Two Action-research cases that involved women: Yunnan (Visual Voices) Guatemala (“Photo Voice”)

Two Action-research cases that involved women:Yunnan (Visual Voices)Guatemala (“Photo Voice”)

Bibliography:

Yunnan project: [Visual Voices, 100 photographs of village China by the women of Yuannan Province 中國雲南農村婦女自我寫真集 ]

Guatemala project:‘Creative Arts and Photography in Participatory Action Research in Guatemala” by M. Brinton Lykes

Peter Reason Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury (eds.) Handbook of action research: participative inquiry and practice (Sage 2001), pp.363-371

The Background and the role of “Action Research”

What is “action research”?

Doing experiments in the field rather than in the laboratory.

An AR expresses theory in such a way that the results can be fed back to theory. (Kurt Lewin)

Generation of relationship in the process of research…

Research-creation:

Action-research + a research process that involves creative activities

A creative activity that functions like “action research” – i.e. experimenting and discovering

Research-creation is likely to be performative in character.

BackgroundBackground-the first record of rural life to be recorded by the local women-the first record of rural life to be recorded by the local women

Role of the “action research”-encourage the women to express themselves and observe their living place

-show the daily life of the Yunnan to the public

The Background and the role of “Action Research”---Yunnan project

The Background and the role of “Action Research”-- Guatemala project

BackgroundBackground-after- 36 years of war including massacres, disappearance & exile-after- 36 years of war including massacres, disappearance & exile-Inspired by the Yunnan Project of photograph taking by the local women

Role of “Action Research”-to let the “silenced” speak out for their sufferings, loss and anger-to show conflicting stories of what the participants “remembered”-to provide an opportunity for participants to seek new skills and resources to rebuild their communities.

Photo Voice by the Association of Maya Ixil Women – New Dawn (ADMI) (1996)http://www2.bc.edu/~lykes/voices.htm

Yunnan Project (June1992- June1993)Caroline Wang

Participant:53 village women and 9 female Federation cadres in Chengjiang and Luliang counties (aged 18 to 57) (pre-literate to senior high school) (from 4 differemt ethnic groups)

Collaborating organizations:-China Yunnan Women’s Federation-Provincial and County Guidance Group of the China Yunnan Women’s Reproductive Health and Development Program-U.S. Western Consortium for Public Health-Kunming Medical College etc.

Project & book sponsor: Ford Foundation

Training workshop: discussion of cameras, ethics and power how to respect others with a camera

The process

4 Sessions:

1) Basic skills in photography: learn to use Ricoh YF-20 instamatic camera in one day

2) study famous photographer’s works via a variety of slides, eg. Dorothera Lange, Wendy Ewald’s photos of Appalachian children (conducted by Yang Kelin,editor of World of Women Magazine)

3) After taking the first series of photographs, a workshop was held to inspire them on how to invite their subject to take an ideal photograph. Participants also learn to write captions for the photographs in their own words.

4) Exhibition: ”self- portraits of China’s Yunnan Village Women”(from 12.1993 to 1.1994 in Kunming and other locations)

Guatemala project (from 1996)M. Brinton Lykes

-20 members of ADMI’s 65 members participatedEach received an automatic camera to take pictures-Thematic focus of each roll was decided in workshop involving all participants

Initial topic= work Later topic= women and their families health and illness religion culture traditional practises the war and its effects the harvest the work of ADMI

The process

Session 1Each photographer select 5 to 7 pictures from each roll of 24Then tells the story of each picture in a small group of 2 to 4 participants the story= why she chooses that picture =any story she may have been told by the person she photographed

Session 25 to 7 women in group to select 2 to 4 picture from the previously selected Photographs, clustered topically.-developed strategies for clustering ideas-identifying similarities and differences between and across photos-constricting holistic analysis of the clustered photos-explored causes of the problems and hypothesized causal sequences

Eg. -The picture of “Girl with bare foot” (how the participant analysis the project)

-The Hanged women

Pictures and stories were presented to the larger group for re-analysis by other participants further evaluation through story telling, drawing, re-dramatization.

