Hyper-invisibility and visual scrutiny: reflections from photo-narrative research with transgender young persons

Abstract

In recent years, photo-narrative methods have gained popularity as a feminist decolonial research approach. Located within the broader category of participatory action research, photovoice is committed to the democratisation of the research process. It aims to centre previously excluded knowledges and problematises what is considered ‘legitimate’ ways of knowing within the social sciences. As such, photovoice has been utilised across a wide range of studies that are aligned with a social justice agenda. Arising are questions around the burden of representation that is placed on participants; what it means for stories of marginalisation to be put ‘on display’; and the risk involved in disclosing personal experiences when there is a power differential between storyteller and audience. By highlighting complications encountered when conducting a photo-narrative project with transgender young persons in Cape Town, South Africa, this methodologically reflexive paper contributes to this conversation. We explore the nuances and complexities that arose when using a methodology that relies heavily on visual data, on a community that experiences intense visual scrutiny daily. As a result, the research focused on participants’ narratives of invisibility and hypervisibility as presented in the data, thus bringing a reflexive stance and interrogation to assumptions of the approach often taken for granted.

Methodological and implementation considerations in adapting Photovoice to a virtual format with LGBTQ+ youth of color during a pandemic and social uprising.

“…Furthermore, not honoring the knowledge that young people hold and create is also a form of epistemic injustice. Given that queer and trans young people of color are often rendered invisible or silenced in systems (McBride & Neary, 2021; Owens et al, 2022; Pitcher & Boonzaier, 2023) as well as research, information from their own perspectives about their specific needs, challenges, and sources of strength for their health and well-being is needed.…”

Challenging Ciscentric Feminist Margins: A South African Study on Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Black Trans Women

“…The research amplified the challenges and negotiation of multiple violent cistems that involve daily living for trans young people. Pitcher and Boonzaier (2023) further investigated the multiple physical and symbolic barriers that trans youth navigate in their lives, highlighting the complexity of what it means to live as a trans person in Cape Town, South Africa. Patel captures cistems as a binaried gendered system that privileges cisgender people and marginalises trans people.…”

“…However, we find that the data elicited through the online communications was rich and varied. It allowed for ease of access and, for a group of persons for which corporeal hypervisiblity may already be problematic (Pitcher & Boonzaier, 2023), online communication may well have been preferable. WiFi data was provided for and/or reimbursed to participants.…”