More Than Words: The Use of Video in Ethnographic Research With People With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

There is a tendency to exclude people with intellectual disabilities from participating in research about their own lives. Whilst the use of participatory research approaches is increasing, the methods used for engaging people with intellectual disabilities in research are generally limited to interviews and focus groups. Yet a focus on the spoken or written word can present a challenge for those who may prefer to use alternative forms of communication.The purpose of this article is to share the methodological insights gained from a visual ethnographic study that sought to explore the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities engaged in nature based (or 'green care') therapeutic interventions for health and wellbeing. If used within carefully negotiated relationships we suggest that video can be an empowering visual medium for doing research that can help to elicit the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities first-hand, without having to rely on the views and perspectives of other people.

Self-Determination: What can we Learn from Persons with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities?

“…In addition, to capture slow, detailed interactions, observations were supplemented with video in certain delimited situations (Greathead et al 2016). Arguably, that addition increased Vera's and Erik's presence in a material that otherwise gives most of the space to the researchers' perceptions (Kaley, Hatton & Milligan 2019).…”

“Disciplined research in undisciplined settings”: Critical explorations of in situ and mobile methodologies in geographies of health and wellbeing

“…An ethic of care demands that researchers conduct and adapt their research in care‐full ways, embracing “an expanded concept of listening as a form of attentive being‐with and responding to a person in non‐verbal (as well as verbal) ways” (Macpherson & Fox, , p. 372). As highlighted by another workshop participant, in situ methods can offer important ways of “being with” individuals with learning disabilities (Kaley et al, ), who are often overlooked or “spoken for” as research participants through their distinctive communication styles and priorities (Macpherson & Fox, ). This workshop participant used participatory “out situ ” visual methods and video ethnography to examine therapeutic spaces of care farming among adults with learning disabilities.…”

“…The experience of using such in situ and mobile methods, and their effectiveness in specific settings and with specific participants, has produced a valuable base of researcher experience for new and emerging researchers in the field to draw on (Bell et al, 2015;Kaley et al, 2018;Osborne & Jones, 2017). These methods are capable of producing important new knowledge concerning the emergence (or foreclosing) of health and wellbeing in and through place.…”

Health geography and the 'performative' turn: making space for the audio-visual in ethnographic health research

“…Data analysis was not, therefore, a simple matter of interpreting the visual content of the video data, but involved examining how different producers and viewers of these images give subjective meaning to their content and form (Trena, Paulus and Dempster, 2014). To this end, inviting participants to directly engage with the visual data during their qualitative interviews helped to deepen the researcher's own understanding when analysing these videos, and significantly influenced how we chose to represent the experiences of those who participated in the research (Kaley at al, 2018b).…”