I presented this at International Visual Sociology (IVSA) 2011 on Friday July 8 at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. I was on a panel called Sensing Community: Toward an Ethics of Collaboration in Visual Research Practices with colleagues from Communication and Culture (Andrew Bieler, Paul Couillard, and Sara Martel). Comments, criticism, and so on all welcome. Some rights reserved: cc by-nc-sa 2011 Kris Erickson (panel abstract © 2011 Andrew Bieler, Paul Couillard, Kris Erickson, and Sara Martel).

A brief of the paper is immediately below, with the panel abstract below that; full text after the jump.

Paper brief:

Ethics and Community through Photo-voice

This paper will explore the ethical implications of photovoice research. It will challenge the assumptions of this compound term – namely, photographic realism and expressive communication – to envision how photovoice might enhance its collaborative and democratic dimensions. To this end, it will examine commonalities with and amongst related practices such as community cultural development or media democracy.

Panel abstract:

Sensing Community: Toward an Ethics of Collaboration in Visual Research Practices

This panel explores the ethics of locating, interacting and learning alongside communities in relation to a number of visual research practices: aerial photography, community arts, performance art, photo-voice, and photography within an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Although each report is substantively distinct, all challenge preconceptions of the ‘visual’ in academic research in order to move toward more collaborative paradigms of visual research. These experimental visual methods will be reflected upon as places of learning about ethics, where the meaning, practice and difficulties of ethical knowledge production are questioned. What are the stakes when research is understood not simply as impartial observation, but rather, as a potentially active force of production and transformation? To what extent can projects be structured to allow participants to share in shaping their direction and outcome, and what impact does this have on the very notion of research? What relationship can or should exist between ‘researcher’ and ‘participant’? Andrew Bieler will reflect on the socio-ecological dimensions of community arts and aerial photography practices aimed at mobilizing residents to challenge suburban sprawl and build support for local food security. Paul Couillard will report on a three-day performance project undertaken in Beijing, China in which he positioned his body as a public marker of personal wounds–whether physical, political or spiritual–identified by local citizens. Kris Erickson will explore the practical and political roots of the photo-voice method in an attempt to challenge certain implementations that minimize the emancipatory possibilities democratic photography offers its participants. Sara Martel will explore how a methodology like Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis invites participants to understand their own visual experiences, considering the Heideggerian “care” behind personal photography specifically. By bringing together these case studies, artist reports, methodological histories and theoretical interventions, we hope to find some significant, troubling and inspiring questions involved in collaborative research.

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