Visualizing Agbogbloshie and Re-envisioning E-Waste Anthropology

Chapter 5 engages a critical discussion of the visual economy of e-waste ruination in Agbogbloshie. It explores how, through ethnographic research in general and participatory photography in particular, images make meaning and shape e-waste imaginations. Circulating e-waste images of Agbogbloshie, the author argues, expose the power and utility of e-pyropolitical imagery to make, tell, and even distort and mystify life in Ghana’s e-wasteland. The chapter interrogates the e-pyropolitical gaze conditioning how digital rubble and toxic colonialism are seen. Countering the e-waste “crisis of representation” in Agbogbloshie, the author considers the possible role of participatory photography as an alternative technique of e-waste visualization, in addition to considering the ways in which these worker-based forms of witnessing e-waste can help justify and provide a methodological grounding for the very decolonization of e-waste studies in Ghana in particular.

Participatory photography and undocumented migration through Mexico at the intersection of social work and anthropology

This article reflects on participatory photography in the context of ethnographic fieldwork at a humanitarian migrant shelter in Central Mexico to consider broader intersections between social work and anthropology. I describe how shifting immigration enforcement trends across Mexico reconfigured my original plan for integrating participatory photography into my work as a researcher and shelter worker. Tracing these changes through three cases examples, I highlight tensions between photography as a reflection of social experience and photography as a mechanism for enacting social change. In light of recent critiques surrounding formulaic and cursory discussions of empowerment in participatory photography, I argue that unexpected shifts in research and practice strategies are themselves meaningful data, especially in uncertain policy environments.

The Everyday Life of Security: Capturing Space, Practice, and Affect

Security shapes everyday life, but despite a growing literature on everyday security there is no consensus on the meaning of the “everyday.” At the same time, the research methods that dominate the field are designed to study elites and high politics. This paper does two things. First, it brings together and synthesizes the existing literature on everyday security to argue that we should think about the everyday life of security as constituted across three dimensions: space, practice, and affect. Thus, the paper adds conceptual clarity, demonstrating that the everyday life of security is multifaceted and exists in mundane spaces, routine practices, and affective/lived experiences. Second, it works through the methodological implications of a three-dimensional understanding of everyday security. In order to capture all three dimensions and the ways in which they interact, we need to explore different methods. The paper offers one such method, exploring the everyday life of security in contemporary China through a participatory photography project with six ordinary citizens in Beijing. The central contribution of the paper is capturing—conceptually and methodologically—all three dimensions, in order to develop our understanding of the everyday life of security.

Thematic Collages in Participatory Photography: A Process for Understanding the Adoption of Zero Budget Natural Farming in India

This paper presents the use of thematic collages as a methodological innovation to participatory photography as a research framework. Participatory photography was used to understand the subjective “off-script” motivations behind the full or partial adoption of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) by members of women’s self-help groups in Andhra Pradesh, India. The addition of thematic collages to existing participatory photography methods was developed as a mechanism to better support the dialogic generation of new Freirean “generative themes” for investigation by a group. Further, the use of thematic collages invites the integration of “renegade” or non-thematic images into participant group analysis. ZBNF is an agricultural practice that has become an extension priority in Andhra Pradesh. It emphasizes the use of defined chemical-free inputs and regenerative farming techniques as a holistic approach toward socio-ecological resilience. As part of an interdisciplinary research project, this participatory photography design was piloted parallel to a soil science experiment in three geographically distinct agroecological zones in Andhra Pradesh. We show how participatory photography, with the novel addition of thematic collages, can be integrated into interdisciplinary research as a method to discover the underlying motivations to adopt agricultural practices and participate in agricultural movements like Zero Budget Natural Farming.

Pedagogika resocjalizacyjna wobec „fotoobrazów” w badaniach i w praktyce oddziaływań resocjalizacyjnych

Dynamiczny rozwój studiów wizualnych wymaga nowego spojrzenia na miejsce obrazu w badaniach naukowych. Celem artykułu jest włączenie się do dyskusji nad wykorzystaniem obrazu, a dokładniej – obrazu fotograficznego, w badaniach i w praktyce pedagogicznej w obszarze pedagogiki resocjalizacyjnej. Poddana namysłowi zostanie w tym kontekście użyteczność tzw. fotografii uczestniczącej (participatory photography) oraz doświadczeń badawczych z realizacji projektów wykorzystujących etnografię wizualną.