A Conceptual Discussion on Decolonising Photovoice and Reflections on Its Practical Application

Photovoice is often conceptualised separately from the broader agenda to decolonise methodologies. To address this conceptual problem, this paper critically examines the academic literature on both photovoice and decolonising methodologies. Drawing from insights from decolonising scholarship, it proposes a conceptual framework consisting of three interconnected principles to decolonise photovoice practice.

Principle one involves cultivating a decolonising consciousness that foregrounds the historical and ongoing entanglements of research with colonial logics. Principal two centres the development of an intersectional anti-racist consciousness, ensuring the inclusion of those harmed by colonial logics and creating intentional space within research to address intersectional racisms. Principal three seeks to reverse colonial ways of being, doing, and knowing so that research affirms cultural diversity, and epistemic plurality. This includes facilitating space for the social life forces of marginalised communities for self-narration, agency, refusal, and collective resistance.

Using an autoethnographic approach the paper reflects on fieldwork to explore the affordance and limits of decolonising photovoice to challenge racist narratives in London. This study argues that while the conceptual project has potential, when enacted in practice, is entangled with colonial logics, is complex, contradictory, and fraught. For instance, whiteness circulated within the practice and power relations shaped by class, gender, immigration status between the researcher and the participants were evident. Decolonising photovoice requires critical reflexivity, embracing messy complexity, being attentive to colonial logics and power relations. As such, decolonising photovoice is not a destination, it is an ongoing process of disruption, reflection, reimagining and ‘staying with the trouble’.