Researching Sexual Violence With Girls in Rural South Africa: Some Methodological Challenges in Using Participatory Visual Methodologies

• In Event: Bullying and Sexual Violence in Education

Abstract

Available literature suggests that research that seeks to effect social change in communities must be largely informed by the views of those most affected. (MacLure, 1990) This is particularly so in work with girls and young women when it comes to addressing sexual violence. This is an area of research that is typically adult-led as opposed to girl-focused. Yet, evidence also suggests that such research involves various challenges, including some methodological and ethical predicaments. From our work with girls and young women over several years, it is clear that issues such as gender, social class, age, and geographic location, among others, make working with these groups particularly challenging. At the same time, identifying and attempting to address the challenges may help to deepen an understanding of sexual violence in relation to different school and community contexts. In this work we draw on our six year study focusing on participatory visual approaches to working with girls and young women, Networks for Change and Well-being: Girl-led ‘From the Ground Up’ Policy Making to Address Sexual Violence in Canada and South Africa. In particular, we focus on our research on sexual violence with girls in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa as an illustrative case study to examine the benefits and challenges that arise from the use of girl-method in doing research. In particular, we examine the ways in which participatory visual methods might address the methodological challenges that arise in the context of unequal gender norms and cultural taboos in such research. How, for example, might the work simply reproduce gender norms as opposed to disrupting them? What strategies might researchers put in place to help girls and young women contest gender norms? While we have located our analysis of work with girls in relation to sexual violence in rural South Africa, there are clearly many implications for addressing sexual violence in school-based and community-based work globally. Participatory visual work through such tools as Photovoice, participatory video or cellphilms, and digital storytelling helps to make visible the issues, but the absences, the gaps, and the reproduction of many of the very norms and cultural factors that marginalize the girls in the first place need to be challenged –by and with the girls and young women themselves. This does not just happen on its own and as researchers we are obliged to find strategies and methods that extend the idea of ‘with girls’. Overall, such strategies align well with girl-method (Mitchell, 2011) and various approaches to participatory visual research (Moletsane, Mitchell & Lewin, 2015) such that the idea of creating critical spaces where exploring issues of power and positionality, action and activism and speaking back (Mitchell, DeLange & Moletsane, in press) become possible.

Authors

• Relebohile Moletsane, University of KwaZulu-Natal

• Claudia Mitchell, McGill University