Participants explore possible solution to the problems at individual and collective level, and thereby developed a shared vision for change.

The works are summarized in note form serving as important data for future work.

Many crafted short stories from interview and analysis form the content of the book Women of PhotoVoice/ADMI & Lykes, M.B. (2000). omen of PhotoVoice/ADMI & Lykes, M.B. (2000).

Voces e imágenes: Mujeres Mayas Ixiles de Chajul/Voices and images: Voces e imágenes: Mujeres Mayas Ixiles de Chajul/Voices and images: Mayan Ixil women of Chajul. Guatemala: Magna Terra.Mayan Ixil women of Chajul. Guatemala: Magna Terra.

Categorized in:1) Violence and it’s effects,1) Culture2) Women and their families3) ADMI

Creative activities in the projects

Guatemala Project Yunnan Project

Photography

Drawing

Story-telling

Dramatization

Photography

Interview & discussion

Problem-solving

Women of PhotoVoice/ ADMI & Lykes, M.B. (2000).

Voces e imágenes: Mujeres Mayas Ixiles de Chajul/Voices and images:

Mayan Ixil women of Chajul. Guatemala: Magna Terra.

Photography workshop

Photography

Caption-writing (narration)

Photo novella exhibition

Visual Voices 100 Photographs of Village China by the Women of Yunnan Province

The role of Creative activities in the projects

Guatemala Project Yunnan project

To encourage women to tell the story of violence and to articulate their response to war and its effects

To prevent future violence by speaking out

To help women build connections with other women in Guatemala and with those who were engaged in similar process

Create a “photo novella”

[Document] [Narrate] the everyday lives of the rural

To have a camera is to have power…

To bring decision-makers into the presence of people with relatively little access to power…

Collective learning , expression and action

To bring new roles to policy decision

Purposes and concern

Guatemala Project Yunnan project

1.Create a context for grieving for the subjects

2.Explore possible solution to the problem identified at the individual and collective level

3. Developing a shared vision for change.

to help local women seeking to improve the quality of community life in response to the effect of war and extreme poverty through art and photography.

1.Encourage rural women to record and

Reflect their lives

2. Increase their collective knowledge about their own living environment and about women’s health status

3.Inform policy maker about health and community issue which concern the rural women

to integrate education for empowerment, feminist theory and

Documentary photography

The difference in which the local subjects were involved

Guatemala Project Yunnan Project

Subjects acting with stronger self-initiatives

Lykes work as the instructor from the Association of Maya Ixil Women-New Dawn (ADMI)

Local technical assistants from Guatemalan Ladinos and Maya

After the project, the 20 women identify themselves as photographers and as researchers.

Relatively passive

Yunnan Women’s Federation, the Provincial and County Guidance Groups of the Yunnan Women’s Reproductive Health and Development Program.

The 62 women are the participants of recording the lives in Yunnan

The photos exhibited are not selected by them

The different aspects of women’s everyday life are tackling in these project

Guatemala Project Yunnan project

Low quality of community life

Poverty

Health

Literacy

Disproportionate responsibilities girls and women

Fear and psychological effects after war

Health problems

Living environment

Hidden assumptions and values

Guatemala Project Yunnan project

-All the Mayan communities would like to be photographed of their mishaps?

-Intervention of the OUTSIDERS to help formulating their own history.

(note the low literacy rate of the local women)

Will there be bias? Distortion?

- Interviewee maybe affected by the researchers when articulating the history

-The selection criteria of the Yunnan photos

(to what extend did the truth was shown?)

-The photos were to be exhibited and published.

-the first collection of images ever taken by Chinese village women

-Capturing important themes of daily life in rural Yunnan

Compare & contrast

Performative functions and power of the two projects…