Participatory Visual and Digital Methods [Paperback]

Gubrium and Harper describe how visual and digital methodologies can contribute to a participatory, public-engaged ethnography. These methods can change the traditional relationship between academic researchers and the community, building one that is more accessible, inclusive, and visually appealing, and one that encourages community members to reflect and engage in issues in their own communities. The authors describe how to use photovoice, film and video, digital storytelling, GIS, digital archives and exhibits in participatory contexts, and include numerous case studies demonstrating their utility around the world.

Gubrium and Harper provide instruction in visual and digital methodologies and show how they can contribute to building a participatory, public-engaged ethnography.

Aline Gubrium is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and a medical anthropologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Gubrium uses participatory, digital, visual, and ethnographic narrative methods to study the sexual and reproductive health knowledge and decision-making of marginalized women and youth. She has done research with African-American women living in a southern rural community, women using Depo-Provera contraception, and Latino/a youth addressing barriers to sexual communication and sexuality education. Her research is driven by the question of how research participants view, make sense of, and respond to their sexual and reproductive health experiences.

Krista Harper is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. As an ethnographer, Harper explores issues related to the cultural politics of the environment, cities, and food systems. She is the author of Wild Capitalism: Environmental Activists and Post-socialist Political Ecology in Hungary (2006). Harper has led projects using participatory digital research methods sul3J