ABSTRACT
Photovoice is a community-based participatory research (CBPR) method developed by public health scholar Carolyn Wang. Three signature elements of the photovoice approach are community-generated photography, elicited narratives and participant voice, and work with community participants to reach a wider audience for their concerns. Throughout the Photovoice research process, participants discuss their ethical relationship with their photographic subjects and strategies for collective action to address problems depicted in the photos. This chapter presents two core stories: using photovoice to bridge the researcher/participant divide Claudia Mitchell's work, and using photovoice to investigate environment and health in a Hungarian Romani Community Krista Harper's work. In terms of benefits gained from conducting participatory photography research projects, Mitchell argues that the primary benefit is that the approach better enables the researcher to "look through the eyes" of participants. Photovoice has roots in the work of visual anthropologists, sociologists, and education researchers who used photo elicitation in their data collection.
