Relational Accountability in Indigenizing Visual Research for Participatory Communication

Abstract

This article argues that an indigenous approach to communication research allows us to re-think academic approaches of engaging in and evaluating participatory communication research. It takes as its case study the Komuniti Tok Piksa project undertaken in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The project explores ways in which visual methods when paired with a community action approach embedded within an indigenous framework can be used to facilitate social change through meaningful participation. It involves communities to narrate their experiences in regard to HIV and AIDS and assists them in designing and recording their own messages. Local researchers are trained in using visual tools to facilitate this engagement with the communities.

Health and Nutrition Promotion Programs in Papua New Guinea: A Scoping Review

“…Of the total 23 articles included, there were 17 peer-reviewed articles [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], five grey literature reports [39][40][41][42][43], and one book chapter [44]. Five were quantitative studies [23,29,30,39,40], 13 were qualitative [22,24,25,28,[31][32][33][34][35][36][42][43][44], and five were mixed-methods [26,27,37,38,41]. The included publications (1996 to 2022) spanned over a period of 26 years.…”

“…Ten programs targeted infectious diseases, TB (n = 5) [22,23,[39][40][41] and malaria (n = 5) [24][25][26][27][28]. Nine programs targeted sexually transmitted diseases and sexual health, HIV (n = 7) [29][30][31][32][33][42][43][44], with three specifically targeting parent-to-child HIV transmission [29][30][31], HPV (n = 1) [34], and one on family planning (n = 1) [35]. One health promotion program addressed health services [36].…”

“…The programs aimed to either control, prevent or reduce the disease burden of TB, malaria, HIV, HPV, betel nut chewing and T2DM through different health-promoting strategies, which could be categorised by the following key action areas of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (Figure 3): Four programs took place at a national level across PNG [22,23,26,35], and nine programs were delivered at a community level across PNG [32] and in different regions of PNG, including Highlands [24,25,33,39,43,44], Highlands, Momase and Southern PNG [42], and New Guinea Islands [38]. Eight programs were in the health setting, targeting health workers or people attending hospitals and/or health service clinics or facilities across PNG [28,36] as well as specifically in New Guinea Islands [40], Southern [41], Highlands [27,29], Southern and Highlands [30,31], and Momase and Highlands [34].…”

“…Twelve programs focused on developing personal skills. Ten programs incorporated a component of training, education or awareness raising as a strategy to spread knowledge about the disease for increased prevention, screening or treatment [24,25,33,34,[37][38][39][40][42][43][44], and three programs focused on the provision of counselling and care [29,30,39].…”

“…Seven articles reporting on six programs were targeted at strengthening community action. This was observed in the mobilisation of community members to take action, either through working together to create health-promoting messages, training for diagnosis and treatment, or peer counselling for other community members [22,24,25,32,39,43,44].…”