I’ve Got Something to Say: A Photovoice Study With Women Who Have Experienced Violence

Once only of concern to women and feminist activists, family violence (FV) is now embedded into Australian national public policy agendas and institutionalised through government-funded and regulated service systems. Despite unprecedented public and political attention limited contemporary research seeks to contribute insights of women who have experienced FV to policy and service development. This study responds to this gap through a place-based research collaboration between regional FV services and a university, conducted during a period of significant reform guided by the Royal Commission into Family Violence and the Roadmap for Reform: Strong Families, Safe Children. Using photovoice, a feminist participatory research method privileging experiential knowledge, ten women individually and collectively produced, selected and contextualised photographs to explore what women who have experienced FV think the service system can do to support their vision of “strong families, safe children.” Thematic analysis of women's individual and collective narratives revealed two central themes: (1) You can’t make decisions about us unless you understand us , and (2) If you are going to talk the talk, you have to walk it too . This article argues that FV policy and practice must be grounded in feminist and Indigenous epistemologies to truly be shaped by the voices of those most affected. The findings call for a transformation in how knowledge is produced and valued in FV policy and practice, with implications for both Australian and international contexts.