could not dispel my fears that the photographers did not fully understand all the ways that their images could be shared or what they were signing. In particular, I tried on more than one occasion to discuss my concerns with one photographer who had been in the UK for 18 years without managing to gain asylum. During the discussion workshop, he had explained that his photographs were his evidence of a private life so that he could finally apply for residency under Article 8 of The Human Rights Act’s (1998) right to a private life legislation in two years’ time (after 20 years residing in the UK). I did not want to do anything that could jeopardise his application by publicising his identity but was unable to engage him in a proper conversation about the issue. Among the wider project group, I felt it was unethical for me to ask personal questions about each photographers’ legal status and was concerned, therefore, that there could be other participants vulnerable to government intervention if their names were publicised. As such, I made the difficult decision to explain my concerns to the group and remove photographers’ names from the exhibition images, though they did all have the option to write anonymous biographies and photo narratives to accompany their images and to attend the exhibition.
Power Dynamics, Dignity and Ownership
Power relations between researcher and researched are a common theme in methodological literature with “the privileged position of the researcher
At the photovoice training workshop, I left the project theme open – simply asking the photographers to think about things that made their lives easier or happy, or made their lives harder or unhappy. When applying for funding for the project photographic exhibition, I included travel costs to the launch event for all co-researchers and an additional twenty Frontiers’ members to widen participation and ensure all photographers were able to attend and benefit from their involvement. Many of those I spoke with at Frontiers, including participants in my project, held professional jobs, such as lawyers, managers, and engineers, before fleeing their home countries. I felt it was important to make the exhibition professional to support their dignity, celebrate the project work they had achieved and in the hope that viewers would take the collection seriously, improving its impact. As such, my funding application also included professional printing and display boards, and a celebratory meal for the co-researchers after the event. I was conscious that the money invested in the exhibition may have had more personal impact on asylum seekers’ lives if used in more practical ways. However, the funding was not available for those purposes, and this was the best way I could support their wellbeing and advocacy. It was quite formal and that was impressive to me. […] Many of us, we cannot get involved as asylum seekers in such formal things, in such big events. You gave us the opportunity to be part of something really quite well organised and quite really well looking, […] it was a fresh feeling of being part of something that feels important and that is important. (D, asylum seeker, El Salvador)
All project photos were included in the exhibition. The participants had worked hard to produce them, and each held meaning. I did not want to wield power through choosing which were displayed or discarded. Despite some co-researchers producing many more photos than others, I sought equity in how the collection was printed, ensuring each photographer had his own display stand and some images printed in large format.
I also attempted a democratic process to choose an exhibition name. Some photographers didn’t respond at all to my request for ideas, while others sent me a long list of options via WhatsApp. There was no easy way to ensure the whole group voted on a name due to challenges organising face-to-face meetings, so I endeavoured to choose one, ‘Being Human’, that reflected the sentiment behind all the suggestions shared, and then confirmed they were happy with it. Another example of the power differential between myself and the group.
Though it had not been possible to share the responsibility for organising the exhibition with the participants due to lack of face-to-face contact, time constraints, and budgetary control being in my hands 9 , I am unsure if the co-researchers would have wanted the responsibility, given the complexity and insecurity of their day-to-day lives. Watching their responses at the launch party and listening to the verbal feedback on the night, however, I did feel that the exhibition belonged to them. The exhibition was in situ for two weeks and I am aware that several participants returned with friends to show off their work or simply went alone to spend time in the space, some on a daily basis. There seemed to be a sense of ownership over the work and dignity from being close to it. There was also a desire by the co-researchers to read the feedback from the event, which I sent them electronically.
One photographer made a short film on the night and shared it with the group a few days after the launch. Another interviewed me and other participants about the exhibition as part of a journalistic project with another local charity. These unanticipated outputs show the wider impact that a photovoice project can have on the confidence, creativity, and agency of those involved, and those who view or are part of any spinoff activities that result. I also created an exhibition website following appeals via social media from people who couldn’t attend but wanted to view the collection online
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. Participants too, would have liked to see the exhibition reach even more people. [I]f I could say something, to do it on a bigger scale, […] a museum or something like that. Or just go to a square and put the pictures there, I mean. Or do it in a lot of places maybe […], like doing an exhibition in the city centre, an exhibition in [suburb], and an exhibition in the south. (D, asylum seeker, El Salvador)
Knowledge Creation, Value and Meaning
This section details the important learning and outcomes of the photovoice project, despite all the ethical dilemmas previously discussed, and includes reflections on collaborative knowledge creation, the importance of photographic narrative, and how photovoice projects can promote intercultural learning, empathy, and advocacy opportunities.
