This article uses a retrospective approach to looking at participatory visual work with girls, in relation to addressing gender violence in and around schools in sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on a variety of work focusing on the visual, including Jo Spence's innovative work from the 1990s (‘What can a woman do with a camera?’), this article seeks to extend and elaborate the idea of feminist visual methodologies in order to uncover the critical issue of girls' safety and security. Participatory work with girls, the article argues, as part of what is referred to here as ‘girl-method’, can be an effective way to reveal the perspectives of girls. At the same time, the use of the visual (and in particular, visual artefacts such as photos, videos, drawings, and digital archiving) invites researchers and communities (including the girls themselves) to re-visit the data and in so doing to explore it further. The article concludes with a call for new and longer-term increased levels of participation when it comes to working with girls, by highlighting the use of the participatory digital archive as a feminist visual tool.
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