Women's voices made visible: Photovoice in visual criminology
| Author | Camille M Stengel,Wendy Fitzgibbon |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474517700137 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Punishment & Society
2018, Vol. 20(4) 411–431
! The Author(s) 2017
Women’s voices made
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
visible: Photovoice in
DOI: 10.1177/1462474517700137
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
visual criminology
Wendy Fitzgibbon
University of Leicester, UK
Camille M Stengel
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Abstract
The voices of women subject to the criminal justice system are often ignored and
unheard. This article considers the effectiveness of photovoice, a form of participatory
photography research, as a visual method of enabling and communicating marginalised
women’s experiences in criminological research. By utilising the potentially empowering
technique of photovoice in two research projects, the narratives of women who inject
drugs in Hungary and women who have experienced supervision in England are con-
veyed through their own participant-generated photographs. These images convey the
pains and aspirations of the participants’ lives and show how photovoice is a useful
method for visual criminological research and exposes the shared problems faced by
two vulnerable populations across two countries in Europe.
Keywords
marginalised women, participatory photography, photovoice, visual criminology, visual
methods, vulnerable populations
Introduction
Photovoice is an engaging qualitative method that has great promise for visual
criminological research. The photovoice method involves providing research par-
ticipants with cameras to photograph their experiences and understandings of the
phenomena of study. Photovoice is a tool for facilitating interactions between
everyone involved in the research to produce meaningful and insightful material
Corresponding author:
Wendy Fitzgibbon, University of Leicester, 154 Upper New Walk, LE1 7QA Leicester, UK.
Email: dwf5@le.ac.uk
412
Punishment & Society 20(4)
via participatory photography. The discussions that emerge from the photographs
privilege the perspectives of research participants and those most intimately con-
nected to the research topic. This article discusses how photovoice can be used in
criminological inquiry. The first section gives an overview of the development of
photovoice and the main principles involved in the visual method, including ana-
lysis. The second section describes how images and photographs have historically
been used in criminology as a tool of social surveillance and control. The third
section discusses the results of different research projects with women in the crim-
inal justice system that used photovoice as the main form of data collection, con-
ducted separately by the authors of this article. The final section details a selection
of common themes that emerged from both research projects, and is accompanied
by the relevant selection of photographic data for each theme. The article con-
cludes with a brief reflection on the potential of photovoice in criminological
research.
Photovoice: The photograph as a research tool
Photovoice is a visual method that consists of the researcher providing cameras for
participants to take pictures, and then collaboratively discussing and analysing
those pictures. Different from conventional research involving photography, the
photovoice method advocates that participants rather than researchers document
the issues of inquiry by taking photographs. Photovoice is grounded in the larger
research tradition known as Action Research or Participatory Action Research,
which broadly strives to increase knowledge and facilitate conscious-raising of the
topic and outcomes of research issues through democratic processes of involvement
(Fals-Borda and Rahman, 1991; Friere, 1979; Kindon et al., 2007; Reason and
Bradbury, 2001; Wang, 1999).
Photovoice is a method of research inquiry that ‘uses the immediacy of the
visual image to furnish evidence and to promote an effective, participatory
means of sharing expertise and knowledge’ (Wang and Burris, 1997: 369). It oper-
ates on the belief that images are powerful forms of knowledge that have the
potential to communicate information as well as depict individual and community
needs and desires in a creative way (Baker and Wang, 2006). Photographs are the
main source of data in a photovoice project and these images allow participants to
construct their own understandings and answers to the research questions.
While participatory photography and visual methods have existed in various
research settings under different names, the specific term ‘photovoice’ first emerged
as an identified method of research in health promotion and community develop-
ment (Wang and Burris, 1997). Photovoice was first used as a methodology to
visually investigate women’s health (Wang, 1999). The methodology was developed
with the understanding that photographs are valuable sources that hold a plethora
of information in a static image (Rose, 2012). Photographs have the ability to
provide insights into phenomena specified within a research study that are either
unique or add to spoken and written expressions and, crucially, work to position
Fitzgibbon and Stengel
413
participants as creators and initial interpreters of data in photovoice research
(Carlson et al., 2006). The data produced from photographs, as well as semi-
structured interviews or focus group discussions about the images, provide an
in-depth understanding of participants’ realities. The goal of this process is to
create a reality where participants are integrated into the research not as passive
providers of information, but as co-creators of the knowledge produced from the
research. The photovoice methodology allows for a conscientious process of nar-
rative creation through various interpretations of ‘truth’ based on the framing of
images and the accompanying iterative discussions between participants and
researchers, as well as between participants themselves (Burles and Thomas, 2014).
While the use of photovoice as a research methodology is context-specific and
time-sensitive, it is often initiated with a meeting between potential research par-
ticipants and/or key stakeholders to explore and identify relevant research ques-
tions. Once these areas have been identified and informed consent to take part in
the research has been confirmed, participants are usually involved in hands-on
workshops that explore how photography can be used as a form of communica-
tion, and in which they ‘brainstorm’ ideas about how answers to the research
questions can be displayed through images. At this point, participants are given
digital or disposable analogue cameras, provided by the researchers. Participants
are shown how to use the cameras, given tips on how to take photographs through
the use of technical tricks such as lighting and angle, and discuss ethical issues of
informed consent and confidentiality related to recognisable photographs of
people. Participants then head out into their communities to take pictures. After
a set period of time, participants and researchers meet as a group (and/or poten-
tially one-to-one) to share their images and react to other people’s photos, relating
back to the research questions. This dialogue is the first stage of coding. The cycle
of taking photos and discussing them in a group and/or one-on-one interview
setting continues in conjunction with the project budget, timeline, resources and
participant availability.
Ethics and consent during a photovoice project is an ongoing process. While
participants may agree to take part in the onset of the project, this does not mean
they are bound to continue, nor are they required to show all their images to the
group. Participants have the power to decide which photographs are part of the
research project and which are excluded. This power extends into the dissemination
of photographic data. The relationship of participants to photographic images is
complex and thus needs to be carefully considered.
Historical significance of photography in criminology: From mug
shot to surveillance camera
Central to photovoice in criminological research is the use of photography within
the historical context of crime, not least in order to understand some of the issues
relating to ethics and sensitivity that arise from the use of photography as a means
of making visible the stories of the research participants. Many of the people who
414
Punishment & Society 20(4)
come under the gaze of the police or the criminal justice system more widely have a
fear of their images or profiles being captured and stored, for justifiable reasons.
For more than a century, the ‘criminal’ has been represented by the police and
other agencies in the criminal justice system through a police photograph or ‘mug
shot’ (Carney, 2010). The police photograph has become a notorious tool of the
criminal justice system and of the media in the categorisation and stigmatisation of
those who break the law. Early photographic representations have been used in
criminal justice not only for documentary and administrative purposes, but also to
abstract scientific data and records used for the construction of criminal identifi-
cation and for purposes of social control. Sekula (1986) in particular viewed
photography as a bureaucratic-clerical-statistical system which comprised an
‘archive’ whereby the visual was used to define the good, heroic and celebrated
as well as the deviant and criminal. Lombroso (1876) took visual representation to
the extreme by developing the discourse that criminality could be read from the
body or facial...
To continue reading
Request your trial