Photovoice is a child-friendly method used in Participatory Health Research (PHR) to put children in a subject position to drive the research and social change. Little is known about the actual experiences of doing photovoice related to health issues in a primary school context regulated by adults. The purpose of this article is to explore how children's voices can be genuinely taken into account in research and social change, and what the potentials and tensions are when using photovoice in schools. We present a case example of a PHR with primary school children using photovoice, and will focus on the lessons learned. Participating children were eager to tell their photostories, proud of their achievements, and felt 'seen' by adults, expressed in the phrase 'Are we famous or something?' Playful activities and concrete instructions helped children to create their own narrative. For the development of the children's critical consciousness reflexive participatory actions and photo-elicitation were crucial. Their visuals prompted discussion and led to actions and plans taking into account their perspectives. Tensions included the struggle to find a right balance between guidance and control, protection and respect for autonomy and preset system requirements. Reflexivity and creativity are required to handle such tensions. ARTICLE HISTORY
An emerging body of research indicates that active arts engagement can enhance older adults’ health and experienced well-being, but scientific evidence is still fragmented. There is a research gap in understanding arts engagement grounded in a multidimensional conceptualization of the value of health and well-being from older participants’ perspectives. This Dutch nation-wide study aimed to explore the broader value of arts engagement on older people’s perceived health and well-being in 18 participatory arts-based projects (dance, music, singing, theater, visual arts, video, and spoken word) for community-dwelling older adults and those living in long term care facilities. In this study, we followed a participatory design with narrative- and arts-based inquiry. We gathered micro-narratives from older people and their (in)formal caregivers (n = 470). The findings demonstrate that arts engagement, according to participants, resulted in (1) positive feelings, (2) personal and artistic growth, and (3) increased meaningful social interactions. This study concludes that art-based practices promote older people’s experienced well-being and increase the quality of life of older people. This study emphasizes the intrinsic value of arts engagement and has implications for research and evaluation of arts engagement.
Photovoice is a widely used approach for community participation in health promotion and health promotion research. However, its popularity has a flip-side. Scholars raise concerns that photovoice drifts away from its emancipatory roots, neglecting photovoice’s aim to develop critical consciousness together with communities. Our four-year photovoice project aimed to unravel how the health of (un)paid care workers was shaped at the intersection of gender, class and race. This article springs from first, second and third-person inquiry within our research team of (un)paid care workers, academic researchers and a photographer. We observed that critical consciousness emerged from an iterative process between silence, voice and vocabulary. We learned that photovoice scholars need to be sensitive to silence in photovoice projects, as silence can be the starting point for finding voice, but also a result of silencing acts. Social movements and critical theories, such as intersectionality, provide a vocabulary for participants to voice their critical perspectives to change agents and to support collective action. We discuss our experiences using Frickers’ concept of ‘epistemic justice’, arguing that critical consciousness not only requires that communities are acknowledged as reliable knowers, but that they need access to interpretative tropes to voice their personal experiences as structural.
Participatory research on health-related topics with children is promising but current literature offers limited guidance on how to involve children and falls short on the reporting impact. The purpose of this article is to heighten our understanding of the working principles and impact of participatory health research (PHR) with children. We completed a PHR project in two primary schools, which included children from a multiethnic, deprived neighborhood in the second largest city in The Netherlands over a period of three school years (2016–2019). The impact on the children’s subjective health has been measured via process evaluation using qualitative and quantitative methods from the perspectives of all involved (children, their teachers, parents, and community partners). The main working principles included: Experiential learning; addressing uncomfortable issues; stepping outside your environment; and keeping it simple. Participatory actions valued most by the children included: Walking tours, photovoice, foodlabs, sportlabs, and to a lesser extent: Making a newspaper, mindfulness, and Capoeira. The project reached and engaged many children, parents, teachers, and community partners into healthy lifestyles and broadened and deepened the children’s awareness and understanding of health behavior. ‘Sowing seeds’ is the metaphor that captures the broader impact of this project: Planting seeds to harvest healthier adults.
Participatory health research (PHR) and the use of arts-based methods continues to grow in popularity. Many scholars acknowledge the importance of (visual) ethics, especially in the dissemination of photographs in a digital age, but ethical issues that arise in relation to contact with the press and social media are not well documented. This article presents second-person action research of a critical case of photovoice in which ethical issues arose when a newspaper report reinforced stigma and was widely disseminated via social media. Press and social media can rapidly engage people for social change, but this also presents risks. What is the potential to destigmatize in such situations? The context of the case in this article is the participatory KLIK project, a Dutch initiative which aims to improve the health and resilience of school children aged 8-11 years in a deprived neighbourhood. Awareness of the possibility of political listening and viewing is fundamental for an ethical practice. This article shows the importance of co-ownership, media literacy and collaborative learning about ethics in PHR.
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