A Glimpse of Healing: Reflexive Vulnerability in Visual Qualitative Research

Visual methodology is a process that enables empowerment and collaboration and challenges power dynamics in research studies, including those involving vulnerable populations. Across interdisciplinary fields, visual methods are known to capture processes of reflection, such as photovoice in criminology, photo-elicitation in sociology, portraiture in education, and photo novella in other social sciences. These fields move research toward participatory reflexive methods. However, less research documents how visual methodologies promote healing by encouraging participants in studies to engage in vulnerability within and beyond the research. Drawing on a decolonial feminist approach and a decade of research on Latina women’s experiences with violence, I explain how visual methods can be effectively utilized with vulnerable groups. I describe the ways that visual methods expand on healing-centered research and praxis, particularly in studies of criminalized women. These methods promote healing through Reflexive Vulnerability which includes methodological practices of (1) nonlinear reflection (2) creation of safe spaces and (3) reciprocity. It complicates the objective nature of detachment in scientific research, and brings forth the interconnection of science and spirituality. Through this process, emotions of nostalgia, shame, guilt, sadness and hope reveal the importance of centering emotions in vulnerable research studies. This vulnerability opens up possibilities for healing from state, interpersonal, and intergenerational violence.