Gesturing Toward the Story: Bringing Refusal Into Visual Participatory Research

• In Event: 15.018 - New Directions in Visual Research

Abstract

There is a need for discussion about the role of refusal in image-based modes of inquiry such as photovoice, a participatory photography methodology that “promotes critical dialogue about important issues” (Wang & Burris, 1997) through taking, discussing, and sharing photographs. In a conversation about multimodal methods in educational research, it is important to consider what is not seen or revealed in an image. The notion of refusal as a research practice, first theorized by Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson (2007), provides an avenue for moving away from damage-centred narratives towards a desire-based framework, rejecting the idea that issues around representation in educational research are resolved simply with the incorporation of participatory elements (Tuck & Yang, 2014).

In a settler colonial social structure, visual images take on additional meaning and possibility. Images can be used to dispel misrepresentations, to resist false perceptions, and to reimagine futures (Martin, 2013). Photographers and scholars (Greene, n.d.; Campt, 2017) are exploring ways to incorporate elements of refusal in their images and theorizing: Tina Campt writes about refusal in photography as “practices honed in response to sustained, everyday encounters with exigency and duress that rupture a predictable trajectory or flight” (2017).

In this presentation, I draw on my ongoing involvement in a youth participatory action research (yPAR) project led by Dr. Eve Tuck, working with youth who are the children of migrant workers. The project focuses on using visual participatory research to explore notions of place, and how young people’s perspectives shape their post-secondary decision-making processes in the context of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. I consider my own positionality as a white researcher doing this work in collaboration with Indigenous colleagues and colleagues of color.

Too often, images created through participatory photography are treated as self-evident; collapsed into the gimmick of giving cameras to people in underserved communities. As initial results of the yPAR project demonstrate, building in refusal can prevent photographic data from being flattened and better involve participants in representation. I reflect on what it means to engage images as data. In the context of participatory research, there is a shortfall of attention paid to how participants are involved in data analysis (Mitchell, 2011). I orient towards Ariella Azoulay’s view that the many relations and agents involved in producing a photograph can ever only be partially represented by the resulting image (2012). The photograph itself cannot contain the whole story, but can only gesture towards it. Findings have gestured to the idea that embedding notions of refusal in photography workshops, through photo elicitation activities and photo-taking prompts, can encourage a sense of ownership over the messages that emerge in images. Through a discussion of implications, I tease out the possibilities for arts-based yPAR projects.

Author

• Deanna Del Vecchio, University of Toronto