Del ORGANISMO PROMOTOR.

The use of the photovoice method is an original contribution to methodological knowledge, offering a unique and a powerful addition to the sociomaterial 'toolbox', and within the field of education itself, in which photovoice is underutilised (Ciolan & Manasia, 2017). The photovoice method has three broad aims:

1. to encourage participants to record and reflect upon their concerns and experiences; 2. to enable participants to find their voice and a common cause with others in the same

situation, through sharing and group dialogue of their photographs;

3. to reach out and educate powerful others (e.g. policy makers) in better understanding the realities of the participants' situation (Wang & Redwood-Jones, 2001).

As such, the photovoice method is positioned as a participatory action research enterprise. Typically, the method involves a group of individuals, who share a common interest, meeting together and deciding on a particular theme that they want to explore and raise awareness about. The participants will take photographs around this theme, these are shared and discussed within the group. The group decides which of the photographs will be used to form a photovoice exhibition. Captions are produced in helping to develop a narrative for the photographs. Influential people are invited to see the photovoice exhibition and who are in a position to bring about change based upon the issues highlighted in the exhibition (Bryce, 2012). A tool like photovoice can provide "a thoughtful and 'material' elaboration of the 'social life of things'" (Geismar & Horst, 2004, p. 8).

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4.5.2. Modifying the Photovoice Method

I modified the photovoice method so that it became an individualised experience rather than a community-based one. There are some examples where photovoice has been adopted as an individual experience (see: Castleden et al., 2008; Julien et al., 2013; Hermanns et al., 2015). The primary reason for adopting an individualised approach was to ensure that the anonymity of the participants was preserved, a consequence of which meant that focus group meetings would be inappropriate as this would have undermined that anonymity. The method was flexible enough to allow for individual action, not just community action (Wang, 1999). This is particularly pertinent as the purpose of the photovoice activity was to allow the participants, within their institutional, faculty and departmental contexts, to explore through their photographs and associated accounts to events, encounters, relationships and practices that affected their engagement with professional learning, rather than assessing the needs of the academic learning community. As such, it was not appropriate to select and recruit a target audience of policy makers or leaders, even though they had the political means to put the recommendations of the participants into effect. The participants needed the opportunity to reflect and work through those factors that affected their professional learning. In a community photovoice project conducted by Royce, Parra-Medina and Messias (2006), they note that it is not always feasible to follow all of the recommended steps, such as not involving policy makers into the project.

4.5.3. Challenges with the Photovoice Method

The photovoice exercise presented some challenges for both me and the participants. Specifically, those challenges related to:

1. photographing people – In the briefing sessions, it was made clear to the participants that they were not to photograph people for ethical reasons. For some participants, certain people were important to their professional learning context. My advice was to photograph something that relates to the context in which that person(s) was important to the participant;

2. missed photograph opportunities – Some of the participants spoke of missing particular photos. Some reported that they did not have their camera with them when an opportunity occurred. Some remembered on the day of their photovoice slideshow

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that they had forgotten to include a photograph of an object or space that was important to their professional learning; and

3. time commitment – After the briefing session, the participants were given three weeks to complete the task. In reality, this did not happen. The turnaround time to complete the task ranged from four to fourteen weeks. For many of the participants, the months of May to June were taken up with the final examination period, marking scripts, attending examination boards, and meeting with external examiners. Some of the participants are external examiners themselves, so would have been travelling to other universities or reviewing examples of student work remotely. This was the primary reason for the delay in completing the task. However, feedback from the participants regarding the three week turnaround suggested that they were more than happy with it:

The three weeks was realistic. Although looking back, I spent too much time worrying about whether the ideas and thoughts that came to mind were right or not.

Nevertheless, where research is being conducted involving academic participants, timings are critical. It requires a complete familiarisation of the academic year, identifying potential windows of opportunities and pressure points.

The issues reported in the photovoice literature relating to supplying a camera and training the participant to take pictures did not materialise. The participants owned smartphones with built-in cameras. They were very comfortable in using their own devices for this project, as these devices were familiar and personal to them.

4.5.4. Developing a Non-Representational Photographic Style

From a non-representational perspective, photography presents researchers with a challenge. Photographs provide a means to capture, present, critique and appreciate the world-at-large and the human condition. Photographs can make us laugh or cry, shock or enrage us, change the way we think and preoccupy our thoughts and dreams. Nevertheless, from a 'show and tell' perspective, the photograph can come across as being representational as it appropriates the very thing that is being photographed. But, non-representational thinking is concerned with:

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...how life takes shape and gains expression in shared experiences, everyday routines, fleeting encounters, embodied movements, precognitive triggers, affective intensities, enduring urges, unexceptional interactions and sensuous dispositions. (Lorimer, 2005, p. 84)

Non-Representational Theory has engaged with both cultural artefacts (Latham and McCormack, 2009) and the agency of the digital (Kitchin & Dodge, 2011; Thrift, 2014), allowing me to begin to position digital photographs as being non-representational artefacts. In providing me with a nuanced understanding of what images can do, Roberts (2012) refashions research photographs with having a 'haunted' quality. By 'haunted', Roberts posits that photographs have an ambivalent in-between property, where images haunt between what is present and what is absent, between the real and virtual, and between the material and immaterial. As such, photographs can be conceptualised as being both representational and non-representational (ibid.). According to Roberts (2012), these 'haunted' photographs manifest themselves in different ways: where past reminders, such as social injustices, erupt and intrude upon the present; and where marginalised voices resist and disrupt the dominant discourses and modes of thought - enabling those marginalised voices and narratives to be heard and come into being.

To think about digital photographs in a way that is non-representational, requires a different way of seeing and the subsequent affect it has upon us (Berger, 1972). This can be done in terms of "duration, narration and movement" by bringing the image's affective qualities to the fore (Bleyen, 2012, p. xii). According to Boyd (2017, p. 87), a non-representational style of photography can be approached in three ways to achieve this "duration, narration and movement" effect:

1. Capturing fast movements with a moderate exposure. It leaves a trace, emphasising the temporal (duration) quality of the photograph.

2. Using photomontage (narration). By breaking up images and using odd placements of fragmented photographs, these can be used to disrupt our perception of the normal world.

3. The production of short segments of video using stop-frame animation (movement).

For the purposes of the study, only the first two approaches were attempted by the participants, which I will discuss shortly. However, the animation element would have been

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both technically challenging and time consuming for the participants to engage in within the allotted time of the research.

4.5.4.1. Technique #1: Temporality (Duration)

Photographs are time exposures that capture a distinct moment in time. Photographs can only provide an imaginary notion of movement. In setting a digital camera on to a continuous shooting mode (burst mode), it can take a series of pictures from anywhere between 2.5 to 5 frames (still images) per second. It results in a series of images that emphasises continuity of movement and exposing the temporality of the image (Plummer, 2012).

However, these photographs can appear to be static, especially as the participants wants to presents those things (e.g. objects, technologies, texts, spaces) that enable or encumber their professional learning. This can be done by presenting close-ups that objectifies the non- human, rather than the human. Here, the images of the non-human can be altered in some way (e.g. through light, moisture) and is isolated from the surrounding space and time. The participant can present the affective, expressive, and relational qualities of professional learning by intentionally avoiding close-ups of the human subject, and emphasising movement and relation (Boyd, 2017). An example of which can be found in the participant- produced photograph in Photograph 1 below.