Conducting Fieldwork using Participatory Photography

​                                                                                                                                                             Date and time: 
 Wednesday 3 March 2021, 2-4pm and Wednesday 10 March 2021, 2-4pm

Session leaders: Tom Martin (Lincoln) and Chandra Morrison (LSE)

Taught by a visual ethnographer and a photojournalist, this course offers an introduction to photography and fieldwork. Day 1 begins with a theoretical reflection on photography and the photographic image, before focusing on the researcher as photographer with a pragmatic discussion about how taking photos can function as a form of data collection and generation. Day 2 then considers approaches to participatory photography – where research participants pick up the camera to visualize and share their perspectives through a process of shared knowledge production – and presents some of the common practical and theoretical challenges to planning and facilitating a participatory photography project as part of your research. The session concludes with a group photo critique and a brief overview of working with photographs beyond the creation of the image, such as through methods of visual analysis or photo-elicitation in interviews.

This course runs over two afternoons and includes a short activity for students to complete between the sessions (please have a digital or smartphone camera available for this assignment). Blending practical exercises and group discussion, students will leave the course with a broad understanding of the possibilities of photographic practice within fieldwork and an appreciation for how to pursue these techniques within a research project.

This session has been organised by the Institute’s Fieldwork and Modern Languages working group, chaired by Claire Griffiths (c.griffiths@chester.ac.uk). The sessions are free and open to researchers at all levels in the UK and beyond, but advance registration is essential. Please contact Naomi Wells (naomi.wells@sas.ac.uk) for more general questions about the IMLR's research training programme.