PHOTOVOICE METHODOLOGY
& SOUTH ASIAN MIGRANT WORKERS IN GREECE
Photovoice is a participatory action visual research strategy predominantly used to work with socio-economically and/or politically marginalized populations. It is rooted in the ideas of Brazilian activist Paulo Freire, who believed in the concept of critical consciousness that asserts the problem-solving ability of people to think critically about problems and express them in a way to invoke change.
Participants take photographs of their lives and then have group discussions about the meaning and relevance of these images. Sharing commonalities of experiences and discussions on changing status quo is understood to create a collective identity among the participants. Photovoice democratizes knowledge production and gives participants control over their representation. In that sense, it gives power and voice back to marginalized groups. Sharing these images, through exhibitions, allows them to ‘present’ themselves and convey their feelings and experiences in a relatable manner to audiences. This unique insider perspective is one that makes it highly valuable for cultural mediation and for self-representation.
Adapting Photovoice to South Asian Migrant Men’s Needs
Four groups of ten undocumented Bangladeshi and Pakistani migrant men each used their cell phones to take photographs, record videos, and narrate their stories centred on themes ranging from work, living conditions, leisure and family, and precarity as migrant workers. They sent these images to Reena Kukreja, the photovoice collaborator, by using a free phone app called WhatsApp.
What made the project feasible to this adaptation was that all the migrant men possessed a cell phone and were savvy with technology. This ubiquitousness made it easier for them to document their life and work without drawing attention to their larger agenda or being questioned by the farmers or supervisors about the ‘why’ of photographing on work locations. They shared images, audio clips, and videos in closed WhatsApp groups that also included the photovoice researcher Reena Kukreja. While some groups worked informally over an extended period of a year, one group chose to work for a short period of ten days during the pandemic in order to cope with restrictions on collective gatherings and intransient nature of jobs they were faced with.
Their migrant illegality, the nature of their work with unpredictable hours, and worries about gathering in one location made the men opt for collective decision-making about images in a manner different from what is usually adopted for Photovoice as a method. Collectively, the closed WhatsApp group chat forum became a discussion platform for the men where they could comment on other participants’ photos through sharing of audio files. There were common rules: one, that any picture showing a person had to be taken with their permission; second, that if the group members had issues with any image, it could be deleted on request; and third, all remaining images could be used for exhibitions and other methods of awareness-generation.
COVID-19 Pandemic Hurdles
The project adapted to the numerous COVID-19 lockdowns in Greece and Canada that limited gatherings and placed restrictions on travel and in-person research. Obviously, this put a dampener on the ability of the groups and Reena to meet up face-to-face and have discussions about the process, to discuss the images and their meaning for the individual who took them and for the larger group of migrants, and to select a set of images and accompanying captions for the “physical” exhibition planned for both Greece and Canada. The lockdowns also created labour precarity for the participating migrant men who, faced with constriction of livelihood opportunities or on being confronted with heightened state surveillance that the pandemic appeared to legitimize, chose to go either underground or migrate onwards to places they considered relatively safer than Greece.
Faced with these limitations, the project adapted and evolved into what Craig Berggold, a long-time labour activist in Canada who is collaborating on this project to edit the images and videos into sequences, calls “pandemic-shaped participatory methodology.” Parts of this involves acknowledging that the pandemic has created road bumps in embracing all elements of the photovoice. It has also enabled the embrace of innovative strategies that ensure the elements of collaboration, social justice, and activism remain integral. The sitting-down of two groups was adapted to the online forum of WhatsApp where they found it easier to discuss the choice of images and other elements of the physical exhibition. This flexibility in methodology led to greater dialogue among the men and resulted in collective decision-making that the men feel comfortable about.
Significance of Photovoice for Migrant Workers Globally
This visual cultural research methodology challenges problematic tropes of migrant men who are vilified for their gender identity, race, and religion. They consider this act of taking photos and sharing them with the wider world as empowering as it allows the largely hidden experiences of undocumented agricultural workers in Greece like themselves to reach a wider audience.
While this project engages with a small set of migrant South Asian men in Greece, their visual articulation of migrant experience resonates with other migrant workers, either undocumented or with temporary foreign worker visas, engaged in precarious and dangerous work in economies across the world. Similarly, while the project is firmly located in Greece with a focus on undocumented South Asian migrant men, it transcends national boundaries by making the migrant experience and learning outcomes relatable across the globe.
The migrant men that have worked on this photovoice are more than just a vulnerable group. They are diverse subjects with multiple identities and are more than their circumstances.
The project provides a platform for verbalising, through photographs, “structures of feelings” which Raymond Williams argued consists of acknowledging the emotions, moods, anxieties, and aspirations of those who live on the margins of society as historical and social phenomena (1977). By doing so, it centres new subjectivities of these so-called vulnerable subjects, including constructs of male identity, manhood, sexuality, family, and religion.