Collaborative Visual Methods: Parent Activism, Educational Justice, and Photography in a Los Angeles Elementary School Available to Purchase

Scholars and practitioners in the subfields of Environmental and Medical Anthropology have adopted photo-based collaborative research methodologies like photovoice as a means of incorporating participants in community-based research in a hybrid practice that borrows from the collective filmmaking strategies of visual anthropologists like Jean Rouch, the pedagogy of the oppressed of Paolo Freire (2000), and the feminist critiques of the 1990s and 2000s (Harper 2012; Pink 2007; Rouch and Feld 2003). In this article, we demonstrate how a collaborative research methodology using digital photography and group discussions was applied within a parent engagement program at a primary school in Los Angeles. The methods and findings show how photography revealed points of convergence and divergence between two groups of participants: (1) parents and caretakers and (2) teachers and school support staff. We demonstrate how the photovoice-inspired methods helped the two stakeholder groups in a school community identify and address shared problems through creative practice, discussion, and action. The article closes with a discussion of how researchers and community participants can work together to ensure the sustainability of the initiatives fostered through this methodological approach.