Place, Space and Photovoice: Geographic Inquiry research methodologies to inform gender equitable access to education in conflict-affected contexts in Mali

• In Event: Speaking Back: Voice, Agency, and Participation Amidst Conflict

Proposal

Education in Mali faces significant challenges to meet the global sustainability goals of equitable, inclusive education for all. Schools and learning centres in Mali have been among the most threatened in the world, with infrastructure, students, teachers and communities vulnerable to threats and attacks by politically motivated and armed extremist groups. In 2020 alone, Mali experienced unprecedented socio-political polycrises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting school closures, frequent labour strikes by teachers, contested election results, political coups, and deepening inter- and intra-communal conflicts in Mopti and Ségou regions. Educational institutions in Mali (traditional or “classical” French schools), which were formerly safe places for learning, came under ideological and physical attacks by violent radical armed groups hostile towards “classical” French instruction and intent on driving children towards the Quranic religious schools. The socio-political conflict in Mali has created major disruptions to schooling, with girls being disproportionately affected (Feldman, 2023).
This paper outlines an approach employed by World Vision Canada and World Vision Mali, within the Canadian-funded IMAGINE girls’ education project, to better understand the challenges both girls and boys face in accessing learning opportunities in Mali’s conflict-affected geographies, where classical French and traditional Quranic schooling systems co-exist. The research used a Geographic Place and Space Inquiry (GPSI) conceptual framework (Butler & Sinclair, 2020), and tools such as photovoice and community mapping to capture and monitor perspectives on education programming in the conflict-affected regions of Mopti and Ségou. Butler and Sinclair argue that in the educational context, place influences “a geography of opportunity”, as well as the experiences of all education stakeholders (girls, boys, parents, families, community leaders, school leaders and management committees, etc.) in the interactive space created in and around schools. Places can encourage collaboration, drawing people together in a common mission of peaceful cooperation and productivity, or they can push people apart by reproducing destructive power dynamics, ideologies, racism, and other types of oppression. As an under-conceptualized area of education research, “place inquiry and spatial methodologies can strengthen the potential of education research to disrupt systems of power and oppression by also advancing our knowledge of the nature of and potential solutions to educational injustice.” (Butler and Sinclair, 2020)
This study aims to contribute findings to the under-researched area of education in emergencies as well as the under-conceptualized space of geographic place and space inquiry in education research. The researchers used photovoice to elicit reflective discussions within gender and age-disaggregated Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), aided by Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), and documentary analysis. We explore the use of these tools to provide a unique place and space for students, teachers, and parents to share their experiences and perceptions of learning through photography, drawings, maps and sketches. Photovoice presents a catalytic opportunity to activate new forms of “everyday peace power” – democratic skills, knowledge, emotional intelligence – that expands community potential for social relationships, reciprocity, and solidarity outside the existing institutions that hold power over them (Esquith and Tamboura, 2023). In our study we determined that the benefits of this approach include providing a promising method for learners to visually express their hopes and concerns in accessing education and creating a safe space for marginalized perspectives and voices to be heard. It also reveals how traditional cultural, social and economic barriers to education intersect with security-related barriers, exacerbating education inequities in conflict-affected zones. In addition, this approach allows themes to emerge that might otherwise be ignored and provides valuable information for development practitioners to inform education programming in inaccessible or high-risk spaces and places and in the humanitarian-development-peace (triple nexus) space.
While providing rich and valuable information from difficult to access places, photovoice and GPSI methods also pose challenges and potential risks to the safety of participants living in unpredictable or unstable environments. The approaches are sometimes difficult to implement due to rapidly changing contexts, low capacity of local facilitators, technological barriers, and logistical issues. This paper describes the project within the Malian context, provides the theoretical framework and rationale for using geo-inquiry research methodologies, describes the tool development and enumerator training approaches, data collection process and challenges, and data analysis methods. It concludes with reflections on the use of photovoice and GPSI participatory action research methodologies and tools for both scholars of comparative international education and practitioners in the field seeking innovative approaches for educational programming and research in conflict-affected areas.

Authors

• Nancy Del Col, World Vision Canada

• Leigh-Anne Ingram, University of Toronto-Mississiagua