Collaborative Knowledge Creation and Empathetic Understanding
Photovoice is designed to facilitate self-reflection, critical dialogue, and collaborative knowledge creation (Sutton-Brown, 2014), and this was clearly evident during the discussion workshop. In addition to giving each photographer their own set of prints, participants’ photos were displayed on a large TV screen while they narrated them. The lived experiences of each co-researcher and their ways of coping were diverse and there was opportunity to dig deeper to understand hidden meanings in the photographs with pleasing levels of discussion and friendly disagreement over how wellbeing can be improved. For example: one participant asked others to guess what his photograph of a large heap of black bags on a hotel reception floor meant. Several people spoke, but none realised that each bag was an asylum seekers’ clothes returned from the laundry and that often these bags were stolen by others.
The deep and emotive meanings given to photographs of everyday items such as plates of food, poor quality housing and empty hotel corridors had an impact on me and, it appeared, others in the room. The pictorial presentation allowed the viewer to vicariously experience the context or object and be touched by the emotional and physical sensation the creator described, something that would have been harder if words had been used alone (Collier, 1957, p. 854 Shratz & Walker, 1995, pp. 330–331). In the discussion workshop, it led to condolences, disclosure of similar experiences, and laughter. These shared, empathetic moments opened an avenue for the co-researchers to give “value to what was unvalued before” (Harley, 2012, p. 331) and ignited a sense of comradery as often dire situations were joked about: Most refugee is super green, good for environment because everything is cycling or walking. [Group laughter] (A, asylum seeker, Iran) For near a month, I had a toothache. I call them, sorry we are busy, emergencies. I couldn’t sleep even. I told them I have epilepsy, if I can’t sleep, I might get seizure. Okay they do this one day, £400! ... [Laughter as S says he will do it for him instead.] (N, Afghanistan & S, Palestine, refugees)
The group were supportive of each other through their willingness to help those with little English take part, translating or adding more detail for each other as participants gave meaning to their photos. When one co-researcher said he didn’t know why he had taken his pictures and didn’t want to present them, others in the group asked his permission to talk about his photos themselves and ask him questions, thus drawing him out and encouraging his involvement. As knowledge is created between people and is a site of power (Potts & Brown, 2005), the communal attempt to support others in their meaning making was encouraging and supports the anti-oppressive claims of the photovoice methodology.
Though six countries were represented in the room, their mutual experiences as asylum seekers fostered compassion and empathy and a desire to support one another emotionally and practically. For example, £20 was given by one participant to another to get a bike from a local charity. Information about a local music group and how to get free phone top-up were also shared. When asked what their experience of the project had been some discussed the importance of sharing and learning for wellbeing: Here, around the table you can find different people from different countries, like A is from Iran, like H from Nigeria, like D from El Salvador, like R from Iran, and we are from Afghanistan. So different people, different country, different language, you know, different culture, so that’s good. Share with each other, we can learn, we have learnt a lot of things from each other. (W, asylum seeker, Afghanistan) In my opinion speaking is very good when I got some problem. [W]hen I speak about that one with someone who I know is good at that one, it makes me calm and relaxed. (N, refugee, Afghanistan)
And others observed the story-telling power of photographs: One good expression is called ‘picture is talking’. [B]ehind this picture there is a meaning, there is […] a story […] It also depends on you, […] somebody just look at the picture and forget it and somebody just deeply see the pictures and understand the meaning of the pictures and what is behind the pictures. (W, asylum seeker, Afghanistan)
Through the discussion workshop, I also came to understand the importance of narrative in uncovering deep meanings in photographs. For example, I had initially worried a participant who submitted 15 self-portraits of himself had not understood the brief. However, as mentioned in an earlier section, the photographer explained that he had been trying to gain asylum in the UK for 18 years without success. After 20 years, he could apply for residency based on his legal right to a private life. These photos were his evidence and affected me deeply. Another photographer had sent pictures of strangers undertaking basic daily tasks with no narrated connection between the images and his own life. At first glance, this seemed to have little to do with the project but, on reflection, I felt that the emotional, imagined dialogues and narratives he shared may have revealed his own deep longing for his mother and his country of birth, and anger at patriarchy and financial limitations told vicariously through images of others’ imagined worlds.
Photovoice and Advocacy
[T]hrough this project you can send our advice to somewhere to get some improvement, change to the asylum seeker lives. Hopefully this project will have an effect in the future [on] the life of asylum seekers. (A, asylum seeker, Iran)
During the discussion workshop, the photographers recognised the political nature of knowledge creation and expressed their hopes for wider impact. The resulting exhibition launch event attracted about sixty people, and the exhibitors appeared to enjoy the event, showing pride in their work, and posing in front of their stands for numerous selfies. There was a buzz of excitement, and some co-researchers were keen to explain the meaning behind their photographs to guests. More than 20 feedback cards were handed in during the event with positive comments about the event or individual photographs.
