‘I'm gonna show you what it's really like out here’: the power and limitation of participatory visual methods

Abstract Participatory visual research methods have been developed as part of an explicit attempt to decrease the power differential between the researcher and the researched. Methods designed to bring these relationships more in line with one another, ceding power to research participants, have served not only to create a more ethical research situation, but also to generate new forms of knowledge which cannot be developed any other way. While the development of such methods has received significant attention in recent years, there has still not been an adequate exploration of the limitations of these practices. In this article the author draw upon his research experiences with homeless men in order to examine the relationship between power and knowledge creation within participatory visual methodologies. The results presented here help to demarcate the boundaries of effectiveness for these methods and show where future work is needed while at the same time offering insights into the nature of identity construction in marginalized populations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author is grateful for comments and suggestions throughout the process of this research. I would especially like to thank Dr Laura Carpenter. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by a grant from the Vanderbilt Sociology Department. Notes 1. Editor's note: see also Grady 2007 Grady, John. 2007. Advertising images as social indicators: Depictions of blacks in LIFE magazine, 1936–2000.. Visual Studies, 22(3): 211–39. Taylor & Francis Online , Google Scholar.