Exhibition Visitor Feedback
I feel I am not alone here. I particularly liked the piece of writing titled ‘Learning to Live’. It had a great emotional impact and gave me a new view of my own life. Utterly amazing! So powerful, moving, insightful and engaging. The use of picture brings it to life – makes it personal and real and human. It was a real honour to have been able to visit this exhibition. There is a lot of strength, vulnerability, rawness, and creativity in these photos.
It was interesting that the main exhibition feedback themes aligned with the documented benefits of taking part in a photovoice project as a co-researcher: self-reflection; increased awareness of the challenges and strength of the photographers; solidarity, connection and empathy; insider perspectives; dignity; giving value to what was unvalued; understanding individuality within a population usually described as homogenous; and the power of images to trigger deep responses that words alone cannot convey (Collier, 1957; Shratz & Walker, 1995; Sutton-Brown, 2014). This feedback demonstrates that it is not only those who directly participate in a photovoice project that can be changed by the process and that communal knowledge creation does not only occur within the project group discussion itself but between the photographers and those who view their pictures and narratives in the wider community.
Lessons Learnt and Implications for Future Research
The use of photovoice in this PhD project was intentional, based on three objectives: the creation of thick data about the lived experiences of asylum seekers in the UK and how they interact with community-based social protection; to test the efficacy of photovoice as a tool for asylum seekers with limited English language to share their experiences and opinions concerning welfare provision with a wide range of stakeholders; and to provide a positive, fun and empowering experience for the participants who took part.
This article has described the ethical dilemmas and rewards I experienced through the project lifecycle. Firstly, it has detailed the challenges of recruiting a culturally and linguistically diverse, potentially vulnerable, and hard-to-reach population for a participatory research project, demonstrating the need for an agile approach to recruitment and an awareness of the potentially different contexts in which researcher and researched live. My specific research population also required significant and on-going adaptation of information sharing and informed consent procedures to ensure ethical compliance using creative means, and continual reflexivity during the planning and execution of the project concerning power dynamics, vulnerability, and ownership in the research process. This sometimes led to difficult choices, such as anonymising the exhibition collection, a decision that demonstrates how power may be exerted through project management processes.
A particular lesson for future research is the importance of time and proximity in the success of co-produced research. Temporality was manifest in many of the photovoice project’s ethical dilemmas. Firstly, three-year PhD funding conditions constrained the length and timing of the project, of particular concern given the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 social contact rules during the project lifecycle. Institutional ethical approval timelines also dictated the order in which activities could take place, with detailed project design and informed consent documentation approval required before the commencement of any project activities. These two issues limited emersion time in the field prior to project commencement, reducing the opportunity for relationship building before recruitment, my ability to co-produce the research design, and the development of cultural and situational knowledge that could have mitigated against unintended cultural clashes, such as the offering of participant meals during Ramadan. Temporal and proximal limitations may also have impacted power relations and the sense of project ownership felt by co-researchers, with greater early and sustained input shown to support more impactful involvement for those taking part (Gallegos et al., 2023).
Secondly, my project account illustrates the adaptability of the photovoice methodology, the unexpected directions that participants can take given a basic project brief, and how narrative is helpful in digging beneath the surface of images. As previously discussed, two of the participants submitted photographs that initially appeared to have little to do with the topic discussed in training – self-portraits and photos of strangers in the locality. It was only after they were narrated, and their significance interrogated by the project group, that the deeper, visceral meanings came to light. This elucidates the importance of an open mind when the researcher first views participant-created images and the value of pairing image with narrative.
Lastly, participant feedback and the genuine joy on the faces of the asylum seekers as they watched the public view their exhibition confirmed my hope that photovoice could be a positive, agential experience for all those involved. Though those with limited English spoke less during the discussions and exhibition, it was clear from their words and actions that they were pleased to take part and found value in their involvement. The reactions and comments of the exhibition viewers also supported the supposition that photovoice can empower marginalised populations to share their experiences and advocate for improvements in their lives through this creative methodology and that dissemination activities have a positive impact on both the audience and the co-researchers.
I am grateful to all those who took part in the photovoice project and hope that this account is helpful for others considering its use. The methodology could be beneficial for a wide range of disciplines and populations, but is particularly helpful where deep, qualitative accounts are sought, and linguistic challenges need to be overcome to support cross-cultural understanding.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my appreciation to my primary supervisor, Prof Rachel Forrester-Jones, for her editorial support during the writing of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the European Social Research Council [grant number 149376688].
